{"id":9751,"date":"2019-03-03T00:44:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T08:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=9751"},"modified":"2019-03-03T00:44:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T08:44:29","slug":"accomplished-pianist-paul-roberts-visits-smith-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/accomplished-pianist-paul-roberts-visits-smith-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Accomplished pianist Paul Roberts visits Smith Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/files\/2019\/03\/GuestArtist-760x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"230\" height=\"310\" class=\" wp-image-9752 aligncenter\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Chrys Weedon<\/strong> | Entertainment Editor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul Roberts can be described as many different things: a writer, lecturer, teacher and pianist. Piano expert Bryce Morrison wrote that \u201cPaul Roberts is an exceptional musician, a fine and deeply sensitive pianist, teacher and an author of the greatest distinction.\u201d Morrison added that \u201chis books on Debussy and Ravel are quite simply the most outstanding and perceptive I have read.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roberts has regularly performed in Portland since 1999, according to his website <a href=\"http:\/\/paulrobertspiano.com\">paulrobertspiano.com<\/a>. Roberts is the artistic director for the international piano summer school, Music at Chateau d\u2019Aix, in France, and also teaches at the Guildhall School of Music &amp; Drama in London. Roberts has written three books and is in the process of writing a fourth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Feb. 20, Paul Roberts came to perform in Smith Music Hall. In a performance of two acts, Roberts played selections by Debussy, Liszt and Albeniz. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first half of the performance consisted of pieces composed by Debussy, an Impressionist composer from the late nineteenth century. The second act consisted of compositions from Liszt and Albeniz. Liszt is a composer from the Romantic era; Albeniz, the post-Romantic era.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before each section, Roberts explained the individual pieces he was going to play, so the concert was a mixture of lecture and actual performance. On Portland Piano International\u2019s website, portlandpiano.org, founding artistic director Harold Gray wrote that Roberts\u2019s \u201cpublic lectures immerse the listeners in a magical world of images and ideas \u2026 his communicative abilities, whether as performer, writer or teacher, are without equal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roberts\u2019s playing style is passionate and highly expressive. His\u2019 clear enthusiasm for his work brings to mind the concept of \u201ca calling.\u201d Roberts plays with his entire body and moves along with the pieces he plays. He paints a clear picture with his musicality and captivated the audience with his lecture of the history behind each piece.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contact the author at <a href=\"mailto:howlentertainment@wou.edu\">howlentertainment@wou.edu<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Photo courtesy Ashlynn Norton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chrys Weedon | Entertainment Editor Paul Roberts can be described as many different things: a writer, lecturer, teacher and pianist. Piano expert Bryce Morrison wrote that \u201cPaul Roberts is an exceptional musician, a fine and deeply sensitive pianist, teacher and an author of the greatest distinction.\u201d Morrison added that \u201chis books on Debussy and Ravel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":9752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}