British pianist, author, and teacher Paul Roberts is back in Portland this week for the 14th annual Portland International Piano Festival, where he’s giving a lecture, “Debussy, Ravel and Literature,” on Friday morning. Roberts is also celebrating the recent publication of Reflections: The Piano Music of Maurice Ravel, the companion volume to Images, his singular book on the cultural background of Claude Debussy’s piano music.
A frequent visitor to Portland, and a festival favorite, Roberts is brilliantly engaging and entertaining as a speaker and performer. In February, just before his most recent Portland recital, Portland writer David Abel spoke with Roberts for Oregon ArtsWatch. In this two-part podcast, Roberts discusses his Portland connections (including music legends Gilbert Seeley and Harold Gray), his interdisciplinary interests and background (including literature and theater), and his approach — as a pianist and a teacher — to the challenges of interpretation in performance.
We’ve also included several tracks from Roberts’s acclaimed recording of Debussy’s Preludes.
General Lavine – Excentric (Original English Title)
La Puerta Del Vino (The Gate Of Wine)
David Abel is a poet, editor, bookseller, and curator. A founding member of the Spare Room reading series and the artists’ collective 13 Hats, he has organized and performed in interdisciplinary projects in Portland for the past dozen years.