The original score for Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr. was commissioned by the Walters Art Museum’s film series and debuted at the Charles Theater in Baltimore in 1998. Watts and Boister have since performed it at the Kennedy Center, the Virginia Film Festival, the Smithsonian and numerous universities.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. is considered one of the greatest movies of Mr. Keaton’s career, created in 1928 at a time when he had paramount control over the content of his films. “Few pictures are more energizing than this often-overlooked masterpiece,” said Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun. “It demonstrates how Keaton, as star and as director, united comedy and moviemaking."

"That genre-blending iconoclasm is the perfect fit for Keaton's signature blend of pathos, physical comedy and technical virtuosity: Watts's composition creates an aural narrative just as poignant, witty and breathtaking as the images onscreen."
-Ann Hornaday, Washington Post