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