Don't let this weekend's cold weather keep you home, come to the Palace Theatre Sunday afternoon and warm up with some red hot piano music!  Our Events Series for 2006 - 2007 comes to its conclusion on Sunday, February 4 with a single performance of The Heroes of Parlor Town at 3:00 at the Palace Theatre in Vinton.  Cedar Rapids pianist and ragtime historian Brent Watkins will perform, giving our audience a look at the development of popular music in the early part of the twentieth century.  Also featured will be a short film prepared by Mr. Watkins on the background of ragtime, narrated by world famous opera star and Iowa native Simon Estes.  The works of such well known ragtime composers as Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake will be featured as well as many others, including little known composers from Iowa.

The presentation traces the transformation of American Popular Music by African-American composers from the 1890’s through the 1920’s.   

These composers successfully brought music from their culture into the urban parlors of Middle America by way of published sheet music.  Overcoming the popular perception that blacks were incapable of formal music composition and notation, these individuals persevered against prejudice and outright thievery of their intellectual property, to find sympathetic businessmen who would publish and promote their music. Their persistence led to a musical revolution that began in the Midwest and swept through America – thrusting the United States into international prominence as the source of an exciting new music, “Ragtime.”  

The presentation begins with a ten minute video tracing the post-civil war cultural climate, the contribution of African American’s to the creation of a new musical genre, and the role racism played in keeping African Americans from finding their deserved recognition for their cultural contributions.  Following the video, pianist Brent Watkins performs ragtime and early jazz piano selections while providing fascinating insights into the progression of American popular music through the early 20^th century.

Brent Watkins was born in Kansas and raised in Cedar Rapids.  He began studying piano at the age of eight and became interested in ragtime during his middle school years.  He lives in Cedar Rapids with his wife Jacqueline and their five children, and iis presently Media Pastor at River of Life Ministries in Cedar Rapids.  He has performed ragtime all over the Midwest, including appearances at the Scott Joplin Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, where he first performed at the age of thirteen.  He later studied piano at the University of Iowa.  His performance in Vinton marks the second showing of his film, which was first seen on Friday, February 2 at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, where he performed Heroes of Parlor Town as a Black History Month event.  Brent has two commercial CDs; Heroes of Parlor Town Volume 1 and Heroes of Parlor Town, Volume 2, which will be on sale at the Palace Theatre Sunday afternoon, or which can be purchased online from Brent's website or from Amazon.com.   Brent was featured in a full page article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on page 3L of the Sunday, January 26 edition as a lead-in to his performance Friday night at the museum.