Peter Nero concert

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32568, 30 March 1971, Page 21

Peter Nero concert

As a boy Peter Nero lived in a poor Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn. Now he is the musical darling of American society. Next week a Christchurch audience will see the former child prodigy who has become one of the most popular pianists. He will give one concert in the Theatre Royal on April 6. Nero has been performing publicly since he was 11, but he could never be described as an overnight success story. Until he was 21 he played, as he put it, “all long-hair stuff.” Then he set out to find himself musically, and for four years went to the other extreme and concentrated on jazz. When he was bored because “nobody was listening," he started to “fiddle around" with his music. “I realised that somehow I had to communicate, that I had to be heard,” he said. “So I threw all the rules out of the window on both classics and jazz and played exactly what pleased me.”