John Roberts with special guest Angela Ortiz July 14, 2007

Singer/songwriter John Roberts had this to say about himself: "I live in Simsbury, Connecticut and teach high school English. When I feel the freedom of days without deadlines, I search for places. I write songs with voice and guitar borne out of those spaces in which I realize the immediacy of moment. As my new career affords me summer pass, I feel that the time for this essential endeavor is the inertia of an open door." The daughter of two schoolteachers, Angela taught herself to play piano in a house on twenty-four acres of evergreen forest in rural western New York State. Her unique brand of alt-indie piano pop was described by MusicDish.com as, "...right on the edge of jazz and Broadway, but[...]all dressed and ready to go as contemporary pop." While studying vocal performance at NYU, she discovered that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote some wacky stuff, Puccini wrote songs that were impossibly hard to sing, and Wagner was probably not a very nice man. She also discovered that it was ultimately more fun to compose, so she began writing her own songs during the time that she was supposed to be practicing "Oh, dry the glist'ning tear". The songs she began to write in hijacked college practice rooms became the foundation for her first album, "All About You"; a recent release from Random Chance Records. Recorded entirely at home, these eleven tracks include collaborations with some of the best musicians on the NYC music scene. The songs deal with everyday issues like disappointment and gratitude, self-doubt and self-indulgence, but mostly they revolve around a burning desire to answer the eternal question, "What's next?" Now based in New York, Angela has had her music featured NPR, on radio stations all over the USA, Europe, Asia, and Australia, as well as on numerous internet radio stations and podcasts. She is the recipient of the 2006 Mid-Atlantic Songwriters Award, and she performs year-round, playing to packed houses all over the country, and in her native New York. A recent review on TheRedAlert.com states, "If Tori Amos is the standard that all aspiring female piano pop artists will need to live up to, then Ortiz does not have a problem living up to these standards; in fact, she rises above them." And she's just getting started. Angela will be opening for John Roberts this evening.

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of MochaMayas.