On Sunday, March 13 at 3:00 p.m., Stephen C. Widom Cultural Arts at Emanuel will offer a virtual concert, “Songs I Wrote … Songs I Wish I Wrote,” featuring composer and pianist Jimmy Roberts.
Jimmy Roberts is an entertainer who has delighted audiences with his wit and his special way with a song. Recent engagements include Merkin Concert Hall, the Time Warner Center, the 92nd Street Y, Steinway Hall, and the National Arts Club. For seven years he was featured pianist at the Drake Hotel in midtown Manhattan.
The award-winning co-author of the second-longest-running Off Broadway musical in history, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” takes stock of his huge repertoire and, with themes that include Relationships, World Travel and that great metropolis of New York, hand picks the best of the Great American Songbook and expands it with his own notable contributions. The result? — a musical journey through recent history, lingering on the fashions that change and the aspects of life and love that never do and never will.
Jimmy Roberts’ eclectic program includes the music and/or words of Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Stephen Sondheim, Noël Coward, plus Jimmy’s own theater songs and those of his distinguished contemporaries, Alan Menken and John Bucchino.
Jimmy has a new show that is Broadway-bound. It’s called Welcome to the Big Dipper, and he will treat us to a first hearing of some of its powerful and evocative musical moments.
Why are songs so important anyway? Lyricist E. Y. Harburg (Over the Rainbow) expresses it this way: “Songs are the pulse of a nation’s heart,
a fever chart of its health. Are we at peace? Are we in trouble? Do we feel beautiful? Do we feel ugly? Listen to our songs.”
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change opened in 1996 and received the Drama Desk nomination as Best Musical. Since then it has been produced around the world in languages as diverse as French, Spanish, German, Finnish, Mandarin and Cantonese. Jimmy’s second Off Broadway show The Thing About Men, won the New York Outer Critics Circle award for Best Musical. A graduate of Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with noted pianist, Constance Keene, Jimmy is also a published poet, and several of his poems have appeared in the New York Times Metropolitan Diary.
A New York Times review stated: “Jimmy Roberts showed how such songs should be done. A rhythmically perceptive voice, and a brilliant performance of a plaintively powerful song.”
This concert is funded by Dorothy D’Amato in memory of George D’Amato.
Registration for this virtual event is $10. The show is available for viewing through April 1st.
For further information, to register and purchase a ticket online, go to:
https://www.scwculturalarts.org/sunday-series
Call 516.482.5701 to purchase a ticket after March 13th at 2:00 p.m., or, if you have any questions.