Entertainer uses mixed media in performance

Watching a pianist play for more than an hour could be a bit tedious, but a performance last week at the Paradise Center was anything but boring.

Pianist Scott Kirby took his gig to a higher level by mixing music, photographs, video, movies, and narrative to his performance, calling it a "movie concert."

"I really enjoyed this. It was really different," said Cliff Stephens of Paradise and one of 42 people to attend his "Main Street Souvenirs" show at the Paradise Center Friday evening. His musical numbers included a variety of Americana music, but it wasn't just his musical skills that gained him a standing ovation at the end of his hour and a half show. His performance was a multimedia presentation with a mixture of historical and contemporary photographs and video, much of which he shot himself. His images also depicted a variety of Americana - the Great Plains, baseball, homestead structures, musicians, grain elevators, and the vast prairie. He had historical photos that he had gathered from local residents, including railroad photos from Plains resident Benita Jo Hanson. He composed nine of the piano pieces in the show and played music from the likes of Ragtime King Scott Joplin to Fats Domino.

"He is a wonderful musician with a beautiful touch of expression. His mastery of Scott Joplin is fascinating," said Thompson Falls resident Rudi Boukal, also an accomplished musician, who has played piano for 55 years and has composed his own music since age 10. Boukal has done much of the refurbishment of the Paradise Center.

The 57-year-old Kirby has been a pianist since age 6. He was born and raised in Ohio, but presently resides in Boulder, Colo. He received an English degree from Ohio State University and studied piano at Wittenberg University of Ohio and started his musical career as a street performer in New Orleans. He's done ragtime festivals in Belgium, France, Norway, New Zealand, and Hungary. This is his second time to perform at the Paradise Center. He did a show four years ago after Karen Thorson, a board member at the center, saw him at the Montana Performing Arts Consortium in Great Falls in 2018 and asked him to perform at the center the following year.

Kirby likes to localize his concerts by putting a local twist on each one. He showed up in Paradise three days earlier to gather background and shoot photos from around Sanders County for his PowerPoint presentation, which is shown while he plays. He said that he often ad-libbed the music on the center's 95-year-old grand piano to go along with the projected images.

He divided his performance into chapters and between each one he gave a short synopsis of the next one, often with a poetic flavor in the narrative. His show had several of his own watercolor paintings in the presentation, many that he had done while living in France.

"The interplay of the music with his video and personal artwork is mesmerizing," said Boukal. I was lost in each painting displayed as the music just enriched the visual experience with his wonderful textures of sound," he said, adding that he found Kirby "warm hearted, with an effective connection to the audience - to its memories and to its nostalgia." He said it was a wonderful presentation for all the senses that ended too soon.

Thorson enjoyed Kirby's performance the first time he was at the center, but said it was even better this time. "His performance is now in chapters, which organizes the images and music into interesting categories. He has more music, paintings and photos to work with," said Thorson, who would like to see him return for a third time.

"I enjoyed the first one a lot, but I think he's further developed and honedhe performance, including at least one new piano number," said Joy Nelson, a volunteer at the center. "I think there was more history in general and more paintings," she said. Nelson said she also liked the way he tied the area into the performance with photographs of the Plains jail and with some of the displays at the Paradise Center. "His lecture felt more like a conversation with old friends," said Nelson.

Kirby included video interviews he had with county residents, including 98-year-old Paradise resident Betty Meyer, the oldest in attendance. As a student of American history, Kirby included a brief history of the county and interviewed Thorson at the center, curators of the museums in Thompson Falls and Hot Springs, along with Plains resident Ron Rude, author of two nonfiction books.

"I think I could easily call him a musician of history, of town, of neighborhood and of region," said Boukal. "One of my favorite pieces was of the open fields with the wind's effects making the landscape come alive as oscillating waves on the ocean and the music that accompanied the video was absolutely perfect," said Boukai.

"He excels in all forms of the arts - visual (painting), performing (piano), and literary (stories that accompany his performance). He demonstrates a keen understanding of rural life and communities," said Thorson. Kirby also participated in outreach sessions at schools at Plains and Dixon.