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'Dreamscapes' to entertain at Memorial Center

by Western News
| September 16, 2009 12:00 AM

The Kootenai Heritage Council will kick off its 2009-10 membership season on Friday, Sept. 25, with a piano concert and art exhibit by composers and visual artists David Thomas Roberts and Scott Kirby.

“Dreamscapes” combines the talents of Roberts and Kirby to feature original compositions of romanticism, minimalism and rural impressionism for what has been described as a serious and romantically-based musical evening. A small art exhibit accompanies the concert.

The event is scheduled to begin at 7 on that Friday evening.

Kirby, who hails from Sandpoint, Idaho, is well known regionally and national, for his work in the areas of traditional American music, Pan-Americana, and for his own compositions.

Roberts, who author Al Rose called “the most important composer of the latter part of the 20th century,” will be making his debut in the inland Northwest.

Kirby and Roberts have worked together for 18 years, collaborating at concerts, festivals, performing duets, playing each others’ work, and have often been the first to hear each others’ new compositions.

Although both performer/composers have been known for other styles, “Dreamscapes” was specially designed to feature primarily new music, showcasing the introspective and the ultra-subjective realms, which only this music can describe.

The romantic works will span almost two centuries, from Chopin to the present. And more than a few of the compositions on the program will exploit what Roberts calls “revelation-through-landscape.”

Kirby’s works of minimalism and rural impressionism derive inspiration from the Great Plains, complimenting his visual art. Roberts explores his own romantic and minimalist language, while exhibiting a gift for melody possessed by few American composers today.

Roberts, who was composing, painting and writing stories by age 8, is self-taught in the visual arts. He has developed a widespread reputation for his ragtime performances – he wrote his first at age 16. Following several releases in the 1970s and 1980s, he was hailed as a leading contemporary ragtime-based composer.

Kirby and Roberts worked together along with a third musician on the 1996 album, “Terra Verde” under the Viridiana Productions label out of Sandpoint.

Tickets

• Adults – $10 if purchased early or $15 at the door

• Youth – $5 early or $8 at the door.

• Children 6 and under – Free with a donation to Libby Food Pantry.

Tickets can be purchased at the Memorial Center, Cabinet Books & Music, the Libby Area Chamber of Commerce and the Printing Press.

For more information, call Brandon Roberts at 293-9643.