The Other Side of the Bench - Lara talks with the Cross-Eyed Pianist

I really like this interview I did recently with Frances Wilson, aka the Cross-Eyed Pianist. So I am sharing it here!

FW: Who or what inspired you to take up the piano, and make it your career?

LD: I started at the piano as a toddler and simply never stopped! I just never found anything I loved as much. In my teens, I had passing fantasies about being an archaeologist or an actor “when I grew up”, and then I realized that I could incorporate aspects of both of those careers into my musical path. My work involves a lot of archaeological excavation of the repertoire in search of historical narrative and context, and I think that I channel my inner actress into the task of interpreting the emotions and messages of the composers whose works I perform.

FW: Who or what were the most important influences on your playing?

LD: It’s been a collage of many things: my very first teacher, Maria Cisyk, was my first love! She was a wonderful woman who integrated a true understanding of and curiosity about music into the first steps at the piano. As soon as I could cover a five-finger position, she had me playing little and Bach and Bartok pieces, and learning the stories behind them so that I had a sense, from the very beginning, of the scope of a history and a tradition in music.

A little later I went on to work with Adolph Baller, a wonderful Austrian pianist with whom I studied at Stanford when I was still very young. He gave me, again, another layer of understanding about the importance of tradition. Having come out of the Viennese tradition himself – he studied with a former student of Franz Liszt! – he was a direct link to the European Romantic school that I, an adolescent in California, could only vaguely imagine. Tragically, Baller had suffered tremendously during the Nazi regime (he was interred in a concentration camp and his fingers were broken), before escaping to the U.S., where he was able to rehabilitate his hands and resume his career as Yehudi Menuhin’s accompanist and a member of the Alma Trio. His story gave me some insights into the power that music can have in a life, the strength that can be found in one’s calling throughout personal tragedy and upheaval. That was an important turning point.
Later on, as a teenager, I studied myself at the Hochschule in Vienna and the Mozarteum in Salzburg with the great Hans Graf, and was able to touch that grand tradition for myself, which brought everything full circle. I remember a winter morning in Vienna, the first heavy snow of the year, when an Argentine classmate came running into Graf’s class saying “I went to the Mozart house and I walked in Mozart’s snow!” That’s how it felt for me during those years, working in the birthplace of the tradition, treading the same ground as the composer whose works I was studying. Very magical.

FW: What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

LD: I think that I’ve come of age in a challenging time to be a musician, but also a very liberating one. So I see the challenges also as advantages. The limited opportunities in the concert world (especially in the U.S. where funding for the arts is such a tremendous issue) present a constant difficulty, but ultimately that difficulty has been an inspiration to me to develop a real creativity and innovative spirit in my approach to presentation and programming, to build a unique profile as an artist, to identify what it is that I have to offer and share with audiences that is uniquely mine, my genuine voice in the world. I think we are living in a time when an artist with something significant to say can take a significant amount of control in determining how, when and where he or she is heard. There is a really interesting and diverse mix of artistic personas on the concert stage these days, reflecting a commitment to different ways and means of musical expression. I think it’s very exciting.
And then of course there have been the challenges of combining my professional and personal lives – the same challenges we all face as musicians, finding ways to integrate my roles in my family and in the professional world. Being a mother of two young children has meant making some choices. But that too, I think, has been a very positive thing for me. I’m certainly a more centered, more thoughtful musician than I was when I was younger, and obsessed solely with the day-to-day mechanics of being a pianist, practicing 6 hours a day. Having a wider landscape to tend has been very good for me. I’ve built a career that encompasses performing and recording, writing, and also concert curating and presenting, which I love to do. Being active as a concert and festival curator/presenter allows me more space to bring my many (too many??) ideas to life! It’s important to me to have some impact in shaping the future of an art form that is changing so quickly, and has so much potential to reach new audiences in new ways.

FW: Which performances/compositions/recordings are you most proud of?

LD: I’m proudest of the multi-faceted projects I’ve created and produced from start to finish, which have encompassed everything from commissioning and premiering new works, to writing and delivering narrative commentary from the stage, co-producing multimedia/visual enhancements, and self-producing and releasing recordings on my own label (Tritone).

LISTEN

FW: Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?

LD: I love playing the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. They treat artists so well (my son wants me to go back so we can “ride in the limo”!), but more than that, the place evokes for me something very powerful about respect for and pride in the arts. It’s just a beautiful place to be and to perform.

FW: Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

LD: Whatever I’m working on at the moment! And some “comfort food” pieces that go way back for me, that I turn to when I need to sort of musically meditate and center myself: the Chopin Nocturnes, Schumann’s Davidsbundlertanze, Bach’s Goldbergs, some favourite pieces by Barber, Ives, and Prokofiev…

FW: Who are your favourite musicians?

LD: Arthur Rubinstein, Billie Holiday, Richard Goode, Nat “King” Cole, Chet Baker, Etta James, Charles Aznavour, the Beatles, Pablo Casals, my son playing the trumpet, Lucio Dalla… you see it’s pretty all over the place!

FW: What is your most memorable concert experience?

LD: Hearing Rudolf Serkin under the big tent at Tanglewood in the late ‘80s, just a few years before his death. I was a kid watching a legend and knowing deep in my bones just how precious the moment was. Again, to me he represented the magic of the tradition.

FW: What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

LD: Know what your music means to you. Find your voice. Learn what you alone have to give. Don’t try to be like anyone else. Be flexible in your thinking and let your path take you in unexpected directions. The future can surprise you.

FW: What are you working on at the moment?

My next recording, Exiles’ Café, will be released on the Steinway & Sons label on 26 February 2013. It’s a collection of 19^th and 20^th century music by composers in exile, or written in response to the experience of exile and diaspora. I’ve positioned music by composers displaced by World War II (Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bohuslav Martinu, Darius Milhaud, and Kurt Weill) alongside works by earlier composers such as Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev, who were likewise political exiles in their own time. I’ve also included the Africa Suite by African American composer William Grant Still, representing the permanent wandering of the African Diaspora, and some preludes by the American composer and novelist Paul Bowles, who lived in self-imposed exile in Tangiers for the latter part of his life. The central, big piece on the album is Korngold’s 2^nd Sonata, which he wrote in 1910 when he was a thirteen year old prodigy! It’s a massive, late-Romantic, very Straussian work, just absolutely gorgeous and lush.
The project illustrates the global currents of diaspora and exile, which create artistic confluence among people from many different backgrounds of time and place. I think the theme of displacement is one with which everyone is familiar at some level, and also I think that this goes back to my answer to your earlier question, which touched on my deep emotions about the tradition that has built our concert repertoire. Often it has been breaks in that tradition that have actually carried it forward – the historical and political situations that have carried composers from one place to another (Chopin from Poland to France, Rachmaninoff out of Russia, Korngold to Hollywood where he made a legendary career as a film composer and defined the future of that genre) have influenced the development of concert music in a profound way. So once again challenges sometimes prove essential!

LISTEN

FW: What is your present state of mind?

LD: It’s a hugely exciting time for me. I’m watching several musical projects come to full maturity and thrive, and I’m embarking on new ones. I feel that I’ve arrived at a time in my life when my musical/professional priorities are clear to me. I know what I want to do, and I’m ready for new challenges. I feel lucky every single day to be making a life in music, really. It’s an amazing thing.

The Indy 5: American Pianists Association finalists, Part V

This Sunday, the last of the five finalists in this year's American Pianists Association competition performs with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as the culmination of his residency week on the APA's Premiere Series.

If you were one of the other four APA finalists, you might be a little nervous about the goings-on in Indianapolis this week, because Eric Zuber has something of a reputation in the world of piano competitions.  

Eric holds an astonishing nine major prizes, won over the last four years from some of the world's most important international piano competitions: Honens, Cleveland, Arthur Rubinstein, Seoul, Sydney, Dublin, Minnesota, Bösendorfer (Gold Medal), and Hilton Head (Gold Medal).  He was also awarded Juilliard's much-coveted Arthur Rubinstein Prize. 

This consistency is unusual, and fascinating to me, as a pianist whose own experience of the competition circuit was less than idyllic. Such a triumphant sweep demands a special combination of unique strengths: tremendous pianism of course, but also some degree of strategic preparation, and a presumably innate sangfroid. It's this combination that can help a young artist navigate safely and surely through deep and hazardous (some might say cold, some might say shark-infested) waters. But, paradoxically, a young artist who is gifted with this combination of strengths has to be wary of too long a run on the competitions, no matter how successful, in order to avoid the weird trap of being branded a "competition pianist", with that stereotype's inherent danger to career potential. In effect, for the young pianist strong and fortunate enough to achieve consistent competition wins, the ultimate win might be knowing when not to win anymore!

But for now, Eric Zuber is riding his wave with both style and substance. He checked in with me from Indy to talk about the week to come.

Kathryn Stott: Playing Together

I love this photo of Kathryn Stott. It's chic and unexpected, and has a sense of wide possibilities. As does her very interesting career, as a soloist, chamber musician, artistic administrator and teacher.

I wanted to talk with Kathy during her current US tour with her long-term duo partner Yo-Yo Ma. The two have a long partnership, going back to the summer of 1978, when Kathy came back to her student flat in London to find that her roommate had, without mentioning it, sublet her half of the flat to a young cellist and his wife. From surprise roommates to international touring soloists, 35 years later... For six weeks, Yo-Yo, his wife Jill, and Kathy cohabitated in less than ideal circumstances. Kathy was practicing "around 7 hours a day" for the Leeds Competition (in which she would take the prize that would launch her career), her piano situated right up against the adjoining bedroom wall. Such close quarters can engender either intense dislike or intimate friendship. The latter resulted, and some years later, Jill suggested that the two try their hands at a duo concert.

These three decades later, playing together has developed into the best kind of shorthand, the rare long and deep musical friendship that allows "such great trust, the ability to take risks and know that you won't throw the other one off, the capacity to keep reinventing." As Kathy puts it: "Sometimes one tiny little change can lead to something totally different. If you understand how to keep the music alive, it doesn't matter how many times you play a piece - it's different every time." She laughs as she tries to calculate how many times the pair has played Saint-Saens' The Swan. "9 times out of 10, that's our encore, and I never, ever get sick of it."

In the frenetic reality of today's touring circuit, such long-term ensemble partnerships are becoming increasingly tricky to establish and maintain. We trade partners easily and frequently, a new morality maybe, with a potential for thrill and excitement, but without the the deepening and growth of a long and stable marriage. For two world-class soloists to look back over three decades, back before "anyone was anyone", to draw on all those years of a musical and personal relationship, must be something quite spectacularly comforting and comfortable.

I asked Kathy, joking, how she feels about playing with to the biggest household name in classical music, and, more seriously, how she deals with the perennial misnomer "accompanist" that continues to plague the collaborative pianist. Every chamber music pianist confronts this particularly obnoxious problem - the ongoing struggle for equal billing between instrumentalist and pianist always at issue. Some reach for extreme solutions, like  insisting on the technically authentic piano-first listing of the Classical duo sonata repertoire, or a sometimes-advantageous alphabetical billing. Still the problem persists. And when your duo partner is Yo-Yo Ma, the problem, presumably, gets a little bit worse. She's equanimous about the whole issue: "I'm a pianist and Yo-Yo's a cellist. That's what we do. I'm not stupid, I know why most people come to the concert! Of course he’s a huge name, but because we go back to a time when we knew each other before any of these things were happening, I don’t feel in the shadow. I know that he needs to be challenged by me, that we need to feed off each other If I went into some subservient role he'd be bored out of his mind!" 

Knowing the immense importance of the musical collaborations that have fueled Ma's musical life, it's clear that this partnership is in all ways a meeting of minds, a match between equals, and a duet between old and dear friends.

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott perform at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, January 29 at 8pm. Information 

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The Indy 5: American Pianists Association finalists, Part IV

Andrew Staupe appears to be an entirely normal guy. He appears to be laid-back, well-rounded, open-minded, midwestern, straightforward, and fun-loving. Which, in the music world, is not entirely normal.

Andrew, like Claire Huangci, Sean Chen, and Sara Daneshpour before him, takes center stage in the concert halls of Indianapolis this week as a finalist in the American Pianists Association competition.

Unlike his fellow finalists, and unlike many 28-year-old pianists with serious career ambitions, Andrew has not spent the last 5 years traveling the competition circuit. He didn't seriously start his piano studies until he was ten, he didn't go to Juilliard, and he has spent much of his life not locked into a practice studio for 6 hours a day. Before he got serious about piano, Andrew was a working actor and dancer in Minneapolis. He's a performance-level violinist, a jazz dabbler, the founder of a Medieval-Renaissance choral group, a history and archaeology buff, a competitive soccer and Ultimate Frisbee player, and an avid Packers fan.

What a laid-back, well-rounded, open-minded, midwestern, straightforward, fun-loving guy brings to his pass through one of the most rigorous and rewarding piano competitions in the world is surprising, refreshing, and honest. We spoke by Skype from Toronto to Houston, a few days before Andrew left for his Premiere Series week in Indy.

Chopsticks to Chopin with Charlie Albright

Charlie Albright is a very, very nice young man. He's also an absolutely extraordinary young pianist with a busy schedule and a bright future.
The way he thinks about that future is refreshing in its intelligence and pragmatism, with a sense of responsibility and respect that is informing his choices in interesting ways.

However he chooses, somehow I think he's going to do very, very well!

Listen to our conversation here:

Then watch him improvise on Chopsticks - quite fabulous!

Charlie plays a light little program that includes the complete Chopin Op. 25 Etudes on Sunday, January 13, at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis. INFO

Charlie Albright tour schedule

Getting Happy with Jenny Lin

When I first heard that Jenny Lin was releasing an album of show tunes, my response wasn't far from the kind of slapstick double-take you might see in, say, an old movie musical.

 Because Jenny is the kind of pianist that other pianists admire for her gravitas, a certain steeliness of mind and fingers that has explored many of the thornier corners of the repertoire.
Jenny plays Messiaen, Cage, Boulez, Pärt, Ligeti, Stockhausen...
Jenny has recorded (superlatively) the complete Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues.

So, show tunes?

You see, I know my show tunes. I was raised on the stuff. The stringent TV-deprivation of my childhood was waived for the annual viewings of Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. When I was a baby, MGM released That's Entertainment, a 50th anniversary compilation of the greatest moments out of its movie musical vault. I cannot tell you how many times, during the first 15 years of my life, my sisters and I watched those videos. Not to mention that a significant number of my childhood afternoons took place at double-feature matinees of old '40s musicals at the beautiful art deco Castro Theater in San Francisco, complete with a live organ show at intermission. In the extremely sheltered environment of my family's alternative reality, Gene Kelley and Judy Garland were superstars in the 1980s. Madonna who?

I also know what I love about show tunes. The gorgeous improbability that surrounds their very existence, the device of exploding a trivial conversation into a virtuoso song-and-dance number. The magic of lyrics and melodies that can express any silly thought at all with an elegance and eloquence that makes your heart soar. The genius of rhyming "bromofizz" with "trouble is" (Guys and Dolls).

I couldn't imagine that Jenny Lin would share my slightly unhealthy fascination with the American musical theater. But clearly there was something about these songs that had compelled her to venture, with her usual musical intensity and commitment, away from her usual musical haunts and down to Tin Pan Alley.

Jenny and I have been ships in the night in recent months. Her new album, Get Happy, has just come out on the Steinway & Sons label, and my new project, Exiles' Cafe, is next in the label's pipeline. So she has been warming the bench for me, in the Sono Luminus studio where we both recorded our projects (giant shout-out to Sono Luminus for their GRAMMY nominations!), and on a promotional circuit of CD release events around the country. But we hadn't met in person until a couple of weeks ago, at a holiday party thrown by Arkiv Music and Listen Magazine. It was a lovely evening, a chance for the Steinway family of pianists to get together and drink too many Manhattans, a sweet launch to the holiday party season.

And I found out that Jenny is not only brainy and sort of intimidatingly profound. She's also very funny, in a dry-witted way, and that she does in fact have her own very compelling reasons for making this record. And the record is, happily, really good!

CLICK TO LISTEN

The Indy 5: American Pianists Association finalists, Part III

Last in this space, I spoke with Sean Chen as he was preparing for his Premiere Series week in Indianapolis as a finalist in this year's American Pianists Association competition. A week of "dazzling" performances (with some cadenza controversy for excitement) now behind him, Sean is presumably back in classes at Yale, while Sara Daneshpour is taking a break from her classes at Juilliard to take her own turn on the Indianapolis stage this week.

Sara is 25, Washington DC-born and raised, and currently based in NY where she is working on her Master’s degree at Juilliard with Yoheved Kaplinsky. Already a presence on the concert circuit since taking a second prize in the 2007 William Kapell International Piano Competition, she comes to Indianapolis with a reputation for poetic, intense playing, as well as a humility and integrity that comes through in both her thoughts and her music.

We took a few moments during the Thanksgiving break for a quick On the Bench questionnaire:

The Indy 5: American Pianists Association finalists, Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the final round American Pianists Association competition and Claire Huangci, the first of this year's finalists to be showcased on the annual Premiere Series in Indianapolis. From all reports and evidence, Claire's week in town revealed sparkling, sensitive performances (great dress too).

 

Next up on the Indianapolis stage is Sean Chen, a 24 year old Californian currently working on his Artist Diploma in piano at Yale - a competition veteran, self-described tech geek, and composer as well. He plays Beethoven 4th with the ICO this Sunday, November 11. I chatted with Sean by Skype about his far-reaching interests, the prospect of a career in music, and his upcoming visit to Indianapolis:

 

Sean Chen plays with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra on Sunday November 11 at 3:30pm. TICKETS

http://www.americanpianists.org

Kids Today: From the Top at Mondavi Center

Christopher O'Riley: From the Top

My friend Chris O'Riley is in town today. His über-popular NPR show From the Top tapes tomorrow night at Mondavi Center, and it features a couple of previous winners from the Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition, which I run here. As it happens, we're in the middle of national semifinals for same (just back from NYC and Portland regionals), and the Northern CA auditions will take place this Sunday. Which means that in the course of this week a few dozen ridiculously talented little pianists will pass through the Artists Entrance of Mondavi Center and take a turn on its stage.

Lara with (ridiculously talented) Grace Zhou

 Broadcast on nearly 250 stations nationwide to an audience of more than 700,000 listeners each week, every From the Top episode presents five high-caliber performances along with interviews, sketches and games, revealing the heart and soul behind extraordinary young musicians. Now in its twelfth year on air, From the Top is taped before live audiences in concert halls from all over the country, from Boston to Honolulu.Tune in pretty much any week of the year, and you will hear a few ridiculously talented little pianists. And I hear them on my travels, and here at home, and I'm amazed, time and again, at how many wonderful musicians are growing up in every town and city the world over. It's inspiring, and also a little overwhelming, and for those of us mentoring them, who know what the realities of the future have in store, for any ridiculously talented little pianist, there is a big job at hand. People have asked me why I direct a competition for young pianists. I've addressed the question in this space before, but I think that the core of my motivation - and Chris' too, I know - is to  support and shape a new breed of musician:

• A musician who is aware of his/her role in society - From the Top does a beautiful job of training young artists to go out into schools and communities and work with their peers as "Arts Leaders", sharing their talents as arts advocates and educators

• A musician who thinks creatively, flexibly, and openly, and has an ongoing sense of the wide potential for making and sharing music;
• A musician who is prepared for the difficulties and realities ahead, with skills in career development, programming, outreach and education...
• A musician who knows that perceptions, goals and desires will constantly shift within the trajectory of a life in music, and that change is most of the process;
• A musician who is prepared for the bad times as well as the wonderful ones;
• A musician who knows that practicing is only the beginning, and that everything else we learn and do in life is what ultimately makes our music what it can be-

 Chris O'Riley is a model of this kind of musicianship - versatile beyond belief, busy with new projects that span genres, audiences, and musical partners, giving his support and advice to young people, on the air and face to face. He believes as I do in shaping a diversity of artist-communicators for a future in which the place and space for our music will continue to change.

As a mentor to young people, there's nothing better than seeing growth happen, in real time. At times when I am confronting the puzzle of how to make the different pieces of my life fit into my one head, my one day, I realize how much it brings to me, every day.

 Here's a lovely quote from a 2012 Mondavi Center Young Artists winner, soprano Anush Avetisyan:

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"My experience with the Mondavi Center's Young artist competition was one that has shaped and inspired my future dreams  as a singer, as a musician and as an active member of the community. Surrounded by passionate talents and nurturing leaders, this Young artist competition is truly a platform to express yourself and grow with those around you in the process. I will forever feel blessed to have had such an experience."

Amen, I say.

NPR's From the Top tapes live at the 

Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, Thursday October 25, at 8pm.

 TICKETS

 

THE INDY 5: Into the final stretch at American Pianists Association

There is a strange secret handshake among American pianists. Quite a few of us, at some time in our early twenties, spent a very special week or so in Indianapolis, participating in an experience that stands out in our memories from the many similar weeks spent in similar situations, during that time in our early twenties when we were doing what is known as "the competition circuit". If you read my earlier post about piano competitions, you'll understand that that time in my early twenties was not my very favorite time. Stress and anxiety were permanent traveling companions on my competition journeys. But the American Pianists Association competition in Indianapolis was different. We learned a lot. We had fun. We made friends that have lasted all these years. Many of us have maintained close relationships with the force of nature that was APA's Artistic Director for many years, Aileen James, now a neighbor of mine out in California and a beloved colleague and advisor.

APA just is different. Among the sea of competitions that take a relatively uniform approach to the identification and recognition of gifted young pianists, APA's support is unique in many ways. For one thing, there's the prize, worth $100,000: a seriously supportive $50,000 in cash  and two years of in-depth career backing, APA-arranged concert tours and recording opportunities. For another, APA is the only competition that crosses the border between classical and jazz, with the APA Fellowship awarded every two years on an alternating basis to a classical or a jazz pianist.

More than anything else, though, APA stands out in terms of the breadth of musical experiences offered to and expected of contestants. Once the five finalists are chosen every Spring (from a preliminary recorded round), they begin a year-long APA journey, each finalist in turn invited to Indianapolis in the Fall to be featured in the Classical Premiere Series, an expense-paid week that includes a concerto performance with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, public solo recitals, and a three-day high-school residency. By the end of that week, they've played for, and with, a wide swath of the Indianapolis public, from subscription audiences to high-school students. The five return to Indianapolis the following Spring for Classical Discovery Week, which showcases them again in solo, chamber music, new music, and song performances, plus a concerto performance with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Joel Harrison, APA's President/CEO and Artistic Director explains it this way: “What distinguishes the APA is the innovative and unique way in which we conduct our competition by presenting finalists in a variety of genres in multiple venues throughout the concert season. In so doing, we actually mirror the professional world through our competition format.”

This year the first finalist to make her mark in Indianapolis will be Claire Huangci, whose Premiere Series week begins on Monday September 24 and culminates in her performance of Beethoven's 3rd with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra next Sunday, September 30.
Claire is a competition veteran: first prize in the 2010 National Chopin Piano Competition in Miami, laureate in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition... She's already busy on the festival circuit, both in the U.S. and in Europe, where she's currently studying with Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. She made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2003 and has since performed with orchestras in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and with the China Philharmonic. At 22, she's the youngest of this year's finalists; born in Rochester, NY, she entered Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School at age seven and did her undergraduate work at Curtis. We connected via Skype to talk about what's coming up during her visit to Indianapolis:

Exiles' Cafe Recording Journal, Day 2 and 3

I didn't get to post yesterday - it was a long 7-hour session, with some guests in the studio at the end of the afternoon. But it was a terrific day. We finished the big pieces before lunch, and spent the afternoon on a lot of lovely miniatures. And finished the whole project, a day ahead of schedule! Which means that today (Friday) I'm sitting with Dan Merceruio doing edits - actually watching him do edits, very very quickly!

This is going to be a lovely record, if I do say so myself. Here are some highlights from the past few days:

• A superb piano, courtesy of Steinway & Sons, really just a perfect ride.
• The unbelievable technician services of John Veitch, who is a pianist himself and has a musician's ears and sensibilities.
• A beautiful studio facility at Sono Luminus, and the rock-steady support of Dan Merceruio as my trusted producer/therapist/third ear. 
• Many bad jokes, good sushi, geeky music gossip.

I'll have more news about the album coming up very soon, stay tuned...

Exiles' Cafe Recording Journal: Day 1!

Yesterday was a hellacious travel day. Why is there always so much laundry when you need to get out of town??

My flight to DC was fine - but on the long death-march walk from terminal to baggage claim at Dulles, I slipped and fell down which was A) very embarrassing and B) significantly painful. The floor at Dulles is very, very shiny and slippery. My husband Rick asked which shoes I was wearing when I slipped and I said "my hiking shoes". Actually, I was wearing new platform wedge sandals, very pretty and perhaps not the best for traveling, but I maintain that the floor at Dulles is too slippery.

To get to the Sono Luminus studios in Winchester, VA, you have to drive about an hour. It was extraordinarily dark last night at 9pm. No street lights of any kind. And the whole trip down, I was sure that I was going to arrive, get out of the car, find that I couldn't walk, that my ankle had swollen to 4 times its size, that I had to go to the nearest ER, and that the recording sessions would have to be postponed until after the surgery. But the nice bartender at the George Washington Hotel gave me a big bag of ice, and everything seemed to be fine. It's a lovely hotel. So nice to stay in a pretty, old-fashioned, just nice hotel.

Morning. Ankle still OK. The drive out to the Sono Luminus studios: BEAUTIFUL! Horse country, stone fences, so green. My GPS wound me through the countryside and into tiny little Boyce VA, where Sono Luminus is housed in a former church built in 1917.

If you want to know how I feel about studio sessions, read Jeremy Denk's New Yorker piece about the perils of the recording studio.
It's the most naked, vulnerable and self-aware place a musician can go. I've learned over the years to be less crazy, and to turn the studio into a space for expression and reflection, but still, it's hard going in, especially with a new crew, in a new environment. Dan Mercurio, my producer, put me at ease and we dove right in with a pair of Chopin Mazurkas: the first one he ever composed, in 1831, the first year of his exile from Poland; and the last, written just a few months before his death, when he was too weak even to try the piece out himself at the piano. A fairly intense way to start the day! Then came Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and some Stravinsky, all before lunch!

We took a break for lunch at the Locke Country Store. Delicious vegetable tart and cookies, much needed.

And back to work. We got so much done today - 45 minutes of music already, which is quite a lot. The next two days will go quickly! Tomorrow Eric Feidner from the Steinway & Sons label comes down to hold my hand - he was delayed today.

And now I'm back at the hotel, with a glass of wine and crab cakes, looking forward to tomorrow. More then...

Recording Journal: Live from the Exiles' Cafe

I'm on a layover at the Denver airport, on my way to the Sono Luminus studios in VA for recording sessions, working on my next album, Exiles' Cafe, for the Steinway & Sons label. Starting tomorrow, I'll be posting recording session videos and journals all week - stay tuned!

If Pianists Were Horses: Piano competitions, from both sides of the bench

I was not one of those kids who love winning piano competitions.

I stressed: unable to sleep for weeks leading up to an audition; my fingertips breaking out in a disgusting, never-seen-since excematic peel; my stomach flip-flopping hysterically-

I over-practiced: risking carpal tunnel and total burnout, putting in 8 hours a day obsessively/ mindlessly drilling danger spots, hiding my scores in another room to test my memory, making things, inevitably, worse.

I panicked: going into the audition room I'd be convinced that the seemingly harmless group at the juror table was actually some sort of a sadistic Orwellian firing squad in disguise, waiting with pencils poised to slash through my name at the first whisper of a wrong note-

I cried: unleashing tears of utter devastation whenever my name wasn't announced among the finalists, plunging into the depths of despair and self-loathing, vowing never to put myself through it again-

Sometimes, even despite my best efforts, I won.

So why, these many years later, do I direct a competition myself? Why perpetuate the torture and abuse on another generation of young pianists? Why not live by Bartok's famous dictum "Competitions are for horses, not artists", and leave the racing on the racetrack?

Because, of course, it turns out that when I was a kid, I was wrong.

Piano competitions exist for many reasons. Their merits and outcomes have been widely debated, their abundance discussed, their efficacy disputed. But this much I now know to be true: music competitions exist, above all, to discover talent. The pencils in the jury room are poised, yes, but they are poised to record something exciting, something good, a moment of beauty, perhaps even of greatness. I know this because now I sit at the jury table, and I know how much I want to find that moment.

Of course, in the jury room there is an element of danger. There is a certain insanity, a vulnerability that brings to mind the impossible challenge of the Olympic gymnast who trains her entire life for one all-or-nothing moment...
which can, with just a fraction of a second's error, end like this:

To give a wonderful performance during those few minutes in the jury room is a challenge,  not for the faint of heart (or the stresser, or the over-practicer, or the crier).

There are some who are born to face the moment (this week we have all been thinking of Van Cliburn, not only a competition winner, but a symbol of artistic triumph over politics and conflict), and there are those who learn how to meet it with grace. And there are those who are simply not cut out for it, and find a different, and often, in the long run, better path to their success.

The competition I started seven years ago, the Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition, began as a local effort, a natural outgrowth of the work I was doing already with young musicians in Northern California. It started small, as is usually best - I invited a few local youngsters to audition for the chance perform with me on a Mozart Anniversary concert at Mondavi Center. It was a beautifully successful event which led to local and wider interest, more formal auditions, a wider reach. With the support of tremendously generous donors, and the development of national partners including Steinway & Sons, IMG Artists, Festival del Sole, and Concert Artists Guild, the competition has now officially entered the major leagues, with auditions coming up this fall in Portland OR, New York and LA, as well as here "at home".

The growth and expansion raises issues for me: how to keep this project as healthy and nurturing as it has been in its smaller form, how to keep the commitment we've established to staying involved in and supportive of our winners' future careers, how to retain a strong focus on education and career development. I see the answer in the idea of building bridges. Bridges outwards from this wonderful performing arts center that is presenting amazing, forward-looking, unique artists and projects, here on the West Coast. Bridges inwards from the New York establishment with the big-management presence of IMG. Bridges to the next level of career development with our partners at Concert Artists Guild. And bridges for these talented young student musicians onto the professional stage.

I look to several national competitions as models for this kind of long-term commitment and multi-faceted development of young artists. Foremost among them, the Indianapolis-based American Pianists Association, whose finalists live a full, immersive year of musical experiences designed not only to test but to teach them, and emerge more accomplished and deeply informed by the process, regardless of outcome. I'll be profiling the five APA finalists on their competition journey in this space, starting next month, as well as journaling from the Mondavi Center YAC auditions as they unfold around the country (see below).

The mom in me thrives on taking a parental role in young musicians' lives. The pianist in me loves the ability I have now, as a member of the professional generation, to share my information and wisdom, such as it is, to help the young ones come up in our world.

The former competition kid in me? She shakes her head and regrets all the heartache, and wishes she'd known better.
And, if wishes were horses, maybe I'd do it all over again.

THE MONDAVI CENTER YOUNG ARTISTS COMPETITION

Prizes: $2000-$6000

Application Deadline: THIS FRIDAY!!! August 31, 2012

Young Artists Division 
Pianists and Instrumentalists ages 10–16
Founders Division
Vocalists ages 17–21

Regional Auditions

September 29, 2012:	Sherman Clay, 131 Northwest 13th Ave. Portland, Oregon
October 13, 2012:	Steinway Hall, New York City
October 28, 2012:	Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis
November 15, 2012:	The Colburn School, Los Angeles

Mirian Conti: Remembrance of Things Past

LISTEN

You can listen to Mirian Conti's lovely new album Nostalgias Argentinas on different levels. At first impression, it's salon music - Argentinian piano pieces from the 1920s, infused with dance rhythms and old-world charm. But dig a little deeper and you quickly connect with the Nostalgias of the title, not only in terms of the obvious nostalgia for a more gracious time gone by, but a personal nostalgia on the part of this Argentine-American pianist for the country she left as a teenager, as well as the inherent, permanent nostalgia of all classical musicians, who spend the majority of our time communing with the ghosts of long-dead composers.

With nostalgia and homesickness very much on my mind as I begin work on my own  nostalgia-soaked project, Exiles' Cafe, Mirian's recording resonated deeply with me, and led to a lovely conversation about the things we can miss, and why:

Pianists on Pianists: A Top 10

Enlightening for pianists and everyone who loves them, from LIMELIGHT.

The 10 Greatest Pianists of All Time

In Memorian: Brigitte Engerer

I was so fortunate to hear Mme. Engerer in concert several times in France when I was a young student. Her playing was passionate, elegant and completely personal.

She lived a full life that was true to her self, and her playing was a reflection of that integrity. 

Brigitte Engerer, born October 27 1952, died June 23 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9355128/Brigitte-Engerer.html

Vanessa Perez: It Takes a Village

A happy follow-up to my last post (thank you, everyone, for so many good comments, tweets, etc)...

I recently had a chance talk with Venezuelan pianist Vanessa Perez, and our conversation was a perfect example about what I love most about my encounters here On the Bench. For pianists, bred in the solitude of the practice studio, raised on a steady diet of self-examination, self-obsession, and self-doubt, the ability to reach out and connect with our equally self-absorbed colleagues is priceless. It’s why these conversations are important to me, and why talking with someone like Vanessa opens up interesting connections in experiences and perspectives, exposing the common ground between very different lives.

Vanessa grew up in the incredibly rich and nurturing musical community of Venezuela, a country with a unique musical history, where the slogan “There is no culture without musical culture” defines the central importance of music in the collective consciousness. There, in the birthplace of El Sistema, Vanessa’s early years were spent with “so many children making music”, shaping her identity as a musician and building lasting friendships with her fellow youngsters coming up in El Sistema’s many orchestras, incubators which produced not only a generation of tremendously gifted young conductors – Dudamel among others - but also provided abundant opportunities for young soloists to perform with those orchestras. She talks with deep affection about those early opportunities, about the impact of young years spent in such nurturing surroundings.

This is a musician who depends on other musicians - the theme of community and friendship came up time and again in our conversation. Even in the recording studio - the most private and vulnerable arena, the place where most of us withdraw to commune on the most intimate level with our artistic  intentions, to examine every musical pore and wrinkle in the most magnifying of mirrors, and to do battle as best we can with our full spectrum of neuroses (See Jeremy Denk’s most excellent account of these horrors in a recent New Yorker piece) - Vanessa has found a way to create a support system of musical colleagues and friends. Most of us treat the studio as an inner sanctum, impenetrable except for the trusted troika of engineer, producer and artist. Vanessa, in contrast, opened up her recent studio sessions to a group of trusted friends and colleagues, creating a hybrid of live performance and recording session that, she says, helped her keep her playing "real and honest". 

LISTEN

The result, a disc of the complete Chopin Preludes, was recently released on Telarc and will be celebrated with a NYC release concert this Thursday, May 31 at the Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue.

Listening to the album, you hear the same humanity and honesty that comes across in conversation. Vanessa's connection to Chopin's music is almost primal, sometimes bypassing the surround of exquisite beauty in favor of the raw emotion at its core. Her relationship with Chopin is life-long. She remembers the thrill of discovering her first Chopin Nocturne as a child in Venezuela – the momentous feeling of entering into the world of “grown-up music”, as she puts it “I felt for the first time that now I was really a pianist”.  When she played for the legendary Claudio Arrau at age 14, he sensed the potential in her natural affinity and encouraged her to “play more Chopin”, putting her to work right away on the E Minor Concerto. Arrau took a pivotal mentoring role in her musical life, sending her to study in the U.S. with his former students Ena Bronstein and Rosalina Sackstein .

Leaving Venezuela for the States (first Miami, then New Jersey), being transplanted into the relatively arid musical landscape of the American suburbs, took its toll. Her response was to dig deeper into her music, to find there the sustenance and communication that had always been critical to her musical identity. At 17 she went to the Royal Academy of Music in London, and was able to connect again with a community of musicians who provided a environment of support and community. Studies in Italy followed, then some post-grad finishing back in New York. The friendships Vanessa has made at every point in her musical life have remained central to her musical life. She makes music with those friends - fellow Venezuelans Dudamel and Gabriela Montero are friends from childhood and have both been musical collaborators. She joined Joshua Bell for a performance of Piazzolla's Oblivion on Bell's At Home with Friends album. The musicians in Vanessa's life serve as mentors, role models, touchstones - as it should be.

The Chopin album may be a breakthrough to a new level of visibility as a soloist. Even alone on the bench, though, Vanessa Perez' music is full of the spirit of all the musicians who surround her - from her childhood friends in the musical sandbox of Venezuela, to her trusted advisors in her recording session, to the very tangible presence of M. Chopin himself. 

The ON THE BENCH Questionnaire

(with apologies to Proust and Vanity Fair)

What’s the first thing you do when you sit down to practice?

It varies all the time...I don't have a specific routine.  

What's the last thing you do before you go on stage?

I look obsessively at the first few measures of what I will begin my program with.
 

If your piano could speak, what secrets would it tell about you?

My piano wouldn't tell on me ... :)

If you could travel in time to hear one piano recital, which would it be?

 I would attend one of those beautiful soiree salon concerts in 19th century Paris, with Liszt or Chopin playing.  

If you didn’t play the piano, what would you do?

Chef, specializing in Japanese and northern Italian cuisine.