Kenzie Smith Piano

Oregon City, USA

Seaside

ClassicalInstrumental

Behind the Music

A musician’s role is to tell a story through song, just as a journalist’s is to tell one through words. When the two platforms merge together, it provides an opportunity to make a poignant work of art. Music plays a significant role in evoking emotion. Just as a film has a score that gives the viewer a magnified perception of what the director hopes to portray, The Outlaw Ocean Music Project can give a reader or listener insight on a strong sense of feeling based on the issues covered in The Outlaw Ocean. 

As Ian reveals in his reporting, there are many things that happen at sea that threaten our waters. My goal with my tracks is to capture the beauty of the sea, while also expressing the need to respect it. It is our responsibility to take care of the planet. I hope my contribution to this music project will play a role in highlighting the importance of that responsibility.

Kenzie Smith Piano
About Kenzie Smith Piano

Kenzie Smith was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Although his career is centered around performing music, Kenzie attended college and earned a degree in business administration and Japanese. He currently resides near Oregon City, Oregon with his wife.

During his time in college, Kenzie recorded himself playing “Ichiban no Takaramono” (from “Angel Beats!”) on the piano and uploaded the video on YouTube. He grew a small fanbase on YouTube and continued to upload various arrangements of songs from different anime and visual novels.

Kenzie began publishing albums to most music platforms including Spotify, the first being “Anime Music Collection Piano Solo, Vol.1” published in 2015. As of now, Kenzie continues to publish new albums primarily of his anime renditions, but also on occasion arranges songs from Disney movies and video games.

Winner of the 2021 Scripps Howard Award for Excellence in Innovation in Journalism

The Journalism behind the Music

All music in this project is based on The Outlaw Ocean, a New York Times Best-Selling book by Ian Urbina that chronicles lawlessness at sea around the world. This reporting touches on a diversity of abuses ranging from illegal and overfishing, arms trafficking at sea, human slavery, gun running, intentional dumping, murder of stowaways, thievery of ships and other topics.

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