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Emily Roberts
Roberts in 2024
Roberts in 2024
Background information
Birth nameEmily Jane Roberts
BornFebruary 1998 (age 26)
Cheshire, England, United Kingdom
Occupations
Years active2014–present
Member ofThe Last Dinner Party

Emily Jane Roberts (born February, 1998) is a guitarist and composer. She is the lead guitarist of the British indie rock band The Last Dinner Party, and has a background in jazz and classical music..

Early life and education

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Emily Jane Roberts was born in February 1998, in Cheshire, England. She began playing guitar at the age of six after being inspired by Carly Simon's performance at the end of Piglet's Big Movie; however, she found guitar lessons boring and quit. At age nine, she returned to the instrument, learning acoustic guitar from a local teacher.[1][2][3]

Roberts moved to Manchester to attend Chetham's School of Music, where she studied both jazz and classical guitar. During her time there, she was a member of Chetham's Big Band and the Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra. She later accepted a place in the BMus Jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Roberts was a semi-finalist in the BBC Young Jazz Musician competition in 2020.[4]

Career

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Roberts' professional career began in 2014 when she joined the Creative Leadership Ensemble, a project focused on encouraging women in jazz. From 2016 to 2021, she performed with a variety of orchestras at the Royal Festival Hall, the Wigan International Jazz Festival, the Barbican Concert Hall, among others, and performed with Guildhall Jazz and the BBC Singers in a concert broadcast on BBC Radio 3.[5] She gained experience in musical theatre by serving as the official electric guitar, mandolin, bass, and acoustic guitar understudy for the West End production of Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour at the Duke of York’s Theatre in summer 2017.[6]

Roberts toured with Neo-folk artist Blanco White in 2018 and performed with various artists across different genres.[7] She joined a Queen tribute band called Fat Bottomed Girls in 2019.[3] She attributes the time she spent that summer "trying to get inside Brian’s playing" as a strong influence on her later style of playing. In the end, the tribute band only played live once, at a convention near Hull.[8]

In 2021, Roberts began a song-writing collaboration with fellow musician Georgia Williams. As a duo, they called themselves Wednesday's Child, and released a debut 5-track EP of the same name in 2021.[9][10] Wednesday's Child featured on a couple of Tom Robinson's 'BBC Introducing' mixtape featuring unsigned artists.[11][12] They began performing live shows as a five-piece band, and in July 2023 released another EP, Seven Sisters.[13] This EP featured seven songs about seven women; all of which were composed jointly by Roberts and Williams.[14] Tracks from this EP have been played on BBC radio, including "Theda"and "Paula" on BBC Radio London.[15][16]

In 2022, Roberts released a solo jazz EP, The Persistence of Memory, which critics commended for its "exciting mix of styles ... jazz ... and soul", and for Robert's arrangements.[17][4][18] The EP release was followed by live performances by Roberts at the annual London Jazz Festival,[19] and tracks from the EP have had airplay on BBC Radio 3.[20]

Roberts also played as a session guitarist for the musical Six,[21] before joining The Last Dinner Party in 2022. She plays lead guitar, mandolin,[22] and flute, and contributes backing vocals. In reviews of the Last Dinner Party's debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, Robert's guitar playing was described as "soaring, impressively stadium-ready axe heroics".[23] Her live performances have also attracted positive reviews, with music critic Kitty Empire noting how Roberts "peels off rock solos with a Mona Lisa smile ... [and] precision and sangfroid".[24]

Discography (solo career)

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EP

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Release date Artist Title Label
8 July 2022 Emily Jane Roberts The Persistence of Memory[25] BridgeTheGap

Track listing, The Persistence of Memory EP

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  • "I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose"
  • "The Persistence of Memory", feat. Alice McCarthy
  • "Mean Time"
  • "Welcome to a Prayer"
  • "Relaxing at the Underbelly"


References

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  1. ^ Q101 (2024-04-10). The Last Dinner Party - Interview in #TheLounge. Retrieved 2024-09-23 – via YouTube.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "15 questions | Interview | Emily Jane Roberts | Beyond the Safety Limit". 15questions.net. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
  3. ^ a b "How The Last Dinner Party embraced individuality to become the band everyone's talking about". Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
  4. ^ a b Farbey, Roger (17 September 2022). "Emily Jane Roberts: The Persistence Of Memory" – via JazzJournal.
  5. ^ "A Roaring Twenties Christmas". BBC Proms.
  6. ^ "Home | Emily Roberts Guitarist". 1 November 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-11-01. Retrieved 2024-09-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  7. ^ "Instagram". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
  8. ^ Borg, Janelle; Amit, Amit (4 June 2024). ""I spent an entire summer solidly trying to get inside Brian's playing, hearing all the little details": The Last Dinner Party's Emily Roberts on how a Brian May tribute gig radically changed her guitar playing". guitarworld.
  9. ^ "We review the new self titled EP from Wednesdays Child; RGM : Reyt Good Magazine". rgm.press. November 5, 2021.
  10. ^ "I caught up with Wednesday's Child after their spellbindingly great set at the Great Estate Festival". musomuso.com. 14 June 2022.
  11. ^ "BBC Blogs - BBC Music Introducing - BBC Music Introducing Mixtape: 25 October 2021".
  12. ^ "BBC Blogs - BBC Music Introducing - BBC Music Introducing Mixtape: 22 January 2024".
  13. ^ "New EP from Wednesday's Child" – via Plastic Magazine.
  14. ^ "RGM Introducing – we interview London Band Wednesday's Child. RGM: Reyt Good Magazine". rgm.press. 20 April 2023.
  15. ^ "BBC Music - BBC Music Introducing, London, Featured Artist: John". BBC.
  16. ^ "BBC Music - BBC Music Introducing, London, Featured Artist Tommy Lefroy". BBC.
  17. ^ "Sunday's Jazz Selection Pt. 2 – Emily Jane Roberts "The Persistance Of Memory" .. Sonic Soul Reviews (in German)". 10 April 2022.
  18. ^ Steel, Ally J. (5 April 2022). "Premiere: Emily Jane Roberts - The Persistence of Memory". Jazz Revelations.
  19. ^ "All That Jazz". 15 November 2022 – via SouthwarkNews.
  20. ^ "BBC Radio 3 - 'Round Midnight, A Marcus Joseph Remix". BBC. 10 September 2024.
  21. ^ Hunt, Elle (28 June 2024). "The Last Dinner Party on misogyny, maximalism and making it big: 'Men think they're the arbiters of rock'". The Guardian.
  22. ^ Sharma, Amit (2 July 2024). ""It wasn't a conscious decision to invent our own scale! The idea was to do something inspired by Jeff Buckley... but we added a mandolin": The Last Dinner Party's Emily Roberts is the jazz-schooled Queen-inspired indie guitar hero you've been waiting for". guitarworld.
  23. ^ Petridis, Alexis (February 1, 2024). "The Last Dinner Party: Prelude to Ecstasy review – the year's most hyped band totally deliver". The Guardian.
  24. ^ Empire, Kitty (3 February 2024). "The Last Dinner Party review – like watching firecrackers going off indoors". The Guardian.
  25. ^ "Emily Jane Roberts (jazz musician)" – via MusicBrainz.
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