The Northeast Theatre’s Spruce Street Cabaret Presents “A Loss for Words”

When you hear William (Billy) Rogan for the first time, you can hardly believe it. It’s a guitar he’s playing, but the sounds that he makes with it remind you of a cross between an Indonesian Gamalan, a Klesmer band, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. The variety of sound and musical form that he gets out of his little box with strings is astounding. Audiences will be treated to the talents of this fabulously creative musician on January 27 at 4 p.m., as part of The Northeast Theatre’s Spruce St. Cabaret. 
Billy has been working with guitar for a little over ten years. Being surrounded by music in his mother’s piano studio he fell in love with it at an early age. He picked up alto sax in grade school, and had his first real musical experience at age eight when his mother took him to the local Jazz club, Blues St. to have his first “jam”. After that night he was hooked. But it was when, as teenager, he picked up a guitar that he found the instrument that will stick with him for life. Now twenty four, William has discovered the possibilities opened up by left and right hand “tapping” techniques intertwined with percussive use of strings to create rich, complex melodies and textures.

“The kind of music that moves me follows an underlying pattern or formula which has an tremendously energizing effect,” says Billy, “To me, music is a force that rises out of a boundless realm of energy, and when it takes life, it conveys that energy to the listener.” When he plays, you can see his everyday world disappear into his guitar as he transforms it into an orchestra. His melodies pulse and drive and dance through surprising percussive passages, then skip through lyrical sections that soar, hover, fall, twirl and take off again. His music is as alive and as energetic as he experiences it to be, and nothing is lost in the transition from its creation to our hearing of it. It is a primordial force manifest.

William has recently completed a solo acoustic album with the help of engineer Steve Friedman at Melville Park Studio in Boston. He also currently teaches guitar classes at this home in Dalton, PA. He will be playing an hour’s worth of original and inspired composition on Saturday, January 27 at 4 p.m., titled A Loss for Words, Performance Space at the Jermyn, 326 Spruce Street, 2nd Floor, Downtown Scranton. For tickets visit www.thenortheasttheatre.us or call 570-558-1515.