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Composer reviving Chaplin’s classics

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A century after Charlie Chaplin’s first silent movie debuted, his films are still making audiences laugh.

Among those resurrecting Chaplin’s classics is Pittsburgh composer and pianist Tom Roberts, who is composing new music for them, including a recent score written for Chaplin’s short film, “The Pawnshop.”

It is the third such score Roberts has written for a silent Chaplin film, and a special screening of it will be held May 3 as part of the Washington Symphony Orchestra’s season finale, “Cue the Music.”

The concert begins at 8 p.m. at Trinity High School, but “The Pawnshop” featuring Roberts’ score will begin at 7:30, with doors opening at 7:15. WSO conductor Yugo Ikach will join Roberts for an interactive session with the audience.

Roberts was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to compose music for two films – “One A.M.” and “The Rink” – for the 100th anniversary of Chaplin’s films. Aware that Chaplin spent his last years composing his own music for re-release of his films, Roberts wrote his scores the way he imagined Chaplin would have done, “because no one does it better than he does,” Roberts said.

The scores premiered at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg, Germany, and were performed last year in Pittsburgh as part of the Pittsburgh Symphony’s “Paris Festival: The City of Light.”

Music is so crucial to how an audience experiences a film that Roberts said watching two versions of Chaplin’s 1914 film “The Rounders” demonstrates the importance of the right score. One version features a Ragtime score performed by a well-known orchestra. “It’s bouncy and happy and fun,” Roberts said.

But another version proves to be much funnier, with a very delicate, dainty, almost ballet quality to the music.

“If the music is funny, the film is not. If you do cartoonish things to it, if it becomes too obvious, it becomes tedious and tiresome,” he said. A musical contrast to what is occurring on the screen brings out the more amusing aspects of the film.

There are levels in Chaplin’s films that reflect his genius far beyond the usual slapstick. In “The Pawnshop,” Chaplin uses symbols of time to show how miserable some people are in their adult roles, while his character remains happy living within his own time frame.

“It’s really powerful stuff, and it’s funny,” Roberts said.

Today, Roberts conducts the newly formed Allegheny City Ragtime Orchestra. His goal is to restore the legacy of forgotten Pittsburgh Ragtime Composers, something he has wanted to do for about 15 years. He has researched the early history of Pittsburgh jazz and presents a lecture, “The Forgotten History of Pittsburgh Jazz: Pittsburgh in the Roaring Twenties.”

He has recorded more than 40 compact discs, arranged and performed the music for the film soundtrack of “The Aviator,” performed on “The Tonight Show” and “A Prairie Home Companion,” in New York’s Carnegie Hall and at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and was twice the featured pianist at the International Stride Piano Summit in Zurich, Switzerland.

In addition to the Chaplin score, the WSO concert will include music from “Indiana Jones,” “Chariots of Fire” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”

There will be an extended selection of James Bond classics, featuring the voice of Rosanna Paterra of Upper St. Clair.

Noting that much of a movie’s impact on audiences is directly attributed to its music, Ikach said this concert will be similar to going to the movies, “only better.”

“The skill and artistry of the guest arrangers, composers and performers of our season finale is top-notch,” he said.

Tickets are on sale at Washington Financial bank branches, Citizens and Peters Township public libraries, online at www.washsym.org or by calling 724-223-9796. Tickets also will be sold at the door beginning at 6 p.m.

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