As of 2008, Stuart Oderman, MoMA's senior piano accompanist and the author of several books on cinema, has been playing original silent-film scores for fifty years. To mark this anniversary, the Department of Film asked Oderman which film he would most like to accompany. Appropriately, he chose Broken Blossoms; it was after a MoMA screening of that film that Oderman met its star, Lillian Gish, who in turn introduced him to Arthur Kleiner, MoMA's legendary pianist. Kleiner encouraged Oderman to become a silent film accompanist—and the rest is history.