getclassical

2012-01-25T15:21:00.000-08:00

Richard Goode Photo: Deborah Feingold
Everything about pianist Richard Goode exudes friendliness, courtesy, good humor and patience, yet there is also a curiosity in his vivid eyes, shining out a vitality and youthfulness, belying his age — he turned 68 this past summer.

I have had the opportunity to hear him perform on numerous occasions, not only at one of his frequent concerts at Carnegie Hall, where he is featured as one of the handful of seasoned performers at Carnegie’s annual ‘keyboard virtuoso’ series, but also in more intimate settings, like the 92nd Street Y. He has always convinced and enthused audiences with his insightful interpretations. The Financial Times called his recording of all five Beethoven concertos performed with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivàn Fisher(released by Nonesuch Records in 2009) a “landmark recording of the Beethoven concertos.”He is a performer who manages to integrate a personal style and special nuance into even the most renowned repertoire.

When I entered his Upper East Side apartment, I was asked to please take off my shoes and am being greeted by his wife, violinist Marcia Weinfeld, and the venerable pianist himself, who has helped to shape New York’s pianistic scene at its best.“My wife teaches her students in the other wing of the apartment,” he says, as he closes the large, heavy doors to his studio, furnished with well stocked bookshelves that house part of the famously huge Goode book collection, recordings and lots of music scores, a cozy couch and of course his grand piano.

Like many Bronx natives of his time, Goode comes from a Jewish, Eastern European family — both grandmothers emigrated with their children from the Ukraine to America right before the war and it was many years before their husbands would be able to follow their families to New York. Goode’s maternal grandmother was Orthodox and quite observant, prompting his mother to rebel and adopt a rather secular, American way of life. Goode describes his father as very musical, even though he was never musically trained. Once their talented son started serious piano studies, Goode’s father took up piano tuning, “which is really difficult, I tried it and could not do it,” he adds smiling.

Goode’s first teacher, whose house calls he still remembers, did not meet his father’s expectations. A more suitable pianistic influence, Elvira Szigety, an aunt of the celebrated violinist Josef Szigety continued guiding the six and a half years old boy for the next three years.

Rosalie Leventritt, famous patron of the arts, became most influential in Richard Goode’s early career. The Leventritt Foundation was instrumental in supporting music education all over the country and has been blessed with supporting some of the finest artists.( see the history of Young Audiences at http://www.youngaudiences.org ) Through Leventritt, Goode was introduced to pianist Rudolf Serkin who, on the board of Young Audiences with Leventritt, was willing to listen to the young talented boy play for him at Leventritt’s home.

“Serkin brought me to Claude Frank,” says Goode,”who was a student of Schnabel. I had lessons at Leventritt’s house. Then I began to attend Mannes College, which, at the time was located on the East Side. I was very lucky to have many positive musical influences in my life through my various teachers, such as my theory teacher Carl Schechter at Mannes, and Nadja Reisenberg, who had been Hoffman’s assistant, and later when I went to Curtis, Mieczyslaw Horszowski and of course Serkin, himself. Inevitably your teachers mark you strongly and then you want to get away from them,” Goode muses. Bigger than life remains Rudolf Serkin, with “his intense and dramatic way of playing, his totally giving himself to the composer’s intentions and his particular style… he was a very powerful personality that I admired and at the same time needed to differentiate myself from. I am a very different person.” The other huge artistic influence on Goode – even though transmitted via his recordings, he never met him in person, was Schnabel himself. “If Serkin was the heat, Schnabel was the light”, he says. The Austrian pianist Artur Schnabel was legendary for his intellectual command of Beethoven’s and Schubert’s music, and for his avoidance of any flashy showing off, of a personal bravura technique.

“It was an illumination for me to follow how he looked at music and how he derived intellectually his musical choices with the utmost clarity. Years after I stopped studying at Curtis, Schnabel’s son Karl Ulrich gave master classes at Mannes.” Goode was in awe of having had such close encounters with his idol’s son. “And what a funny and delightful person and such a thorough teacher, he was. His lessons went on for hours and he gave everything in such a warm and generous way. He was exhausted afterwards.” he remembers. “I still have scores marked by him.”

Goode, together with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, (András Schiff originally participated for a short, initial period as well) took over Rudolf Serkin’s historic, forty years long artistic direction of the Marlboro Festival after Serkin’s death in 1991. Goode started attending Marlboro, idyllically located in Vermont’s countryside –one of the principal breeding places for the next generation of great musicians of the East Coast -- at age 14. During nine consecutive summers he played chamber music, learning from coaches, known to be among the best.

I asked him if life has changed in Marlboro under his leadership. He answered somewhat hesitantly:”The tone may have changed a bit, but the basic idea remarkably remained the same. We get the talent; provide a place to work and of course some good guidance, and the spirit of it all creates a fun atmosphere. We set up a structure of discipline and freedom and then we let things happen. A major departure from the old ways is a more harmonious, more accepting attitude towards the musicians, which does not make one feel as if on probation. People used to be much more afraid to be judged – now there is much more freedom. We have generally many string players, but are unfortunately somewhat restricted with pianists. We have auditions and 4-5 of the older ones return generally for three years. That leaves only room for about 5-6 new comers. All in all there are 10 pianists present each summer. All participants rehearse extensively and, if all goes well, you end up with many performances.” But perhaps one of the most important factors for all the busy musicians at Marlboro is the remarkably simplistic, yet utterly refreshing and kind of missing in today’s pace factor: “It’s a place where you have time!”

On top of it, Marlboro not only offers a very welcome learning experience but also a fun time socially with other young musicians; it is also a really great opportunity to make a mark as an aspiring performer. Many pianists have made a name for themselves as Musicians from Marlboro, with a multitude of performance opportunities beyond the festival, such as a tour with the chamber music series of the New York Metropolitan Museum. Some of the widely admired attendees of the festival are the young Marlboro participants Jeremy Denk and Jonathan Biss, a friend of Denk’s, who gave an outstanding duo recital together with Richard Goode at the 92nd Y in February of 2010. Goode met Biss in Marlboro, as he sat in a rehearsal.

Goode/Biss at the 92nd Street y - Photo:Matthew Murphy for NYTimes

About the seemingly increasing amount of vast musical talent all around the world, Goode has the following to say:”The perpetual ability for music has changed; it is remarkable what kind of a difference the Internet has brought about. I myself am still behind in the process,’ he admits smiling. “I have noticed such sophistication at Marlboro, over the past ten years. People are building on what they are exposed to, what they hear and develop a greater ability and affinity. Good technical command has always been widespread. Technical challenges will always somehow be made to overcome. Having a big goal set is exciting and challenges are accepted by musicians. But the level of musicianship has definitely grown. I see that music making in the classical style is much harder for the young generation to master, than perhaps a work of the late 19th or early 20th century. Basic elements are more exposed – every note counts and relationships are perhaps more subtle. Musicians need exposure, more interaction with other musicians, other disciplines and more communication. We have integrated some innovations into Marlboro, for example a wonderful program for vocalists, who used to be treated a bit like second class citizens before. We now offer an opera workshop instituted by Ken Noda from the Metropolitan Opera, as well as a great young artist’s program. “

Goode is teaching at Mannes College and master classes with Ursula Oppens at City College. “It has become increasingly apparent to me that teaching and performing are just different aspects of the same thing, being a musician, trying to look into the music and, as Horszowski said, imply reading the score and seeing what’s there!” He himself adds, “The thing I learned with Serkin is that the end result is trying to discover what’s hidden, but in order to do that you have to first exam the score and know what’s there!”

And since we are talking about “the score”, I told him about my love for the Schumann concerto. He tells me about a wonderful surprise he had one evening after the performance of my favorite concerto:”After my performance, Sotheby’s music expert Richard Roe comes backstage and asks me if I would like to see the original score of the Schumann concerto. I was burning with joy and curiosity and said, ‘Of course, when can I go see it, tomorrow?’ And there it was, the original score, full of revisions in Schumann’s beautiful handwriting right at Sotheby’s.” and with that he walked over to his shelf, searched a bit and came back with the printed facsimile of the original version that shows so clearly Schumann’s struggles to choose one of the four different versions, in the transition from the second to the third movement. The beginning had started with a different onset, with the piano starting off and the orchestra giving the third beat. Goode told me about a performance which stunned its audience, of that original first version of the score by pianist Malcom Freger at Carnegie Hall, who was a student of Karl Friedberg, who himself had studied with Clara Schumann. Tradition obliges and the score is a chapter in itself. To give testimony to that, Goode tells me that he has decided to opt more often to perform with the score. For him, memorization cuts down on the music making process: “I play better with music. Much off my playing (in chamber music) is with the music anyhow. Why learn 3 Haydn sonatas by heart if you could play fifteen with the score at hand? I feel a great deal of freedom and less intimidated by the scare of a memory slip. As long as you internalize the music it does not matter that it stands in front of you, it should be whatever works best for each performer; to translate what one thinks should be the sound.”

Richard Goode Photo:Sascha Gusov
It’s about time someone emancipates himself from what has risen as an unwritten law of performance practice. At the end it’s all about how well one makes the music heard.

Richard Goode’s next performance in New York City:

April 24, 2012 - Carnegie Hall, Isaac Stern Auditorium, New York, NY.

On tour:

February 12, 2012 - Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London

March 2, 2012 - University of Buffalo Lippes Concert Hall, Buffalo, NY.

March 4, 2012 - Chicago Symphony Center, Chicago, IL.

March 5, 2012 - Lutkin Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

March 9, 2012 - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City, MO.

March 18, 2012 - Shriver Hall, Baltimore, MD.

March 20, 2012 - SOPAC, South Orange, NJ.

Pianist Louis Schwizgebel-Wang

2012-01-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

Photo: Christian Steiner

The young and personable Louis Schwizgebel-Wang is not to be considered a ‘secret’ insider tip anymore, and he certainly won’t be after his upcoming recital at Merkin Hall on January 30th.Even as early as 2007, the Swiss born pianist was introduced to audiences in the United States, with his Zankel Hall debut in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington. According to the Washington Post at the time, he played with a “powerhouse technique, a sly sense of humor, wonderfully expressive phrasing, and seething passion, showing also sensitivity to subtle but essential details of touch and tone.” Previously he had won First Prize in the 2006 Young Concert Artists European Auditions in Leipzig Hochschule fuer Musik Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy.He is once again launched by Young Concert Artists, an organization that is dedicated to boosting to success the careers of many great pianists, -- including artists like Jerome Lowenthal, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax and Jeremy Denk. Schwizgebel’s upcoming encore recital at Merkin Hall will give this young performer the chance to remind New York audiences of the previous positive impression that he made in New York and beyond.

Schwizgebel-Wang’s other career highlights include a 2004 tour of China with the Basel Symphony and in 2005 he won the top prize at the Geneva International Piano Competition. His continued winning of prizes in Europe and the United States had led to more, great concert opportunities, such as his performance as a soloist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi and with the London Philharmonic under Carl Davis. He also very recently played a solo recital at London’s Wigmore Hall, and this summer he performed at the Verbier Festival, with critic Ismene Brown saying: “ … I enjoyed most what was happening upon a new bloom, the sort of thing that is very Verbier. One afternoon at the clipped white modern Église appeared a 23-year-old Swiss pianist named Louis Schwizgebel-Wang, who made an hour and a quarter of Liszt flee by with exquisite fairytales of pianism, from the sombre questions of Vallée d’Oberman to some breathtakingly virtuosic playing of Paganini studies….

Photo: Christian Lutz

To make a career as a musician is a long-term act of intelligent will and curiosity about music-making, as Terfel embodies. At the moment, perhaps, the beauteous and glamorous Buniatishvili, the same age as Schwizgebel-Wang, has a huge marketing advantage, but in 20 years I think that, like Kovacevich and Argerich, it is Schwizgebel-Wang who is more likely to be the master of his instrument opening ears to the intimate secrets of great music up in the mountains of Verbier. Catch him when he plays in Britain this autumn with his fellow Swiss cellist, Lionel Cottet, and, I'd bet he will be playing in a lot of high places as a soloist before long.”His parents —the mother Chinese, the father Swiss— are both visual artists living in Geneva, and believed in a sheltered environment. He started lessons with his teacher Franz Josefovski at age six. The young piano talent, who, aged 12, represented Switzerland in the 9th Steinway Festival in Hamburg, visited the Lausanne Conservatory, but just for lessons with his teacher Brigitte Mayer. Still living at home he earned his soloist diploma, aged 15. He later travelled for lessons with Pascal Devoyon at the Berlin Universität der Künste.

That is why only since he came to New York this year, to study at Juilliard with Emanuel Ax and Robert McDonald, has he experienced a true “school – environment,” which he actually enjoys greatly.

He likes to challenge himself and, as I was impressed to learn, he likes to continue to explore. Even in terms of his already greatly praised piano technique, he likes to gain a deeper insight into the principals that are at work which are evidently not always completely clear, despite all the great training and musical talent.Photo: Chritian LutzI met him for the first time recently, after his participation at the Beethoven Marathon, a live broadcast from WQXR’s Greenspace on November 20th. This marathon was a collective effort of some of the most talented -- established and emerging pianists including Jonathan Bis, Jeremy Denk, Alessio Bax and Phillip Edward Fisher.“I needed to expand my horizon…” said Schwizgebel-Wang, as I approached him after his stellar performance of Beethoven’s opus 14, no. 1; and Opus 81a.

Photo: Christian Lutz

His participation at the Green Space broadcast happened somewhat spontaneously, leaving him only the very limited time span of 8 days to prepare both of the sonatas for performance.

“I decided on studying in New York,” he explained, “since I had already contacts, won some auditions and I had management, which still continues. Young Concert Artists was very helpful; they introduced me to Emanuel Ax, who then accepted me as his student at Juilliard. Engstroem, the organizer of the Verbier Festival also convinced me to go New York. I had first gone to their Academy – Master classes in 2008/9 and then Engstroem had invited me to play a recital this year. I would have thought Paris or London. Engstroem pushed me further.”

And he loves it. Lucky to have found an apartment close to Juilliard, he practices at the school, daily. “At home I was always a bit lazy about practicing, since ...well it was home, there were distractions. But here, you pass by the practice rooms and I am motivated; everyone else is doing the same thing,” the pianist continues.He enjoys the musical input both his teachers, Ax and McDonald, provide. They don’t talk much technique.

Schwizgebel –Wang likes to listen to both their personal suggestions, of how to go about different phrasings, musical structure and interpretation. “Sometimes there are small changes in details that transform the whole idea of the piece” , he claims, getting the most out of his one year graduate diploma process, which he would like to extend to a second year.When we are talking about technique, Louis gets really interested.It is fascinating for any aspiring pianist to know that, despite this pianist’s huge talent, his accomplished performances and his aspirant career, he can admit to constant insecurities, or rather a continual questioning of his pianistic technique as the reliable craft to forge all the wonderful promising artistic ideas.

How to produce the full tone he wants for a particular place in the music? How to get into the keys so the planned sound effect won’t be too harsh, but loud enough?There are obviously different stylistic ways to approach the piano, for example when playing French, impressionist music like Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, that Louis is preparing for his upcoming Merkin Hall recital.

“Something about the touch light, precise and this clear accuracy, is more tangible for me and easier to instinctively grasp then let’s say Brahms or Schubert,” he says.So what is it one has to focus on practicing, considering one can prepare two Beethoven Sonatas in 8 days? “I am not crazy about “exercises.” I make up my exercises according to each piece I play and I like to know all about the music I play. And I would love to understand technique in general better, what enables you to feel comfortable at the piano. “

As his teacher McDonald had mentioned the Taubman approach, I offer to introduce him to Edna Golandsky, who is the most renowned specialist in Dorothy Taubman’s inquisitions of natural piano technique. (See my article: http://english.getclassical.org/2009/12/19/crafting-the-well-tempered-pianist-introducing-the-taubman-approach/)It is fascinating to see the interaction when huge talent meets with the lifelong experience in a piano coach like Edna Golandsky, who has welcomed many pianists, expanding their horizons in seeking her advice. Louis plays a movement of Schubert’s Sonata in A major, Haydn Sonata in C Major and some of Ravel’s gaspard de la nuit. Edna admires his talent and realizes he is on the search of how to get that ever-escaping quality of tone, effortlessly and reliably.I am honored to be present at their session: “What’s on your mind?” she asks him, after he played for her. He explained that he never really had a completely comfortable technique; “I had always been searching, starting out with a too high wrist and tension. I wanted to play difficult pieces too young and had to find a way to be able to play them. McDonald gave me some new advice that made me feel somewhat better about how to go into the keys, somewhat diagonally, not gripping the keys, as I was doing before, but I am still searching…”Edna has a different approach, pointing out the very natural alignment of the forearm, hands and fingers. There is no one position that can be kept continuously:”Curling the fingers is one of the biggest reasons for tension, she says, but a thrust forward creates a finger action that can be counterproductive just the same as grabbing the keys, which has an effect of making you “fall off” the piano. Sometimes changing one approach for another can make one feel better. But the real answer is to get rid of any tension.”Edna went onto tell Louis that the depth in his tone, comes from the weight of the forearm, which negotiates also the sideward movement on the keyboard. There is a sense of forward balance, opposed to falling back. She recognized that he has a lot of imagination in his playing and brings out color changes, but there could be a deeper sound:”That comes from the forearm, by slowing down the key speed with a rotational movement,” she explains.Louis gets the hang of it, immediately. Edna asks him, “How is that? ““Comfortable,” Louis confirms, nodding thankfully.“Paying attention to the alignment allows you to feel more grounded, more supported. In order to bring out sounds, especially when we are talking about a soft sound, people hold up their arms, their shoulders, not daring to make a too big sound. Sound is not at the bottom of the key, but slightly before that. Therefore you don’t aim for the bottom,” Edna explains to him.“You release more power, when you are not forcing into the key, like when throwing a ball. With the timing of the key and the power of the forearm, there is a lot of variety of tone, and a bigger sound. Just be careful not to break the wrist and not to collapse at the knuckles. Breaking the wrist can quickly lead to injuries, and usually, when the wrist collapses, the shoulders go up as well. Maybe your higher wrist position tried to make up for this. In any case, when it’s correct, the hand does not want to do anything else, it’s totally comfortable and there is no difference if it’s in concert performance or practicing.”Schwizgebel-Wang is enthusiastic about his initial visit, as he tells me afterwards: “It really helps! I was expecting something more complicated but actually it is so simple and natural. I am looking forward to practicing in this direction. “

Lucky to be open-minded and not deterred by some of the ghosts of critical rumors about the Taubman approach, he will have the opportunity to visit Edna again, as questions arise. But for those not near New York, there are the 10 tapes, introducing the principles of the method which are available at the Golandsky website. http://www.golandskyinstitute.org/

On top of it he is great fun, as I experienced first hand when he visited with my family for dinner and joined with Juilliard co-student David Aladashvili into a spontanious Schubertesque salon performance. And maybe we will experience some of the impressive, positive results of Louis’s new approach to tone production in his piano technique during his upcoming Merkin Hall recital. We hope it will be a more comfortable, effortless experience for him… as he will be able to craft his wonderful musical thoughts more freely.His website is: http://www.louisschwizgebelwang.com/

Pianist Fred Hersch

2012-01-15T18:39:00.000-08:00

Fred Hersch - Photo Matthew Sussman

I first heard about Fred Hersch -- who, now in his mid-fifties, has played gigs in about every major New York Jazz venue -- in a very different way. In The Insanity Hoax, author Judith Schlesinger makes her convincing point that the surplus in creativity, inherent in a great musician’s/ great artist’s life, does not necessarily make for mad geniuses and that, if anything, our great geniuses ought to be celebrated, not diagnosed.Hersch, a survivor of a recent Aids- related loss of conscience and a miraculous, full recovery into previous pianistic greatness, confirmed:”Putting labels on anything is dangerous. Everybody is diagnosed these days with something…disorder of this, disorder of that…and treated with medication. And what is normal? Within the creative process of anybody, there is something akin to some sort of mania, an energy trying to capture something before it gets away. Inevitably, there is a crash following afterwards. You have to live with what you have accomplished and recuperate yourself. Maybe there are only a few days in between these creative bouts, but every true artist needs to recover from such an intense creative input. And after all, even if you want to call it creative madness, I see it as ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.”Moving to New York in the late 1970s, Hersch, who was classically trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, learned to play jazz firsthand from playing with greats such as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer and Charlie Haden. “Hersch’s music best connects to the jazz tradition of Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman. It’s luxurious, free-flowing, unashamedly gorgeous jazz – idiosyncratically, unmistakably a creation of his own, “ David Hajdu explains in his New York Times portrait of Hersh. (January 28th, 2010) Hersch has held several teaching positions himself at various music institutions like the Manhattan School of Music, the New School University and Western Michigan University but recently returned to his teaching position at the New England Conservatory, one of his favorites for its special atmosphere and appreciation of the musicians. He has left his mark on a young generation of talented pianists, including Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson. ”In the twentieth century everything got so divided. Now, slowly it merges together again. I do like to play Brahms, Beethoven and Scarlatti Sonatas. I have a program with improvisations that also includes, on occasion, the Mozart No. 27 concerto, next to different arrangements of the program. As pianists we have this amazing literature at hand…” saysHersch.

Photo: Steve J.Sherman

Some of his compositions are published by Peters Edition.“I love the piano and what it can do, beyond what isFred Hersch photo:Steve J.Shermanstandard for jazz pianists,” he says. “A good performance is when it really tells a story. There is a formidable skill set necessary to be a jazz musician. You have to be able to transpose, improvise, you have to understand chord symbols, different styles and be able to accompany. Most important is the rhythm. Timing can be developed to a certain point, but you have to feel it in your guts – that can only be taught to a certain degree. When I perform, I go to the venue beforehand, maybe for 45 minutes or so, make myself comfortable with the piano and then I plan the first tune. In performance I close my eyes and take it from there. I am in my own world then. But I can feel if the audience is with me. If I discover something new, the audience feels it and gets excited as well. I always assume they are sophisticated until I am proved different.”His teacher, Sophie Rosoff at the New England Conservatory, was an assistant to Abby Whiteside, who had challenged the finger- centric approach of piano technique and instead advocated a holistic attitude, where the whole(upper) body acted in natural conjunction with and in support of the (so called weak) fingers, making it unnecessary to train finger ”strength” with useless exercises. Whiteside also believed in an intrinsic feeling of rhythm, an innate sense of phrasing that she observed in the natural ability of a child prodigy and jazz pianist. (from: Wikipedia)To get an introduction into jazz, Hersch recommends: “Pick any song, improvise on it and see where it leads you. Listen to jazz; it’s a language you can’t just put on like a hat.”I personally can recommend his Alone at the Vanguard, a Palmetto production from 2011, which documents his second run of a week-long engagement as solo-artist of the famous New York Village Vanguard. The CD is nominated for two Grammy Awards: for Best jazz Instrumental Album and for Best Jazz Improvised solo (for his interpretation of Monk’s work)The large scale production of “My Coma Dreams,” a work for 11 instruments, actor/singer and animation/multimedia was directly inspired by his real life event. The project, which Hersch describes as his “most personal and probably most ambitious one,” was realized in 2011.Hersch is a dedicated member of the gay community and it has been always an important agenda for him to support fund raising benefits, like the AIDS charity Classical Action supported by IMG co-founder Charles Hamlen.As we near the end of our conversation he suddenly acknowledges energetically:”Now I am looking for the next big thing! The last one (he refers to the Coma Project) involved theater. I recently had an idea for a musical, but it did not come through yet. I like text and would love an opportunity to incorporate text and music.”In the meantime, pianist Natasha Paremski, who in September 2010 was awarded the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, will perform his Improvisation on a theme by Tchaikovsky, a commission by the Gilmore Foundation she was able to choose as the winner of the prestigious Gilmore Prize. She will perform it at the 2012 Gilmore Festival. Fred Hersch will perform at the Village Vanguard on February 7-12th with his “working band,” Fred Hersch Trio that includes John Hébert on bass and drummer Eric McPherson.He will also perform as soloist at the Jazz Standard on March 18thFred Hersch's website: http://www.fredhersch.com/

Israeli Chamber Project

2012-01-11T21:46:00.001-08:00

February 1st. 2012 at 7.30 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall

Founded in 2008, the Israeli Chamber Project is a stunning group of young, but accomplished, entrepreneurial Israeli musicians who live in the United States and share – besides their individual musical talent - a mission that connects them. As the group’s Executive Director and one of their two pianists, co- founder Assaff Weisman puts it:”Our mission rests on three pillars: First of all we feel passionate about giving something back to our native country, Israel. There is virtually zero funding for the arts available in Israel; the country simply cannot afford it. Therefore a lot of its most talented youth are leaving – like we did -- in order to further their education and their performance possibilities, which are necessary for an international career in music. This causes a “brain drain,” so to speak, leaving the country without good teachers to inspire the next generation. So we want to tour and give back to the younger generation, by teaching and inspiring them. Secondly, we are reaching out to the public in Israel with our concerts by not only focusing on the typical cultural centers such as with our concert series in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but by bringing classical music also to Kibbutzim, to the Negev and Arab towns. We offer classical music culture to these more remote areas, where we like to introduce the music of traditional and contemporary composers. Our educational tours include master classes and also individual instrumental lessons at local music schools, and typically end with a concert, where we often include the students of the day. This is not a one-time deal; we are returning and are privileged to share in the progress. “And,” Weisman continues, “of course we reach out to the American public, here, at our new home, and encouraging a cultural sensitivity for Israel. We are all Israeli and our common background is very connecting. People have told me lots of times that there is a special feeling which projects to the audiences. We support Israeli arts by commissioning works by contemporary Israeli composers, among them Matan Porat, Jonathan Keren, Amit Gilutz, and Gilad Cohen. But of course we have a wide range of repertory which we perform. Our honest approach without any pretense has been rewarded by a very positive response from our audiences so far, and our first CD will be released by the Azica-label this season, distributed by Naxos.” The group, which consists of eight core members, includes a string quartet, two pianists, a harpist and a clarinetist. At their Carnegie Hall debut, two to six musicians will perform in varying combinations. Each of the musicians has already a reputation in their field. Assaff, former student of Juilliard’s eminent Herbert Stessin (also teacher to Jeremy Denk and Orly Shaham) who had helped nurture some of the most successful pianists of the younger generation, is teaching four classes at Juilliard’s Evening division himself, besides concertizing extensively with Israeli Chamber Project and also in his solo- career, as concert pianist. Prior to his studies in New York, Mr. Weisman studied with Professor Victor Derevianko in Israel and was supported, like all members of the Israeli Chamber Project, by scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Many of the artists go way back to a shared upbringing in their hometowns in Israel. Others met at Juilliard. Says violinist Itamar Zorman, the youngest member of the group:”Michal and Tibi took me into a practice room, explained to me about the group and its ideas and I said, of course I would love to join. I had played before as a trio with Michal, who is an amazing cellist, and the pianist Itamar Golan. With Sivan, our harpist, I had also played at a festival at the Jersualem Academy in 2004. “ Zorman is the winner of the 2011 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Russia and grew up in Tel Aviv where he met Weisman. He was inspired by two other young Israeli musicians, who helped him tremendously, through the Ilana Feher Foundation. Violinists Ittai Shapira and Hagai Shaham were not only instrumental in getting him a grant that allowed for a recording and a debut recital, they were also a true support in giving sound advice in making decisions, concerning his future career steps. Performing within the Israeli Chamber Project, not only is “a lot of fun, since I really love playing with this group of people,” but he also believes in their mission, the opportunity to pay back the kind of support he received: “The level of education in Israel overall is very high. There are many teachers of the older generation, who received their training in the former Soviet Union and there is also a good vision about music. There are some big studios and some amazing talent. But I am trying to introduce a new point of view which won’t interfere with, but enhance their work. Besides my love for Schubert and Brahms, I am also bringing my love for contemporary music along and I found in general that Israelis are a very open minded audience. At the same time I enjoy performing Israeli contemporary composers in America, as well as new music in general. It maybe generational, symbolizing the rhythm of our time. Of course there is something in modern music, touching on the general human condition just like in any music, but there is also something specific in its modern idiom. Our responsibility as performers is to present it as masterfully performed as we strive for with the classical icons, even though too much reverence stands sometimes in the way of just being in the moment; another ‘forte’ of contemporary music that does not carry the weight of its own history.” Last summer, attending the Marlboro Festival, Zorman and harpist Sivan Magen met with composer Matan Porat. “We performed Matan’s requiem, an extremely effective piece, especially when we played it at midnight at the Festival.” This coming summer he will attend the music festival at Verbier, hoping to open up yet new horizons.Program on February 1, 2012 at 7.30 At Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie HallShostakovich, Trio for piano, Violin, Cello in C minor,Op. 8 Sebastian Currier, Night Time for Harp and violinMartinů Chamber Music No.1Paul Ben Haim Three Songs Without Words (arr. for Clarinet and Harp)Brahms Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, in A minor, Op. 114 Tibi Cziger, clarinetSergey Tarashansky,violaAssaff Weisman, pianoMichal Korman, celloItamar Zorman, violinSivan Magen, harp

Do high scores in competitions equal playing it safe?

2011-12-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

Carnegie’s Zankel Hall piano recital on December 5th
was part of the Mixon First Prize, granted to this year’s Cleveland International Piano Competition winner, the personable German pianist Alexander Schimpf. Aged 29, he was on the more mature side among a group of 28 competitors. His choice of repertoire, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4, the only offered classical-period work, may have helped to impress the
jury.
It certainly served him well in competing with three other
final-round competitors in Cleveland, gaining him the sought after credit with
the jurors, as well as some rave reviews from the critics.

Photo by Balazcs Borocz

At Zankel Hall, Schimpf’s general tone was ranging from
admirable to beautiful with, at times, filigree-like execution. He mastered his
all-German repertoire with all its nuances, from introspective to devout, with
reliable inner voicing.
It was in the more expressive passages that needed a larger
dynamic range, where Schimpf’s quality and power of tone was lacking. Failing
to build up momentum when approaching a crescendo, his delivery either sounded
harsh, because he arrived at it too sudden, or not powerful enough. The
somewhat monotonous character of his program choices did not help him here. I
would have liked to ask him whether it might have been the piano that gave him
a hard time, or the acoustics of the hall, which might have given him a false
sense of how his performance was perceived by the audience in the hall. It
almost appeared to me, as if he did not want to disappoint a teacher, who may
have once scolded him for ‘banging too loudly’: his ‘louder’ passages needed to
be fuller, played more freely and with more charisma – he seemed to hold back –
perhaps playing it safe?
Even in the contemporary piece, written for him by the young
German composer Adrian Sieber, “…und schon erglüht”(…and already in embers) and Sieber’s “Fantasie II”, there
seemed to be relatively little build-up of its dynamics. While this did not
seem completely inconsistent with the piece’s abrupt modes, it presented an
almost unforgivable holding back in Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D.960,
which could have been otherwise, quite refined.
Since Mr. Schimpf’s emotionally serious and sensitive
approach to the piano is quite obvious, especially in Bach’s English Suite No.3 and beatific Encore. One may wonder if
certain qualities like ‘playing it safe’ had been promoted for use during the stressful
rounds of a competition. Was there a misunderstood fear of sounding too
virtuosic?
One may ask, if playing and winning competitions comes with
its very own set of rules, which might, very well, differ from those employed
when trying to captivate an audience. And what does a jury need to hear when
judging competitors, as opposed to a performance that captivates the audience’s
attention? But why would one differ from the other, if the ultimate reason for a
pianist taking on the taxing environment of a competition is to build a
reputation, attracting the attention of critics and the public, which, in turn,
leads to new opportunities to perform.
There may be many different answers to this question,
largely depending on who offers their point of view.

Photo by Joshua Gunter

There are also artists who
refuse to play at competitions, despite the opportunities this exposure might present.
For Mr Schimpf, winning a major competition not only brought
him to Zankel Hall, but it will offer him the opportunity to play 50 recitals worldwide.
For more information on Alexander Schimpf go to
http://www.alexander-schimpf.de/main_en.html

Easts meets West in Toronto - Julliard piano duo "Salute to the Phoenix"

2011-12-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

Classical pianists Michael Berkovsky and Lang Ning Liu are both very insightful and sensitive pianists. Although from different corners of the world, they share the experience of having studied at Juilliard. Now they have reconnected again.After earning his Master’s degree at Juilliard, winning the school’s concerto competition, and performing at Avery Fisher Hall in 2008, Michael continued his musical studies at Peabody/ John Hopkins, and - made the performance prize again, which entitled him to a solo recital at the Baltimore Art Center and one with orchestra, under the baton of Leon Fleisher. I remember his solo performance a few years back very well, not only for the warmth and colorfulness of his interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, but also for the fact that mid-performance, the concert hall suddenly turned pitch-black. Unfazed, Michael handled the situation audaciously, just as the legendary Myra Hess did, when she continued to play her concert despite the sound of the sirens during the London Blitz. Michael completed his studies at Peabody with a Ph.D. in music performance. His extraordinarily warm and generous personality does not allow for an extravagant ego – a fact that has been winning him many friends and supporters where ever he goes.As Lang Ning thought about ways to get her friends interested in her concert performances, she came up with the idea of integrating Chinese folk tunes and new classical repertoire. This allowed Michael and Lang Ning to not only address a young audience, but also to reach large new audiences, like Toronto’s Chinese community. Lang Ning’s concept clearly speaks to the ever-increasing entrepreneurial instincts of young musicians.Toronto’s Chinese community (the second-largest after the one in Vancouver) has a growing number of classical music enthusiasts, who are attending a multitude of recitals and performances. Their vigorous support of young talents is something to be counted on, and has fostered a special appreciation for classical music. Ever since Lang Lang’ s phenomenal success, artists of Asian heritage have become part of the international concert circuit in increasing numbers, showcasing also more and more female talent, and thus promoting the newfound gusto and artistic dynamism of the young Asian female performer.Already for the past decades, the number of students of Asian heritage among the students at American and Canadian music schools and conservatories has risen steadily, with highly talented musicians now growing up with the Western canon providing an interesting influx of Asian culture. Especially at internationally renowned institutions, like the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, or the Juilliard School in New York, a young generation of musicians, instrumentalists and composers has been able to establish themselves in the local and international classical music scene. (See my article about the young composer Huang Ruo http://english.getclassical.org/2010/05/16/180/)Pianist Lang Ning Liu began her studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, making her orchestral debut with the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra at age 10. At age 17, she attended the Glenn Gould Institute at Toronto and then studied at Juilliard in New York from 2003 to 2008, returning to Toronto with a Master’s degree in piano performance. She is now in the process of establishing an international performance career and has been mentioned extremely favorably by the international press. This month she was the Toronto Concert Orchestra’s featured soloist when they performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 under Kerry Stratton, at the Toronto Arts Centre.The young pianist is not only renowned for her steely technique and musical competence, but also for her involvement in several outreach programs invested in classical music. She is the founder and artistic director of the Toronto International Piano Competition and the CCC National Canadian Piano Competitions, and she serves as a Youth Ambassador for the Chinese Culture Centre of Greater Toronto. For one of her recent music projects, she reconnected with fellow Juilliard graduate and pianist Michael Berkovsky, who now also lives in Toronto. What started out as a gig playing Astor Piazzola tangos - a favorite of Berkovsky’s - turned into a successful joint venture, named after the institution that connects the two pianists: The Juilliard Duo.At Juilliard, Michael and Lang Ning Liu both studied with Julian Martin. Even though Lang Ning started slightly earlier, this shared experience influenced the musical development of both pianists tremendously. Their new project involves the transcription of Chinese folksong material the two Juilliard graduates feel passionate about. "100 Birds Salute the Phoenix" by Wang Jian Zhong, transcribed for two pianos by The Juilliard Duo, currently exists as an enchanting Youtube clip, performed by Michael Berkovsky and Lang Ning Liu. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDN5TSfPq0E&feature=share“It is all about reaching out to a different audience, incorporating our own creativity,” says Michael in Toronto, as he tells me about the old folk story of the phoenix “100 Birds Salute to the Phoenix” is based on: The phoenix was a plain bird, hardworking and honest. She saved up food, unlike the other, more colorful birds that did not care and think to prepare for harder times. As times turned into a famine and the birds were starving, the phoenix shared her saved food and so saved them. Being very thankful, they each gave her a feather, and the plain bird became the most colorful and most beautiful of them all …the ‘one for all and all for one’ ideology comes to mind.”Michael is happily settled in Toronto and, for the first time since his family moved from their native Russia to Israel, and then on to the U.S. for his Master’s degree at Juilliard and his doctorate at Peabody in Baltimore, Michael feels he is establishing a home for himself. While he has performed internationally as a soloist, he also loves the idea of playing with another pianist: “The energy is different than playing chamber music, and there is great communication between two pianists … a great energy flow and mutual understanding, and it’s not as lonely as playing solo repertoire.”Right now, Lang Ning Liu and Michael are in the process of arranging “Yellow River”, a composition based on Chinese composer’s Xian Xiang’s 1939 cantata. Since its politicized premiere in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution, the Concerto has become popular in China and amongst overseas Chinese nationalists. It is noted for a difficult solo part. Berkovsky and Liu will re-create a two piano version. These days Michael and Lang Ning also work on preparing a concert tour that will take them to 5 cities in China, this coming summer to present these works.

Julian Rachlin – and friends; 'Facebook' concept of social networking revisited for classical musicians

2011-10-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

Julian Rachlin Photo: Julia Wesely
When I had the pleasure of hearing the young violinist Julian Rachlin performing live and seeing him in action at this year’s summer festival at Verbier, it was clear that this performer had something more to offer than a beautiful tone-palette on the violin (and the viola for that matter, his second instrument of choice). His recent interest in conducting also must contribute to transmitting his widening spectrum of deep involvement with the classical music he loves.

Most definitely this artist has shown determination in establishing a powerful artistic communication on many different levels. For one thing, he integrated the classical music world with personalities from the film industry. This he tried and succeeded with at his own “Julian Rachlin and Friends” Music Festival in the Croatian Dubrovnik. James Bond film legend, Roger Moore, proved a fascinating lover of classical music getting involved with Prokofiev- readings of Peter and the Wolf, and the classical comedian team Igudesman& Joo, longtime personal friends of Rachlin, spoofed away at the festival and beyond on their you- tube gigs which have been followed by their millions of fans, since the festival’s inauguration in 2001.

“I fell in love with the medieval town, and at the time – I was 25 years old- the festival that had enjoyed a great tradition in the sixties and seventies before the war, was completely bankrupt and many monuments still lay in ashes. The revival of the festival was offered to me, if I was able to bring them even just two or three amazing musicians, like Vengerov, Bashmet or Maisky,” remembers Rachlin, about the beginnings of his involvement in Dubrovnik, after a performance there.

And sure enough even at his early age, Lithuanian born Rachlin, who has been based in Vienna since 1978, was able to rely on his good contacts and ability to connect– a talent in itself, which helped him build the festival into a yearly attraction, with financial support of the newly founded “friends of Rachlin and friends” in the US and Austria. It is now in its eleventh year attracting an array of world famous musicians, from conductor Zubin Mehta to Rachlin’s long -term mentor, pedagogue and chamber-musician, Boris Kuschnir.

Photo - Rachlin with Zubin Mehta at Dubrovnik's Festival "Rachlin and Friends"

In 2010, Rachlin was officially appointed UNICEF ambassador, raising money and awareness for projects, supporting underprivileged children all over the world.

“I have also started an intense collaboration with the soccer club of Barcelona, whose entire team is an ambassador for UNICEF as well. That allowed me to connect my love of soccer and bring this interesting alliance into the classical music arena. This connection just begged to be further developed into the UNICEF soccer -gala event at my festival in Dubrovnik, mixing ex-celebrities of the football team with musicians and football enthusiasts from the media. The children get inspired by the interaction of all their heroes.”

Inspiring is his whole viewpoint of bringing classical music to a new level of “coolness” for a younger generation of musicians and their audiences. He reaches out to the older generation of accomplished “greats” validating their high professionalism, as well as to the younger crowd, and so his circle of friends seems to be growing steadily in the process. The classical musician as a hero – on the same status as a football pro, or film star – nothing seems to be impossible for Rachlin’s admittedly contagious enthusiasm.

While building on the old and incorporating the new does not seem like an entirely new concept initially, Rachlin’s sure entrepreneurial instincts and personal integrity have proven successful in bringing people from all different directions together and has gained him stout support and a great following.

Without the “dumbing” down aspect of classical music, used by so many, through crossovers into other more popular music genres, he is guarding the integrity of classical music and its protagonists.

Julian Rachlin Photo:Julia Wesely

“Classical music will never die, but we have to find new ways of packaging it to warrant what it takes to achieve its highest quality, “says Rachlin quoting his old time friend, cellist Misha Maisky.”On a personal note, I recognize all the great individual efforts of some of the most prestigious agencies that went into building my professional reputation, even if now I have decided on a different approach.” Since this year, Rachlin has hired a smaller management’s representative, the entrepreneurial Alexia Blumenthal, focused to bring all of Rachlin's and his many friends’ endeavors under one umbrella. She is continuing to expand horizons for Rachlin’s outreach into North- and South America.

This Friday, October 14th, Rachlin will open the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new season under the baton of Charles Dutoit, in his final season as the orchestra’s chief conductor of thirty years, with Sibelius’s violin concerto.

Rachlin has performed with the venerable conductor, who will continue collaborations with the Philadelphia Orchestra as their conductor laureate during their 2012-13 seasons.

Further upcoming performances for Rachlin include engagements with: The Israel Philharmonic (Zubin Mehta); Orchestra Filharmonica della Scala (Daniel Harding); Leipzig Gewandhaus (Josep Pons); Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (Yannick Nézet-Séguin);Detroit Symphony(Leonard Slatkin); and the Orchestre National de France (Daniele Gatti). He will also continue his play/direct performances with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields,the Camerata Salzburg, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Moscow Virtuosi.

With his regular duo partner, pianist Itamar Golan, Rachlin will perform a series of recitals, including a Beethoven Cycle at the Beethoven fest in Bonn and a Brahms Cycle at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. Currently composer Krzysztof Penderecki is writing a Double Concerto for Rachlin, to be premiered at the Vienna Musikverein in 2012 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mariss Jansons.

Pianist/composer/poet/visual artist/ Lera Auerbach- surreal creativity!

2011-10-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

Lera Auerbach Photo: F.Reinhold
Sure, she is a great and spirited pianist, but the piano is just one of the many outlets of her creative inspiration, part of the sheer endless facets of her artistic persona. She is widely in demand as one of today’s most convincing and versatile composers and her Russian poetry already qualifies as required reading in Russian schools and universities and has received the prestigious Pushkin Prize (1996) for Literature. She also posts an articulate blog called the trouble clef on the Best American Poetry website. And that is not all. She has lately created some impressive visual artwork, which will receive its first exhibit at Moscow’s gallery Sistema, this year. She describes her latest artistic impulse as therapeutic, especially after she had lost all personal belongings, including her beloved Grand piano to a devastating fire, two years ago on the day before her birthday. A collage of burned pieces belonging to that lost piano of hers has a dedicated, private place on her wall.
As to her music, her compositions that to some extent relate to the musical language of Shostakovich, range from the most intimate works, such as her moving 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano which I heard her perform with cellist Gautier Capuçon at the Verbier Festival this July, (she often performs her own work in the tradition of pianist- composers of the 19th and 20th century) to grand- scale works like her brand new opera Gogol. This work, performed in her native Russian language, will receive its World premiere at the Vienna Theater and der Wien, October 15th, commissioned by the Vienna Theater, with German subtitles. In Gogol, Auerbach tries to create a “dreamlike vision of {the writer’s} inner passions, madness and genius” and the 1973 Russian-born artiste, who has a definite ardor for the dramatic narrative, relates to the Russian element strongly from experiences within her own personal and cultural Russian-Jewish heritage. “Russian history is a nightmarish fairytale from which this country may never awake,” posted Auerbach on her April blog post, a belief that she artistically also explored in an earlier work of hers, Russian Requiem, in 2007.
As composer-in- residence of the Bremen Music Fest at the time (from 2006-8), in cooperation with the Bremen Gesellschaft (interestingly, once the commissioning entity for Brahm’s German Requiem), she was given the opportunity to create her dream piece. “With all the tragic events in Russian history of repression, the constant suffering,” she explains in her animated vibrant Russian accent, “I wanted to start with the dramatic effect, the sounds of bells – original bells – ringing and the orchestra joining in, not like in a normal concert performance but rather like during a mass. They dealt with all my crazy ideas, and made the impossible, possible. The great Cathedral in Bremen lets its bells ring only for a special mass or in case of emergency. So they created a special mass for the birth of my new work, finishing 20 minutes before the concert and thus letting the bells ring in the orchestra’s performance, with the doors of the orchestra hall wide open, allowing in the sound of the bells. It was quite a grand spectacle and the Russian Requiem travelled further to Cuenca (as co-commission by the Spanish festival of religious music) and to Riga.”

Lera Auerbach Photo:F.Reinhold

My meeting with Auerbach at her prewar New York apartment on the Upper Westside took place at a most busy time. She had just come back from giving piano recitals in Dresden and is in the middle of writing another Requiem mass for choirs, orchestra and soloists, commissioned by the Dresden Staatskapelle, where she is composer in residence this season.
The new Requiem mass is planned to premiere in February of 2012. But right now she is wanted back in Europe for another Premiere of a new A Cappella Opera – The Blind, for the Berliner Kammeroper on October 13, and her Ballet score for Cinderella, for the Finnish National Ballet in Helsinki choreographed by John Neumaier, October 14, which will receive a number of repeat performances in Moscow and Hamburg.

Cinderella
Auerbach likes to talk about the process of artistic creation, a theme she seems to constantly explore actively through her own creations as well as in her own contemplations and observation. In her works the narrative often centers on its aesthetic exploration. In Gogol, for example, the writer’s characters are torturing his existence. He feels tormenting guilt for creating bad characters which becomes a religiously haunting vision, leading him to burn his sinful work. Finally, his created characters hold judgment over their creator.
In Auerbach’s Mermaid, based on the Hans Christian Andersson fairytale, she also explores the relationship between creator and creation. Hans Christian Andersson, who wants to protect his creation, has to admit that the Mermaid has a life of her own, that she is free. That reflects Auerbach’s general attitude to art:”It is irrelevant how you feel, what matters is the work itself. You tune yourself to be the instrument of your creation, the work writes itself. I make a grand plan, but then I let it go, and very often the work turns out differently than I had originally perceived it and I allow it to be…” she says about her creativity. In a recent interview with the German press Auerbach confessed:” I believe that art has much power by creating an image of our presence, for future generations. Art can relate to the most difficult subjects, in the most personal and direct ways. If necessary, it can be on a completely abstract level. And it has the potential of reaching people’s emotions, of making them cry even without them realizing why.”

Gogol

In her young life, Auerbach has gotten used to making hard decisions on her own. When she was only seventeen years old she had to make the choice of whether to stay on alone in the United States – following her Russian concert tour to America, an incredible opportunity for the young Russian pianist – or to return home to her family, but maybe miss the opportunity of a lifetime.
During the decisive telephone call home, her mother, who, in Russia would have protected her every step, encouraged her to decide for herself despite the unknown outcome of any results. It was the time of the Soviet regime’s restricted travel permissions, and this decision involved the selflessness of essentially giving up the hope of spending any time together any time soon, a hard task for the typically Jewish-Russian parents from a provincial region, who had especially guarded their child’s course of life every step of the way. Until her sudden arrival in New York, the sheltered Auerbach had never travelled without being picked up by her parents from the train station.
Growing up in the rather isolated Russian Chelyabinsk, near the Siberian border, Auerbach was strongly connected with her parent’s world of books and music. Her mother, a piano teacher at the local music school, remains her strongest inspiration. It took Auerbach five years, after receiving an artist visa, before she was able to travel back home with a guaranteed return to continue her studies abroad. Only upon the decline of Soviet communism, were her parents finally able to join her in New York, having essentially missed the ten most important years in the young artist’s development. Auerbach was especially happy that her mom was able to attend her Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2002, the only dream she had shared with many of her Western pianist peers. In fact, it was a double debut for her – she performed as a pianist and was the composer of her Suite Concertante for Piano and Violin performed by her with renowned violinist Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica.
The double sided activities of composer/musician are what create the biggest challenges in the logistics of planning out her life. “As much as it’s always important for me to have a piano close to me – and I compose partly at the piano, partly without it – I had to cut down concertizing significantly within the last three years. I have to have longer stretches in between concertizing, to concentrate on composing. The biggest conflict comes, when I am on tour and have deadlines of new works to meet.”
How does her composing influence her piano performance? “I do perform standard repertoire, but I do hear it in a different way and I play only pieces, where I feel I have something new to say. For example I have a very personal way of playing Pictures of an Exhibition by Mussorgsky; I like to take a lot of liberties, typically like the performer- composers of previous generations. There is no such thing as a good piano sound. There is only the magic of making the piano sing in another voice, taking on the characteristics of other instruments. In the hand of a great performer it becomes a psychological means to hypnotize an audience into accessing their imagination in the best possible way.”
Auerbach does not experience her being a woman as a decisive factor in her career. “It is a question of perception. I for myself see no difference, and you choose to be above those limitations, “says Auerbach, acknowledging that double standards still do exist to a certain extent. But she feels as though “she doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody,” and the young, married artist, who does not see children in her life, simply replies: “My opuses!” to that question.
Besides her studies at the Manhattan School of Music and at Juilliard, where she studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition with Milton Babbitt and Robert Beaser, she also spend time with Beethoven specialist, the Norwegian Einar Steen-Nokleberg in Hannover, reporting it to be a very worthwhile experience. Essentially she views a truly engaged self examination, the willingness and curiosity of wanting to continually grow, as the conditions for any successful outcome in the learning process. “When the student is ready, the right teacher will appear” she smiles knowingly.
Named “Young Global leader” by the World Economic Forum in 2007, Auerbach’s Renaissance-style Omni creative presence is fully recognized by her contemporary artistic environment internationally. In Germany she was awarded the prestigious Hindemith Prize and, at the Pacific Music Festival, the Tokyo String Quartet and Sapporo Symphony joined forces to perform her Fragile Solitudes. New York’s Chamber Music Wu Han and David Finckel brought Auerbach’s work to Lincoln Center. Auerbach relies on long time colleagues to keep her works alive, beyond the works’ premieres, such as the Borromeo String Quartet who have performed her entire selection of string quartets and recorded them on an archival recording. She also recognizes the efficiency of the Music Accord Organization, which was formed by different concert organizers, who work together to extend the life of a Lincoln Center premiered work, by taking work on to tour different concert venues.
In the near future, the composer plans to concertize with an artist she admires and has performed with at the Verbier Music Festival recently, Boston based violist Kim Kashkashian, for who she wrote a transcription of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano, arranged for Viola.

Lera Auerbach / Verbier Photo: Aline Paley

On November 15th, violinist Leonidas Kavakos will bring a selection of Lera Auerbach’s Preludes for Violin and Piano, Op. 46a, to Carnegie Hall.
Audio and Video: http://leraauerbach.com/content/audio_video.php
Her website: http://www.leraauerbach.com/
Her blog: http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/lera-Auerbach-the-trouble-clef/

Evgeny Kissin conquers down under

2011-09-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

After an invigorating summer, filled with concerts at the Verbier Music Festival , some preparations for his London apartment’s renovation, and of course some intense practicing in his flat in Paris and on his stopover in Los Angeles, Kissin expands his musical reach to Australia. (Laser light show over Brisbane Photo: Jon Baginsky)
Rather distraught by constant schedule changes due to hurricane Irene and extracurricular distractions, he was getting antsy to return to the piano and prepare for this undertaking. Only once was he willing to converse light heartedly with me about his upcoming trip, and only after he had practiced a good, uninterrupted seven hours at the Los Angeles Disney Hall, located in immediate proximity to his hotel.
Kissin was looking forward to this trip, but not everything was advancing as planned. And nothing is left to chance with this artist. A lot of considerations, like the weather conditions - Kissin does not like extreme heat – practice possibilities, distance to travel without breaks, etc., enter the planning stages of a concert tour around two years before the actual tour begins. A lot of things can change between the planning and the outcome, and his former manager at IMG Artists, Edna Landau, who still keeps in touch with Kissin, always understood the importance of his particularities. She expressed her excitement about the news of his Australia tour to me:”I am quite fascinated to know that Zhenya is going to Australia. When I worked with him he refused to even contemplate such a tour… I wonder what the deciding factor was.”
Whatever the reasons for his initial hesitations, they seem all but forgotten. Most of all, this speaks of a more open and easy going disposition, a change within Kissin himself. It’s a sure sign of his developing some elasticity, an eagerness to stretch and expand the cocoon that has so tightly enveloped this performer, since his early prodigal years.
“I like expanding the geography of my tours in all possible directions – except for non-democratic states. That was the decisive reason for Australia; to play in a country where I have never played before,” said Kissin. When I asked, if he would sightsee while there he said that while nothing concrete has been planned at this time, “I hope that someone will show us around. I always love that, and there will be time for it.”

Evgeny Kissin in rehearsal Photo: Ilona Oltuski
The tour is a combination of Kissin’s partaking in the Brisbane Festival at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre along with three performances at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, following an invitation of Sydney’s Symphony‘s Vladimir Ashkenazy. Ashkenazy just prolonged his post to 2013 as the orchestra’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor. He has been there since 2009.
In a Limelight interview with the maestro in April, Ashkenazy explained: ” how his performance history with the orchestra goes back more than 40 years, to 1969, when he first toured Australia, performing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras…Now, in 2011, as the Sydney Symphony approaches its 80thbirthday and Ashkenazy his 75th, there is a real feeling of an orchestra that has come of age.”
Ashkenazy and Kissin also go way back and have performed a lot of different repertoire together, such as Beethovens’ Third, Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos, Brahm’s First and Second Concertos, Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto as well as Prokofiev’s Second and Third Piano Concerto. Kissin remembers clearly when he first got to know this six-time Grammy winner. “We met for the first time in Moscow in November of 1989 when Ashkenazy came to the Soviet Union for the first time after his emigration. A few weeks later, we both went to Japan and connected over dinner-- Chinese. “
In 2010 their Prokofiev’s Second and Third Piano Concerto recording also received the coveted Grammy Award. Kissin admires his Russian landsman as the extremely fine musician he is:”Being a great pianist himself, he is a superb accompanist.” Kissin’s senior by twenty four years, Ashkenazy took on citizenship of Iceland in 1972 and is currently a resident of Switzerland.
Ashkenazy describes Kissin as a fantastically gifted musician with a distinctly personal voice at the keyboard:”He possesses an enormous natural gift that’s beyond description. There ‘s more to his astonishing mastery of the instrument than a powerful technique and generous tone- when Kissin plays, the piano is his voice, drawing you into the music.” And Peter Czornyi, Sydney Symphony Director of Artistic Planning adds:”For Kissin, music is language, and performance is about communicating meaning. He can conjure a world of imagination - reflective and insightful - even as he dazzles with his astonishing mastery of the instrument.”
On September 11, Kissin will perform at the Queensland Performing Arts Center in Brisbane, among a variety of premiered events, including a nightly laser show shining over Brisbane’s South Bank arts precinct. Kissin will perform his much admired Liszt program, including highly demanding works such as Ricordanza , from Transcendental Etudes and Liszt’s monumental Sonata in B minor, which made Chicago Tribune’s critic John Rhein swoon over Kissin’s “soaring magnificence and superb fusion of virtuosity and poetry” when Kissin was touring his all-Liszt program during the 2010/11 concert season.
The booking of Kissin is described by the Festival’s Artistic Director Noel Staunton, via Katherine Feeney at the Brisbane Times, as a “real coup” for the city. Other “firsts” include more contemporary fare, like the premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Symphonia Eluvim (Symphony of the Floods) influenced by the great floods that weighed down on Brisbane eight months ago, Israeli composer Avner Dorman’s Variations without a Theme and Pulitzer Prize winning American composer John Adam’s Grand Pianola Music, which will all be performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra under the baton of American conductor Asher Fish.
“Kissin coming to Australia for the first time is a long-anticipated and very exciting event for the local pianist population,” says pianist Therese Milanovic from Brisbane. When at first only the Sydney performances were announced, she had considered making the long trip there to hear him play. One can imagine how thrilled she was to find out that he would be doing a Solo recital in Brisbane as part of the Brisbane Festival. “Every serious pianist, piano teacher , and lover of piano music will be there, and she also reports that Kissin has generously offered to informally meet with students of the Brisbane Conservatory.”

Sydney Opera House photo: Haymarket News
Audiences in Sydney will get their chance to witness Kissin’s All-Liszt Solo -program on September 15 at the Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall, followed by Kissin’s performances of Grieg’s high spirited concerto in A-minor under Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on September 22 and then on the 24th., the two maestros will continue their collaboration with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, performing Chopin’s First Concerto.
This Chopin concerto became one of Kissin’s trademarks, when Kissin performed both Chopin piano concertos at age twelve, in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State Philharmonic under Dimitri Kitaenko. The live recording of this performance in 1984 by Melodia and the LP-release a year later is what helped launch Kissin’s reputation in the West as an astounding pianist.
Not only is Kissin expanding his performances geographically but he is also venturing into more contemporary repertoire which will include for example the Barber sonata, in future performances. With his embracing ever new adventures, in a field Kissin has only just attempted in a somewhat cautious manner -- Kissin enters a new invigorating and vitalizing stage in his career.
The journey goes on. Following their Australia performance, Ashkenazy is taking the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on an eleven-day tour to Japan and Korea, joined by Kissin. They will also be joined by the Russian cellist Misha Maisky, who just performed with Kissin in Verbier and the young Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji, performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto, and together will be celebrating his 40th birthday in Japan.

Pianist Julien Quentin: Internationally growing a reputation

2011-08-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

When talking to the young and talented pianist Julien Quentin, it became obvious to me that this generation of young, classical musicians - at least the successful ones-- have definitely adopted something of a jetsetter lifestyle.

I had just met him at Verbier, where he performed for his 5th summer in a row, at the prestigious music festival. Two years ago he had performed at their special celebration “Night of Pianists” that featured different generations of accomplished pianists, Emanuel Ax, Nelson Goerner, Yuja Wang, among others. The festival’s artistic director Martin Engstroem had spotted Quentin, when he had heard his 2004 recording with clarinetist Julian Bliss.

Quentin confirmed the positive impressions I had brought back from Verbier myself (see also my article Musicerati at Verbier):”Verbier is really special in that all the star- artists are all happy to play the game… old and young, everybody is sharing the stage together and there are such musical fireworks.”

Born in Paris, Quentin grew up in Geneva, where his parents opened the “Librairie Quentin,” a connoisseur’s bookstore specializing in rare manuscripts and art books.

He attended both the local High School at Thonon to receive the French baccalaureate and the Conservatory at Geneva, where he studied with the Russian Piano Pedagogue Alexis Golovine.

It was through his teacher that Quentin met with Martha Argerich, who, at the time was residing in Geneva.

He describes listening to the recording of Golovine playing two-piano repertoire with Argerich and how that inspired him tremendously.

Quentin became friends with Argerich’s daughters, two of whom, Stephanie and Lyda still reside in Geneva, while Argerich herself lives in Brussels now.

He describes the most fascinating meeting with one of Argerich’s close friends and an important musical figure, Nikita Magaloff. “One time, as I visited Nikita's home, who let me play for him. He gave me some advice but, most importantly, he acknowledged that I had enough talent to make a life in music. That was a defining moment for me, giving me the self-confidence, to continue on the road I had always felt, was meant for me. It is a wonderful feeling if you know what you want in life. Growing up, a lot of my friends did not know what they wanted to achieve, they had to find themselves. I had a normal upbringing with sports, art and literature all around me. If my parents pushed me, they did that more for my general studies, than for music. I only had my first serious concert at 12, in Thonon. Then right after this in evian at the Rostropovich Auditorium and since then the sirens of the stage haunted me.”

Julien Quentin at Verbier Photo: Marc Shapiro

Quentin went on to continue his studies in the United States receiving his Artist Diploma with Emile Naoumoff, at Indiana University and then his Graduate Diploma in New York, under György Sándor, from Juilliard in 2003.

He shared a lot of his insights, such as why it is so important to understand the individuality of each pianist and what works for him personally: “Every pianist has certain abilities and experiences things differently, learning in unique ways. A lot depends on your individual preference but also on things like your discipline, for example. Also everybody is physically built in ways that influence their particular abilities and ways to function better. For me personally, I could sight read music for hours on end, but the physical playing at the instrument was not as easy to handle for several hours in a row as some others can,” says Quentin. He remembers how he once talked with Argerich about how she accomplished so much in such little time, and he quotes her saying:”Whether you take a week, a day or a minute, what counts is the result.”

“At the end it is really about what you can do and what makes you do it,” says Quentin.

“ You need the will for it since it is solitary work, otherwise you can forget any kind of great music making. But whether it is one or two focused hours or ten hours, which I rarely have the tolerance for physically or mentally, it differs for each pianist, or in pedagogue’s Heinrich Neuhaus’ words:”You can practice at the piano with the score and with the score without the piano, or you can practice without the score and without the piano,” which I do a lot, actually. This mental kind of practicing works really well for me, it gets you a better understanding of the musical scope of the score. It is a very abstract way of learning but it really makes you picture in your mind an ideal line or singing phrase, which you are sometimes too busy to do, while working things out physically. If you think about conductors and composers…that’s how they often figure out the bigger picture.”

Julien Quentin

The development of the so called inner ear, which this method certainly favors, is certainly an inherently important enhancement of musicality and the understanding of a score, and it is clearly helpful with memorization and in generally developing the musical imagination.

Quentin, whose technique has been deemed as “flawless” by the press, tries to follow, what he describes as the natural approach of the so called Russian School, which his first teacher brought to his attention and which, in his esteem in a nutshell, enables one to do more, with less.

This technique encourages the pianist to lead from the forearm, rather than from the fingers themselves, moving effortlessly and efficiently. One can support a particular singing quality of the melodic line, by weight distribution of the forearm.

Great Russian teachers traveled a lot to Europe and America, especially with the fall of the Iron Curtain, but even before that. It may be that with the virtuosic Russian repertoire of the 20th century itself, which he feels at home with intimately, (besides his Russian teachers, his mother’s roots are Polish-Russian, Jewish) influenced a tradition that could be traced back to the great pedagogues like Neuhaus.

But Quentin is also a child of his environment and time. He absorbed French Impressionism and embraces New Music, especially since his time in New York.

After his American years at school, Quentin was no stranger to the club-scene of his generation. “Turntables, weekly shows in bars and lofts, jam sessions and electro jazz were on the agenda at all times; mixing music, inviting other musicians to play together was a very social experience. I enjoyed it tremendously. It was an eye and ear opener for me, just to see how our friends in the audience would react. This was a fresh experience, where we generated crossovers between two worlds. Supporting new composers is almost a duty of a young performer. These are compositions of today’s life, just as it was the case a century or two ago. I am always interested in connecting different works and in collaborations of different techniques and art forms. “

Berlin became Quentin’s latest place of choice, which he loves for its active musical life, allowing him to experiment with new combinations of paired recitals of classical and new music. He likes to use live effects with the piano and add loops and electronic backgrounds and beats to it, developing his own musical blend, which can easily involve improvisation at the piano, with the laptop getting into the picture as well.

For all its possibilities, but mostly for its particular charm, he loves Berlin and for its slightly slower pace. “No rush, wherever I go I have friends who perform and by now I am really lucky, since all work is coming to me via email or phone. “ This youtube video shows Julien with an avid collaborator of his, the violinist David Garrett having fun with Rimsky-Korsakov's " The Flight of the Bumblebee"Flight of the Bumblebee.

His next gigs are in the planning: He would like to produce his own electro tracks and therefore is in touch with the likes of American composer/producer Justin Messina & British producer Martin Wheeler (aka Vector Lovers) to collaborate on future productions. Other jam and studio sessions are also scheduled in the next few weeks in Berlin with various artists from the electronic music and jazz scene.

In the hands of genius - Musicerati at Verbier with Pianist Evgeny Kissin

2011-08-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

In its eighteenth year now, Verbier has its own Festival Academy, Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra, providing young, gifted musicians with the chance to learn from the world’s most noted musicians. Along with this, the musicians and audiences have the wonderful opportunity to be exposed, at this small French-Swiss resort, to an array of world-class performances by the most internationally renowned music superstars.
Thanks to the immense production capabilities of Medici.tv and their sponsors, concerts are transmitted in partly live Internet streaming broadcasts, allowing for virtual worldwide participation. Year after year the artists arrive to partake in an intense program of presentations, master classes, concert performances, as well as to socialize and enjoy the pleasure of being who they are, with the rare chance of being among themselves.
Founder and director Martin T:son Engstroem, as well as a generous network of music loving supporters, make sure of the artists’ enjoyment, by providing lavish dinners for the artists and their entourage at their chalets or restaurants.
Thanks to an invitation from the extraordinary pianist Evgeny Kissin for an interview at this year’s music festival at Verbier, I was able to partake as a member of the press, in an incredibly exciting stay at the festival. While putting together my portrait for the interview, I was especially thrilled to get several firsthand comments from some of the fellow artists Kissin has performed and interacted with over the years.
While all of the concerts presented at the Verbier festival are nothing but first rate, the one of the 26th of July in particular, presented an experience unlike any other. The performance started out with obstacles. Violinist Gidon Kremer was supposed to join in this concert but opted out of performing at the last minute, and famed singer Thomas Quasthoff was unable to perform. This all resulted in what might be considered the best spontaneous improvisation ever.
The sheer star power and massive number of internationally renowned artists, who appeared that night, was simply astounding. Various groupings of paired up artists provided an exhibit of talent that was just astonishing, and as Kremer judged it, not completely unjustifiably, the whole concert carried some of the elements of the high-exalted Hollywood glitterati effect. However, no artistic facet was missing.
There were certainly some gorgeously attractive artists and sexy wardrobes to admire, the limber Yuja Wang who graces – not unlike LangLang- the Rolex’s advertisements throughout Verbier, for example, changed outfits several times during her performances. This did nothing to mar the exceptional talent filling the stage, projecting the raw emotional power of the music. In fact, the charismatic interaction of the performers with each other enhanced the highest possible delivery of what it’s all about – the music.
Joshua Bell, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Ivry Gitlis, Leonidas Kavakos,Roby Lakatos, Julian Rachlin, Vadim Repin, Yuri Bashmet, Mischa Maisky and Gautier Capucon on strings and Denis Matsuev, Yuja Wang, Khatia Buniatishvili, Evgeny Kissin, and the one and only Martha Argerich, with their piano-performances, made sure of that.

Ensemble photo:Aline Paley
The program consisted of shorter selections of musical interludes and included selections of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Kreisler and Shostakovich, as well as some special surprises like Monti Csardas, whose characteristic gypsy resonances added to the incredibly high energy-charged atmosphere in the hall.
Touching and meaningful in forging a personal connection between life and music was Kissin’s dedicated impromptus performance, with Yuri Bashmet, in honor of Bashmet’s father who had passed away the previous day in his native Ukraine. As Bashmet described to me later, Kissin’s supportive gesture of performing the composition of the Czeck composer, Benda, from music Kissin had never seen before (it was faxed from Moscow that same day and both artists were sharing one score) meant the world to him. They had only a couple of minutes before the performance to go through it. The selection spoke highly of Kissin’s support and friendship with the grieving, yet performing, Bashmet.

Bashmet/Kissin Photo: Aline Paley

Bashmet, who had been an acclaimed violist in Russia when Kissin burst into stardom, had been exhilarated when first hearing Kissin’s recital as a 12 year old, performing both Chopin concertos: “It was a revelation, unheard before, like the sky had opened up.” Lovingly, he pointed out Kissin’s timid and modest nature leads him to usually underplay his superior talent and that Bashmet had been struck not only by his own high esteem of Kissin’s genius, but that this estimation was shared by everyone on stage that night.

Repin/Kissin/Bashmet/Maisky Photo: Aline Paley

At Verbier, the audience was able to absorb Kissin’s and Bashmet’s mutual estimation, both in a most touching performance and also from their body language. One could literally feel the sympathy Kissin felt for Bashmet, as he devotedly escorted him off stage, after their performance.
A little bit of the unexpected always brings the audience closer to the mysterious character of a musician’s life. Until the last moment it was unclear whether Martha Argerich - Martha, as she is simply called with iconic admiration- would show as a performer that evening.

Kissin/Argerich Photo: Aline Paley
But alas, she did and she gave – despite her famous nerves and her initial hesitation to perform again right after her tremendous concert just four days earlier- the most stunning of performances in the finale of the evening. Thundering applause acknowledged the extraordinary virtuosity and sheer breathtaking tempi, which she presented with Evgeny Kissin in Lutoslawski’s Pagagini Variations for two pianos. Her sensitive side and charming generosity, though, showed as she shared the stage with legendary old master violinist Ivry Gitlis. Alternatively accompanied by the young pianists Khatia Buniatishvili and Yuja Wang,

Gitlis/Wang Photo: Aline Paley

the old master at age 89, captivatingly demonstrated that true musicianship knows no age.

My biggest wish however was to be present once while Zhenya – as his friends and fellow musicians call Kissin - practiced at the piano. This wish came – if not entirely - to a close realization on the day of that memorable concert.

photo: Kissin in rehearsal

The mere insights gained from witnessing a master musician’s efforts at the piano, how he enhances the secure reliability of memory retrieval, quality and facility in his playing, are instructional and insightful beyond words. To observe how he tries out personal methods of pronouncing different subtleties of touch to produce the ‘right’ tone in a certain passage of the music score, and to just witness the procedure of routine or its diversity would be as fascinating to watch as to take a glimpse into a magician’s toolbox of magic tricks.

While Kissin declined politely, but firmly, my wish to watch him practice, explaining that it would be impossible for him to work while someone else was present, he most generously allowed me to accompany him to his rehearsal before the big night’s performance, provided the other partaking musicians would not object.
Rehearsals had already begun the evening before and continued throughout the day of the concert, at different times for each particular group of artists performing together. Kissin had one rehearsal in the evening before and one that started at noon, which I was able to attend.

A special Verbier moment

The rehearsal was supposed to start with Johannes Brahms’ piano Sonata op. 120, no.2, , in E flat major with Bashmet on viola, running a bit late. Zhenya, who swiftly sat down at the piano, after hanging his leather jacket on the piano’s corner, started to run through sections of the piece. Like me, he loves Brahms, and I was able to share this love from an intimately close distance.
The huge and empty tent structure of Salle des Combins was filled instantaneously with Kissin’s crisp sounding runs, which he attacked from different angles. He started at one place, including a place from a further starting point, then integrated the run in its following passage. He sometimes, but rarely, concentrates on separate hands in a section at a time, and then puts them together. He tries different attacks, faster into the keys, then slower, achieving endlessly breathing phrases that seem to make time stand still, and then he switches to effortless cascading runs that have the natural power of waterfalls. Particularly in chord progressions he seems to use a rather high wrist position, assuring a strong alignment of fingers, hand and forearm, which must be responsible for the total control of his well-balanced shaping of the continuous line of melody.
As Bashmet entered, they conversed in their native Russian and Kissin gave him the internationally understood A to tune his viola according to the grand-piano’s pitch. There will always be this element of mutual communication in music. Since they played mostly through the entire piece without many halts, picking up with a varied pronunciation of a particular upbeat, or the slightest adjustment of tempi, the rehearsal proceeded along speedily. At one point Kissin glanced over in my direction, but maybe he was really directing himself closer to Bashmet to listen more attentively, but for a moment it felt to me, as if he played for me alone.
While some crew people adjusted microphones quite noisily and Bashmet seemed a bit irritated, Kissin lived, at least at this instant, only with Brahms. Bashmet played most softly, only slightly elevating into crescendos, except at the highest climaxes. At the end of the most beautiful Appasionata, ma non troppo allegro movement, I couldn’t help but applaud even though I realized they were not through the entire piece yet. Bashmet smiled because of my enthusiasm and announced they were not finished, but bowed politely thanking me in good humor anyway.
Kissin thanked the page-turner, who had told me while we both waited for him to arrive, how excited she was since this was her first time turning for Kissin.
Kissin continued to review some of the sections again and then threw himself into the ravishing and notoriously difficult piece that would close the evening’s program, preparing for his rehearsal with Martha for the Paganini Variations.

Kissin in rehearsal

And just as I was recovering from my emotional state of my Brahms experience, in walks Martha herself -- the statuesque, grand diva of the festival and a legend in the music world. At seventy, she has not lost any of her youthful appeal, her great spiritedness or her temperamental attitudes. Kissin rose to greet her, they hugged warmly and the two giants of the keyboard were set to deliver a most memorable meeting of the spirits from their respective facing-each-other pianos. Martha generously did not object to my presence and so I was in awe as Kissin fiercely opened the dialogue, as Martha delved into the subtlest sonorities, adding a completely different timbre with the result of combined musical expression that nears the answer to one’s prayers.
Martha was easy going. They leisurely discussed the timing of a certain entrance point and continued through. Martha asked into the audience, which now included another couple of people, “C’etait bien?” Unbelievably to me, she was asking whether this breathtaking performance was working well, so I couldn’t suppress my response “Merveilleux!”
She debated with Kissin whether or not they should do it once more and, to my utmost happiness, they did. “We are safe?” she asked Kissin; “Yes we are safe,” he smiled at her. They are two full-blooded musicians, no question about that. They kissed and I left for a breath of fresh air. Even though I had seen Martha on several occasions during the festival’s concerts from a distance, I had never approached her directly. She joined me on the benches outside the hall, and as she lit a cigarette, we struck up a short conversation. She is easy to talk to and has a very giving personality, which, I believe, is representative of the general atmosphere between the artists that makes for the festival’s success. She herself helps to create an ambience of friendship and connection between the artists, making it possible for them to really feel at ease and actually enjoy a bit of a vacation-like retreat, even though they need to constantly prepare themselves for their ambitious programs.
As she sat relaxed, enjoying her cigarette and greeting passing artists, she portrayed the energy and liveliness of a teenager. We spoke in a mix of French, English and German, and she told me how fond she is of Kissin. “You know, I heard about Zhenya the first time through Daniel Barenboim. I heard his Chopin-concerto recording; unbelievable! I think he was just 12 at the time. And then in the late eighties I met him in Moscow, backstage at one of his performances, when I was there to perform with Gidon Kremer. He asked me for an autogramme, she says smiling. I love Zhenya, there is no one else like him… and I am not just talking about his musical abilities, which are just out of this world, but also as a person. We played together for the first time here in Verbier; I think it was in 1997. He is just so extraordinary. He asked me to come and celebrate his fortieth birthday with me, which is October 10th and he will be on tour in Japan.”
As she got up she asked me what my horoscope is and I told her that I am Taurus. She did not indulge me with what clues that gave her, or which of my characteristics she was curious about, but she smiled mysteriously, as we both returned to the hall for the next round of Kissin’s rehearsal of Brahm’s Piano quartet Op.25, no.1. in G minor. He and Bashmet were joined by violinist Vadim Repin and the equally forever-young and cool cellist Mischa Maisky. Another beautiful Brahms was rehearsed by this all-star Russian band, which in the actual performance during the evening somehow gained quite a bit in speed.
When I later talked with violinist Vadim Repin, who resides both in Vienna and Moscow, he told me he only regrets that destiny does not bring them together more often. But, he said, when it does, it’s a happy moment. Kissin and Repin initially met when sharing the bill at a Moscow recital when they were both aged thirteen. Their friendship formed, growing up together and sharing many good times and chess games during mutual concert tours. ”Personally, as well as in his music making, I think of him as one of the most uncompromising, strong personalities. I would trust him with my life and that extends to the life on stage. He embodies the perfect balance between sensitivity and capable leadership. Beside myself, my whole family adores his personality.”
Cellist Mischa Maisky remembers how he had performed with Kissin for the first time in 2001 here in Verbier, playing a demanding program that left a strong impression upon him. Again in Verbier, two years ago, they performed the Tchaikovsky trio together with Joshua Bell. As he tries to describe what he likes best about performing with Kissin, he mentions that it is actually the perfect balance of all the ingredients required in great music making. “Of course he has great technical facility, heart and sensitivity, but he is also highly intelligent. Everything is there in perfect balance. He is also a perfectionist with extremely high standards, and he knows what he wants. Yet his devotion is inspirational and raises the bar and it’s great to rise to the challenge.”
A common trait that both Kissin and Maisky share is the strong conviction that musicians who stand in the public eye also carry the moral obligation to engage themselves against injustices and for causes they believe in. As Maisky relates: “While one voice alone may not be heard strongly, common efforts can have a cumulative impact. Therefore one should not stay passively, thinking one can’t change anything anyway. At least one must try and believe in its success.“
Just last month, together with Martha Argerich and Gideon Kremer, both of them participated in a concert, held in Strasbourg demonstrating against anti-democratic practices in Russia.
Verbier’s environment offers unique opportunities to forge new, and renew, old friendships that go beyond the bond of music making especially at some of those famed after-parties.

Afterparty

The Israel Chamber Orchestra in Bayreuth – A Conversation with Principal Conductor Roberto Paternostro

2011-07-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

On the occasion of his forthcoming concert in Bayreuth, Robert Paternostro comments on the problematic relationship between Richard Wagner’s notoriously famous anti-Semitism and bridges being built between Israeli musicians and German culture.

Wagner in Bayreuth (Photo)

In 2009, Paternostro became Artistic Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the last in a long list of renowned artists, such as Luciano Berio, Rudolf Barshai, Shlomo Mintz and Philippe Entremont.

In 1978, he had been appointed as assistant to Herbert von Karajan; before that, he had studied with Hans Svarowsky in Vienna, as well as with György Ligeti and Christoph von Dohnanyi in Hamburg. Today, Paternostro is not only renowned for his international and very diverse slate of symphonic performances, but also for his well-received new productions of works by

Wagner, Verdi, Puccini and Strauss.Photo: Roberto Pate

rnostro

His frequent appearances with youth orchestras and up-and-coming artists, and the many television broadcasts of his concerts have cemented his reputation as an artist with a very special flair. A lot of recognition is also based on the good sense for interesting and challenging projects this Viennese conductor with Venetian roots is known for.

Just back from his successful American debut in June, Paternostro is now preparing for the forthcoming concert of the Israel Chamber Orchestra in Bayreuth.

Israel Chamber Orchestra
Works by Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and the contemporary Israeli composer Zvi Avni will be complementing Wagner’s music.

The concert, scheduled for July 26 in Bayreuth’s Stadthalle (town hall), is part of „Lust auf Liszt“, a series of events celebrating the 200th birthday of Bayreuth’s famous son, Franz Liszt.

The Wagner Festival on the “Green Hill” starts on the eve of the Israel Chamber Orchestra’s Bayreuth performance and lasts until August 28, 2011.

Ilona Oltuski: Maestro Paternostro, how did the concert in Bayreuth come about?

Roberto Paternostro: I love, and I have been conducting Wagner’s music for many years now, and I also feel very connected to Israel. Not only professionally, through my work as a conductor, but also personally; many of my relatives live in Israel. When I took up the position of principal conductor in Tel Aviv, I was hoping to be able to somehow combine the two. I was very well aware of the fact that it still is very difficult to play Wagner in Israel. But I wanted to find a way to break the ice.

Ilona Oltuski: It appears that Katharina Wagner, in particular, displays a very refreshing and open-minded attitude …

Roberto Paternostro: Yes … and I have known Katharina Wagner, as well as her father, for quite some time. Serendipitously, her new concepts and ideas for Bayreuth coincided with what I had in mind. I talked with her, and she was very excited about the idea right away; as patron of the concert, she supported me a lot. The city of Bayreuth also offered an incredible amount of support.

Ilona Oltuski: What made you stick with your decision for a concert in Bayreuth, despite all opposition?

Roberto Paternostro: Even before my decision to play the Bayreuth concert I felt a certain curiosity and an openness to take on Wagner’s music in many of my conversations with musicians in Israel. I have to add that for me, above all, this was an artistic decision. I am not a politician.

And I want to again state very clearly that I understand the reservations of people who are opposed to this concert. I do not want to hurt anyone, and I have also discussed the matter with my family – a family in which we are mourning many victims of the Shoa. We do not force anybody to listen to this music. And it was totally up to the musicians in the orchestra to decide if they wanted to go and play, of course. But all of them are going …

I very much agree with the whole discussion, but not if it’s used to score political points, as has happened just recently. On another note, and irrespective of my activities, the first Wagner Association was founded in Israel. This is also a very interesting development.

Ilona Oltuski: Does the performance by the Israel Chamber Orchestra in Bayreuth contribute to coming to terms with the past?

Roberto Paternostro: That’s a very difficult question. The relationship between Israel and Germany is very good, isn’t it? We do not need to elaborate further on the exchange taking place in many areas here. At the same time, I think we can best deal with this past if we come together; also, everything has to be done so that Auschwitz and Birkenau will NEVER be possible again. Perhaps music can contribute to that.

Ilona Oltuski: Artistically speaking, which level of importance would you assign to the Bayreuth performance?

Roberto Paternostro: To speak about the significance of Wagner’s music is pretty much superfluous. Yet, in Israel it has become a symbol for some people. A symbol for everything that is horrific and which can – rightly so or not – be associated with this symbol.

There were composers who were very active in Hitler’s Germany – Carl Orff, for example, or Lehar – and there doesn’t seem to be a problem. Richard Strauss was a very specific case. He had a Jewish daughter-in-law – I knew her personally – and he distanced himself from Nazism.

I have attached a lot of importance to including works of a contemporary Israeli composer, as well as works by Mahler and Mendelssohn in the Bayreuth program. For us, it’s a great joy to do all that.

Ilona Oltuski: Is it, or should it be possible to separate Wagner, the musician, from Wagner, the anti-Semite?

Roberto Paternostro: Yes, because a piece like the very tender and gentle “Siegfried Idyll” which we will be playing – is that anti-Semitic?

Ilona Oltuski: From today’s point of view, what can be said about Wagner’s essay, “Judaism in Music”?

Roberto Paternostro: Terrible. I cannot understand that this man deemed it necessary, for whatever reason, to write such a thing. There’s nothing to be glossed over here.

Ilona Oltuski: Thank you for this conversation, Maestro Paternostro.

Roberto Paternostro (Photo)
Perhaps one can best fight the spirit of an anti-Semitic pamphlet like Wagner’s “Judaism in Music” by a strong Jewish presence in the music business. This is also a position shared by Israeli composer Tzvi Avni who will perform at the Bayreuth concert.

And perhaps one should hope for a time when artistic talent – in this case Wagner’s genius – can be granted a free and open space, to be judged and enjoyed independent of the artist him-/herself.

In the context of this long overdue discussion, the recent announcement that the Wagner archives will be released by Katharina Wagner und Eva Wagner-Pasquier is of particular significance.

Excerpts of this article have been published at Juedische Allgemeine Zeitung http://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/article/view/id/10832 (in German) 7-21-11

Ilona Oltuski@getclassical

Pianist Matan Porat finds new perspectives in Berlin

2011-07-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Three times is a charm, but to be invited for a fourth time this summer to what Alex Ross calls “the classical world’s most coveted retreat,” the Marlboro Music Festival, requires some extraordinary talent.
And talent, the young native Israeli composer/pianist, Matan Porat, has in abundance. What had started for Porat as a 4 hands piano stunt with pianist Alain Planes three years ago at Marlboro continued, even while being busy alternating with Franck Krawczyk in the piano accompaniments for famed British director Peter Brook’s innovative, scaled down “Magic Flute” Lincoln Center debut production.
This production was first presented at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris last year, which the avant-garde inclined Brook had taken over in 1974 partially because of it its rubble appeal. Planes himself bailed out on last minute of the scaled down Paris production which suited Porat, who has a weakness for unusual projects, just fine.
I met Porat the first time this summer, as he improvised a piano accompaniment to Buster Keaton’s “The General” silent film, arranged at the downtown Parkside lounge. This idea was actually inspired by Richard Goode, when, at one of the Marlboro summers, Porat entertained with brilliant improvs on the piano during a screening of the movie “Metropolis.”

Porat at Marlboro 2009

Porat‘s career as pianist started out unusually, for he only began formal piano lessons when he was enrolled at the Tel- Aviv University. Here he began studying composition. Beforehand he had only focused on piano, with his first teacher Emanuel Krasovsky at age 18, whom he describes as a huge artistic influence. He also started to participate in workshops for Daniel Barenboim’s famed West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 2002 in Spain, playing in chamber groups. After his Bachelor’s, he met Portuguese star pianist Maria João Pires at a master class in Paris, who invited Porat to follow her to her farm in Belgais, Portugal as her personal pupil. This was an intense period of artistic exchange, he said, playing for several hour lessons, listening to the world class performer play for him, and interacting with four hand playing sessions. The experience was of a very special nature.
“There was also a children’s choir, for which I composed. It was a unique collection of characters and quite an experience,” remembers Porat, and he goes onto explain how he, after that year, was ready for a completely different experience, namely his two years of studies for his Master’s degree at Juilliard, under Joseph Kalichstein. His New York summers were spent at Marlboro, which he remembers fondly, as well as other renowned festivals, such as Verbier and Ravinia. Equipped with references, he had an opportunity to perform for Murray Periaha, in New York – it was Schuman’s Davidsbündler Tänze, which convinced Perahia, who at the time was suffering severely from the consequences of a hand injury, to invite the talented Porat in 2006 to continue his studies with him in London. At the same time, Porat continued his composition studies with George Benjamin.

Matan Porat

His biggest struggle seems to be how to divide his time between both of his passions: composing and performing. He plays a lot of solo piano as well as chamber music and gets at least a good handful of commissions, as he says, without having to look too hard for any of it.
But one thing is clear: both performing as well as composing have become equally essential for Porat.
“I do not usually like to perform my own works,” says Porat, who likes to think about the recital experience in a creative manner, away from the traditionalist concert setting.
“The recital should be an experience, in which the performer can take his audience on a real journey. There is no need of stifling the performance through the expectations of the program. I value the excitement and spontaneity that becomes possible, when the audience is to trust and follow the performer, similar to the situation during a rock concert.
“The program should be building up through the momentum of its performance, not by the programmed schedule.
“For example: During my concert next season in Montreal, I will start with a Scarlatti Sonata, creating variations on it by playing similar pieces by other composers from Couperin to Boulez, which creates a spectrum of possibilities. This happens by relating Scarlatti and each of the proceeding pieces by motifs or characteristics, rather than by trying to create stylistic coherence. “

The always original Porat

Every couple of months Porat likes to return to visit his family and friends in Israel, often connecting his stay with performance- or composition opportunities. In 2007 he created an operatic project for Tel-Aviv University based on “Animal Farm” and he is thinking about another opera production he has in mind, but does not want to elaborate on at the moment.
For the 8th year, he will partake in the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, directed by Elena Bashkirova, second wife of Barenboim. Porat has had many occasions to work with Barenboim and describes him as perhaps the most inspiring musical figure in his rather broad spectrum of influences.
Bashkirova, a renowned pianist who performs internationally, just commissioned two pieces by Porat, “Night Horses” and “New Requiem”, for her recently founded Berlin Metropolis Ensemble.

Matan (sketched by Roman Rabinowich, friend and pianist)

Berlin has become the ideal environment for Porat, who enjoys the creative vitality of the Metropolis. He compares Berlin with the exciting, vibrant and artistic atmosphere of Paris during the 1920s or London in the 60s and yet Berlin has kept its quaint, not overbearing characteristics such as with New York or London. A bonus is that the city attracts a lot of artists with, as well as without, talent -- it’s still affordable

Reflecting on works in progress:

2011-07-15T19:46:00.001-07:00

New Music Now at the River to River Festival

Known for its variety of innovative cultural events productions, this evening’s fascinating program for the River to River festival was realized by Beth Morrison. River to River promotes cultural life, particularly in downtown Manhattan, and the Beth Morrison Project put its creative initiative into this event’s planning. This evening’s program enveloped me with candle light and surrealistic backdrop video installations, as a sampler of the fantastic collaboration and exchange between the attending musicians.
Paola Prestini, one of the vibrant composers who shared the bill together with Missy Mazzoli and Nico Muhly (whose works were solemnly performed by the Trinity Choir conducted by Julian Wachner at the festival) took the time to bring me closer into the performance of her House of Solitude -A Poet’s Labyrinth. ” The work is still in progress” she explained, “and the completed version will premiere at the Krannert Center in 2013. The KBOW, which is Neil’s bow, was invented by the famed Keith McMillan, triggers sound files and effects but will eventually trigger lighting and film. We are working on that and expanding the piece now… Keith invented Zeta instruments and Neil is endorsing the KBOW.” With intoxicating motions, that seemed to make sound waves emerge beyond the bowing of his violin, the luminous Cornelius Dufallo (see also my article http://getclassical.blogspot.com/2011/06/ethel-quartets-violinistcomposer.html ) performed Prestini’s work in conjunction with a conceptually surrealist and amorphously mood-altering video, designed by Carmen Kordas, which was shown on a back dropped screen.
Mazzoli, on keyboard, performed with the expressive violist Nadia Sirota, to videos by Jennifer Stock as well as Alice Lovejoy. The interplay of this duo had been feelingly explored before. And Mazzoli too, reflects on progress as a constant in her life; making life itself a conscious work in progress.
“Never knowing what is going to happen tomorrow, the adventure of performing, composing, educating, producing…” are her ideas of having a great time with music.

“I am constantly developing and changing my own voice, it is always influenced by new genres, by new and old composers and by visual arts. Inevitably that’s going to change my writing. For example in the moment, I am fascinated with the visual impact of Sol Levitt or the music of John Luther Adams; I am struck by how one can create a piece out of these patterns and create those collages,” says Mazzoli. That does not exclude her fascination with Beethoven’s classicism.
The best thing that happened according to Mazzoli was having had the opportunity to spend time in Amsterdam at 21, on a Fulbright grant, where she studied with Louis Andriessen, who incidentally was named Musical America’s composer of 2010. She describes that period as a powerful life experience, performing in clubs, putting on shows, and traveling with her first band hills not skyscrapers. Upon her return and receiving her Master’s degree from Yale, she held several music related positions, ranging from personal assistant of Meredith Monk to an executive position running the Philip Glass founded MATA festival, where she started as one of the performers. Everything is connected and it is about exposure and cooperation with performers who become friends and a network that leads constantly to bigger and better things.

Recording producer Judd Greenstein, a good friend of Mazzoli, also recorded her first album Cathedral City that was released with her all- female performers band Victoire last September and was ranked one of the best classical CDs of 2010 by NPR, the New York Times, as well as by New Yorker’s own Alex Ross, naming Mazzoli as “a leader of New York’s young moderns.”
Even though she describes it as accidental,that all the performers at Victoire are female, she welcomes the opportunity, in a field still somewhat dominated by male composers as well as instrumentalists, to work with women. The quintet, performing Mazzoli’s electrically amplified works, was founded in 2008. Mazzoli does not typically perform her own works much; instead she is commissioned by artists around the world. The Kronos Quartet, Eight Blackbird and the American Composers Orchestra are among many of her regulars.

Before Mazzoli, who actually owned up to a bit of stage nerves, got ready for her performance that evening at Trinity Church, the festival’s venue, we talked about the medium of opera that seems to dominate musical exploration of the moment. While the news of Nico Muhly’s grand production Opera-debut in London just made the headlines, Mazzoli is similarly looking to expand the medium of an orchestra piece or a song cycle for one of her new projects. Inspired by a theme, based on the life of North- Africa explorer Isabelle Eberhardt, which she feels requires a larger staging, multiple voices and more time expansion, she plans on producing an opera that will be a scaled down version of what is usually known to be an opera production, with all the key ingredients intact.

“People will realize that the definition of opera is flexible. You don’t need millions of dollars for a full cast of divas and the MET. My opera will consist of a 5 people orchestra, 5 soloists, projections, video production and it will manage to tell the story with multiple voices, librettos and so on…and full staging. Supported by a Jerome Foundation grant that recently others have shared in, it will be a ca.70 minutes performance at The Kitchen, a black box theater with full set design.

Beth Morrison Project is currently planning an elaborate program with the same participants to celebrate Philip Glass’ seventy-fifth birthday.

For Paola Prestini: http://www.paolaprestini.com//
For Nico Muhly: http://www.nicomuhly.com/
For Missy Mazzoli: http://www.missymazzoli.com/

After -party at Rooftop bar on Rivington

2011-07-14T11:16:00.001-07:00

The vodka was flowing for attending guests and guest of honor Valery Gergiev, as well as for the mini-wearing ballet dancers of the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet, who made it shortly before midnight to the rooftop bar at the Hotel on 107 Rivington. They had just arrived from the Lincoln Center Festival, where the Mariinsky is giving a week of Ballet performances, including two productions of Rodion Shchededrin’s orchestrations of the ballet Anna Karenina and The Little Humpbacked Horse with choreography by artist in residence of the American Ballet Theater, Alexei Ratmansky, who also happened to be the former director of the Bolshoi Ballet.

It was thanks to Gergiev’s initiative and perhaps, as generally rumored also his political connections, that the company and the orchestra were presented with a new, lavish concert hall in 2006. Artistic and General Director since 1988, the charismatic conductor not only restored in 1992 its glorious name from Czarist times from the Soviet Kirov to Mariinsky, but also stamped his approval of its association with the great tradition of the famed Russian ballets.
The legendary Bolshoi theatre had been transferred to the Mariinsky in the late 19th century,and Gergiev has managed to institutionalize, and carry over into the present, the stuff which legendary Russian music and dance culture is made of.
Celebrated composers like Khachaturian, Yakobson, Tishchenko, Shostakovich and Prokofiev are part of the patina of the Mariinsky productions; dancers as Nijinsky, Ulanova, Nureyev and Baryshnikov made it a household name in the artistic world. The Washington Post once acknowledged this with: “…perfection of style, its technical power and assurance, its unanimity of spirit, and ...the majestic scale of it all.”

Artiste extraordinaire and the DJ in charge of bringing even the after-party full circle was Gabriel Prokofiev, who, flown in from his native London and yes, he is indeed, as he assured me, the grandson of Sergej.
The young Prokofiev brings classical music into the sphere of turntables and finds himself at the crossroads of the difficulty of having to live with or up to – and perhaps just as difficult to live without – the famous name.
Prokofiev is being associated with the true eminence of its zeitgeist, its creativity transformed from one generation to the next. His “nonclassical” output has a nod of classical reverence, potentially bringing this music back onto the dance floor.
With such music and such dancers, as well as the booze – I only wondered why actually nobody was dancing.

Pianist Philip Edward Fisher – commuting between continents

2011-07-12T21:35:00.001-07:00

Philip Edward Fisher (Photo)
Maybe not entirely appropriate to the American 4th of July spirit, I decided to spend part of that weekend’s celebration at Brooklyn’s Barge Music in the company of two great German friends of mine: Beethoven and Schubert. On this weekend, the little barge was filled to capacity, swaying slightly in the waters, facing an entirely close and yet seemingly distant sign of civilization, Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
The program was performed by two of the utmost competent pianists, Steven Beck and Philip Edward Fisher, who negotiated their respective parts at the commonly shared grand-piano with acrobatic finesse. Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue in B-flat major, turned out to be an especially adventurous endeavor, as the audience witnessed with great excitement what the composer must have had in mind when he gave the job of a full string ensemble to two pianists sharing one instrument. After ending the concert with an encore of the lighter and uplifting Schubert Military Marches Op.51, in D- major, Fisher explained consolingly:”We could not have let you go home on that emotionally draining note.” The July 4th spirit was resurrected and people left into the warmth of the evening’s breeze.
The pianists, who were both former Juilliard graduates, re-connected for this Barge performance. I had the opportunity to converse with Fisher, who divides his time between his native England and New York. We discussed the differences in English music education and business practices as compared to its American counterpart. There are certainly subtle differences, Philip conveyed to me over drinks right after the concert and the next day, before this versatile and personable artist had to make his way back to a concert performance in the United Kingdom.

Barge Music Performance
Fisher told how he had come to the piano at aged 9, a relatively late starter, but then fell for it head over heels, with his first public appearance only a year later and then again at age 12, when he performed the Shostakovich Second Concerto at his native Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.
The young Englishman started his musical education under the pianist and composer Philip Martin and then entered the Purcell School, thanks to being a recipient of the John Ogden Memorial Scholarship (1993) which enabled him to continue his studies at the private studio of the Head of Keyboard at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Professor Christopher Elton. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Julius Isserlis Scholarship fund, granted by the Royal Philharmonic Society of London, which established Fisher, who was always interested in a wide approach of musical guidance, as a well deserving young artist who could continue to find inspirational pedagogues throughout his developing years. Fisher, always curious to explore further, aimed his studies beyond the pond, to New York’s Juilliard, where he earned his Master’s degree with Joseph Kalichstein and Jerome Lowenthal.
A certain international flair and appeal immediately comes across upon meeting Fisher, who has been bred well by two different hubs of music pedagogy. To me, the particular different cultural influences absorbed by Fisher’s personality have given him an artistic individuality which I would describe perhaps as representing the best of both worlds. He reveals that, unlike one would assume, it was at Juilliard that he felt much more disciplined ( in an old fashioned style) than during all his studies in the old world. And it was through his new found New York contacts in the music business in New York that he was able to launch his beginning recording career although making use of his old world links and experiences.
What every artist looks to develop in today’s market which is over abundant with talent and well trained musicians, Fisher sort of brought along in his commuter briefcase. And yet, while exuding confidence on stage as well as in conversation, there is nothing arrogant or haughty about him. In London you just would like to bring him home for teatime. Since I am in New York, I brought him home for brunch.
As he sat down in my living room to perform a beautifully rendered Chopin Etude (Op.25, no.1), as well as a dazzling snapshot sampler from his latest released disk The Mighty Handful for Chandos, it became clear to me: This is a really versatile pianistic voice, not only thanks to his ability to express a wide range of repertoire but through a sensitivity to explore and expand his own cultural and emotional horizon.
Part of that process may have developed out of his emotional experiences surrounding decisions about his career and personal relationships.
As we talked about some of his experiences of these last years, he elaborated on his first recording, on the Naxos label, of Handel’s Keyboard Suites, which as a first volume was released in March of 2010 to great critical acclaim and provided an especially exciting experience for Fisher. Naxos offered him the chance to take his master recording, once it was established, into their hands for further marketing, which led Fisher to the famed Abbey Road studios, the exciting venue the Beatles had used for their renowned recordings. Fisher managed to be resourceful in securing funds from the Birmingham City Council and engaged producer, engineer and editor Jonathan Allen from Abbey Road Studios in London, to record at Fisher’s hometown Birmingham Symphony Hall in August of 2008, the venue he already had had his orchestral performance debut. Hitting the US Classical Billboard Chart within its first week of release, the plan is for the second volume of Handel’s keyboard works, which already is recorded, to follow early next year in 2012. For more information about this recording see also an in-depth interview with Sean Hickey on the Naxos website: http://www.naxos.com/news/default.asp?op=790&displayMenu=Naxos_News&type=2#
I have the feeling here is an artist who really enjoys the process of the interview: Says Fisher: “It relieves me to share some of my thoughts about playing the piano, the same way I like to perform. It is a release of the confinement you often find yourself in, as a musician, practicing for hours in preparation of your concert programs.”
Fisher shows an extraordinary personal élan towards all endeavors, and this is also very clear in his latest recording The Mighty Handful. The recording on the Chandos label, released in June of 2011, of piano works by a group of Russian composers, whose interesting body of work and influence on the more renowned “heavyweights” of the Russian School is highlighted in the capable hands of Fisher. He achieves a most inspiring musical account that he befittingly accompanies with his written liner notes, explaining his emotional venture of exploring these works with a fresh and individual approach.
Deserving endorsements as Album of the Week by John Suchet’s Classic FM are coming in, but I suspect that it will be Fisher’s performances at internationally visible presentations, such as his recent presentation for the Chandos label (named Label of the Year) in April of 2011 at the International Classical Music Awards, that will bring him the exposure he deserves.
This outstanding Award Ceremony, held at the Tampere Hall, Finland, attended by 1600 people, including musicians and label representatives from all over the world, brought the young Fisher on stage with Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, with Hannu Lintu conducting. The illustrious company of prizewinners included Artist of the year Esa Pekka- Salonen, Menahem Pressler, as the lifetime achievement winner and young artist of the year David Kadoush.
As internationally renowned Stephen Hough and mentor of Fisher volunteered to comment: "Philip Edward Fisher is a pianist with all of the qualities of technique and musicianship which others have, but with the addition of an indefinable ingredient which attracts and captivates the listener. He has something unique to say, and the pianistic equipment to say it with intelligence and warmth."

what's happening with civil rights- again?

2011-07-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2F033bddc.netsolhost.com%2FWordPress%2F2011%2F05%2F19%2Fartists-2%2F&h=2AQByaX54

This reminds me oddly of a time, when I was a teenager demonstrating with posts: Let my people go!

Vicky Chow: Opening a New Score

2011-06-19T20:19:00.001-07:00

Speaking with the skilled young pianist about her involvement in the field of new music performance, it is easy to be smitten by the classically trained Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music graduate’s contagious enthusiasm and engaged by her personal insights. During the past two years she has been catching up on a lot of new music repertoire as the pianist/keyboardist of the new music ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars.

The innovative sextet consists of clarinet, keyboard/piano, cello, electric guitar, bass and drums. The unique interplay—the cello and grand piano are regularly amplified on stage— creates a composite sound world. Half rock band half amplified chamber group, the All Stars are renowned for their successful avant-garde initiative, engaging in new music collaborations with some of the most inspiring composers of our time.

Having collaborated with much of the new music A-list, including Steve Reich, Tan Dun, Ornette Coleman, Philip Glass and Meredith Monk, the band has been hugely successful in a variety of performance projects held at both high-end venues like Carnegie Hall and alternative, sometimes public, performance spaces.

The photos in this article were taken at the sound check of what has become one of the band’s most well-known collaboratives, the Bang on a Can Marathon, an annual, all-day extravaganza held at New York’s World Financial Center’s Wintergarden on June 19. The marathon was Initiated in 1987 by composers David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Michael Garden who wanted to create an all-inclusive “meeting of the bands,” breaking down the barriers between music genres. Co-presented by the River to River Festival and Arts at World Financial Center, in this year’s marathon, 150 performers and composers present a nonstop open house of new music.

Within the genre of new music, the All Stars are known for their eclecticism and their interaction of composition styles yet also for their distinct choice of instrumentalization as well as their performance dynamic level. In addition to performing themselves, the group and its members are also involved in producing and curating a variety of new music happenings. For Chow, the activism it entails is a lifestyle. Currently, she spends many of her evenings at New York’s Gershwin Hotel, where she runs her own new music series called Contagious Sounds.

A natural performer from a young age, Canadian-born Chow was invited to perform a demanding solo piano program at the International Gilmore Keyboard Festival at age 9. She went on to study at Vancouver Academy of Music, where her teacher, Lorraine Ambrose, recommended she continue her studies at Julliard, leading her to study under Professors Yoheved Kaplinsky and Julian Martin. Her arrival in New York was met with upheaval—more so than the minor disasters than accompany every move; Chow had come to New York just two weeks before 9/11. She was at the Juilliard library when the dramatic events of that day unfolded. Chow still remembers Julliard Director Polisi’s instructions to bring pillows to the underground theater room for safety in the event of further attacks. Of Chinese descent, she later volunteered at the World Trade Center, translating for Asian victims’ family members.

But there was another reason that, when upon entering Juilliard, Chow found herself stopped in her tracks. Kaplinsky, chairperson of the Piano Department at Julliard, realized that Chow had been tensing up at the piano and told her she needed to make big adjustments to her technique. Kaplinsky introduced her to the Taubman approach, which explores natural piano technique through an intensive retraining. “I had to learn to arrange myself with a constantly dueling conflict between thinking of what I had to think about in applying the technique and my opposing intuition,” she explains. But to her great delight, her playing improved in the process, making it all worthwhile. Her color and tone, her ability to gain an efficient control of the articulation she intended, opened up a whole new experience for her, she says. “I remember at one point, the fact that I was working with limited repertoire in order to gain the technique fully was so disheartening to me. When the yearly concerto competition in Juilliard was to be held with Bartók’s 1^st piano concerto, I decided to take on the challenge. Veda [Kaplinsky] needed convincing, since a month before the competition I only had the 1^st movement ready. But in a way she inspired me to push through, and when I won the competition, she was extremely proud of my accomplishment.”

Chow’s thorough exploration of the piano and her new relationship with her instrument whet her appetite for experimentation. Having been approached by the young Juilliard composer Zhou Tian to perform one of his compositions, Chow discovered a calling for the new and non-classical. “As I opened his score, it was clear to me that here was something happening that I had missed for a long time, during all my studies of music. While I loved music and loved performing, I did not exactly see myself spending the rest of my life repeating the experiences that classical music had provided me with. It was in the contemporary music, I found the excitement I was looking for.”

The constant learning of new scores, the exploration of new and unlimited experimentations within new music suited her curiosity and led her to rescind her application to Julliard and Mannes School of Music’s doctorial degree programs and enroll instead in Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program. Around the same time, she began performing with multiple young composer collectives from Harvard and New York Universities that she got involved with through another contact from Juilliard, her friend Alex Lipowski, percussionist of the new music Talea Ensemble.

Having found what she was searching for, Chow quickly became a powerhouse within the new music scene. Not only did she become a more versatile pianist, but she also developed a whole new set of musical abilities. “From a pianistic point of view, not only did my sight reading improve from all the creative work with the score I am doing, let alone by the enormous numbers of new scores I read all the time. One of the challenges is that you often have to rely on your own interpretations—even though the composer sometimes intermediates. That’s a very different experience than performing works of composers that have been performed over and over,” says Chow, also confirming that in the challenge lies the thrill of finding new articulation. “Experimenting is part of the experience of new music, and I have gained another set of skills in creating different sounds, influenced by other genres. It also frees your personality to be roughing up some feathers with different sound worlds providing the kind of grit I need.”
For more information about Vicky Chow go to http://www.vickychow.com/Vicky_Chow/home.html

Musical Healing

2011-06-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

Jed Distler

The agony of having supported side by side the six-year battle of his beloved spouse of thirty years, Célia Cooke’s, illness and then having to endure her loss to cancer on March 30th of this year, pianist/composer Jed Distler looks to some old friends for solace and to his life in music.
An outgrowth of his need to heal is his recently released CD, “Meditate with the Masters”, produced during these recent hard times for the Musical Concept label. He sees his contribution as helpful in creating a “gentle ambiance, ideal for holistic and therapeutic treatments, or for intimate dinner gatherings and solitary afternoons at home… as well as for public situations, such as waiting rooms, airport lounges, restaurants…”
The hint of the familiar in each of the fifteen tracks that Distler titles after a renowned composer --after Schumann, after Chopin, after Distler, for example – (he includes himself nonchalantly in the list of pianistic masters with a dash of good humor) provides pianistically pleasant variations, composed in a traditional style with rhythmically soothing, unfussy piano treatments. One of my favorites is his folk-like treatment of Schumann’s ‘Von fremden Ländern und Menschen’ from Kinderszenen, infusing the beautiful Schumann theme within a new and original connective musical tissue. Some of the compositions suggest his great sensibility for jazz formulations, an area Distler is known for through his published Art Tatum and Bill Evans transcriptions for solo piano. These became renowned when pianist’s Jean –Yves Thibaudet recorded for the Decca label in 1997, “Conversations with Bill Evans,” arranged and transcribed by Distler.
Distler’s new music is often performed and recorded by star performers of the new music scene. “Three Landscapes for Peter Wyer, for toy piano,” recorded by Margaret Leng Tan on Point records was featured in three film scores, and his “Loose Changes” for two pianos was recorded by Quattro Mani on Bridge recordings. Pianist Jenny Lin and ‘ETHEL’s violinist Cornelius Duffalo (see my article http://getclassical.blogspot.com/2011/06/ethel-quartets-violinistcomposer.html ) are among the many artists he has been commissioned by.
“As a composer I am mostly inspired by a commission and deadlines. I am anchored in the pianist/composer tradition, but I don’t believe in any music snobbery, I try to be open minded. All good music is equal. Jimi Hendrix, for example will never be dated, while there are pieces of so-called “serious” music that I never want to listen to! For me music is about good communication and it is also about a lifestyle that includes a good work ethic, in order to maintain great technique, which is necessary to delivery. I read somewhere that the great jazz pianist Bill Evans said how technique was being able to do musically what you want to do, without having to worry about your hands. Better still, that other extraordinary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson once defined technique as the thing that made your ideas listenable. These thoughts help me try to entertain and communicate effectively with an audience,” says Distler.
He does not volunteer elucidation about his own compositions, feeling too close to it to comment, but rather leaves that to the musicians who perform them and who will establish his oeuvre. However, he prolifically comments on others, though, making his mark by way of his often-insightful music reviews, published chiefly in Gramophone and Classicstoday.com. Distler is committed to making a difference in the world of music, engaging his many talents as lecturer, writer, promoter, presenter and pianist for various media and concert performances.
On the piano and as artistic director of ‘Composers Collaborative’, co-founded with his late wife Célia Cooke , Distler has performed and programmed other composers’ works and continues to create and to partake in music initiatives on Public Radio and in venues like the Cornelia Street Café. Last week’s ‘Serial Underground’, a new music series performed for several years at this intimate setting, brought me in personal contact with this seasoned musician’s expressive pianism for the first time. Dubbed “the subversive nightclub series” by TIME OUT NY, Distler followed a performance of a group called “Other Life Forms,” with some intimate renderings of Thelonious Monk pieces.
Reaching out to his audiences is an innate talent of Distler and he certainly does achieve what he has set out to do in exactly the way he describes it:”Communicating comes first, expressiveness follows.”
Since it is impossible to mention all the endeavors he shared with me on a long list, I am just going to point you to one of the many interesting projects taking place at the Cornelia Street Cornelia Café, the ComposersCollaborative Inc, presentation of “Mano-a- Mano” Piano Festival on August 21, 22, and 23rd as well as a promising undertaking of Thelonious Monk’s entire piano oeuvre, the resourceful pianist plans to perform right here on February 17, 2012, the 30th anniversary of Monk’s death.

Ethel’s violinist/composer Cornelius Dufallo treks without baggage

2011-06-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

Photo: Ethel

Ralph Equality Farris, Mary Rowell, Cornelius Dufallo, Dorothy Lawson

until June 1st. 2011

When I met with violinist/composer Cornelius Dufallo, whom many know as a member of the very original, postmodern, somewhat premiere-focused group of string players called Ethel, he gave me the big news about the group straight away: Mary Rowell, one of Ethel’s founding members, will be leaving the group as of June 1st, to pursue different lifestyle choices and Jennifer Choi, of the same younger Juilliard Alumni generation as Dufallo himself, will be joining the group. So, in a way this article is bidding fare well to Ethel-violinist Mary Rowell and making a hello-shout to Jennifer Choi.
Eagerly answering an audition call for the then already-reputable Ethel-band when they had an opening, Dufallo joined the quartet six years ago. He describes the relationship with all members as excellent and really close. He remembers:”We clicked right from the beginning. Mary is going to be missed and will continue to be involved during the transition process, to make sure that Ethel will keep on going strong.”
What attracted Dufallo to Ethel’s core concept was the commitment to the imaginative programming of contemporary music, executed with great artistry as well as personal dedication.
Specializing in music composed after 1995 seems not to be an unusual undertaking anymore and especially not in the New York area and the few other Metropolitan centers around the country. Even the press, for the most part, is enthusiastic:

”New music is hardly scarce during the main part of the New York concert season, and spaces like issue Project Room, Galapagos and the Tank specialize in it year around. But spring and summer are a virtually nonstop parade of festivals celebrating the experimental,” says Alan Kozinn in his article about Ethel’s opening program of this year’s Tribeca New Music Festival at Merkin Hall (see Alan Kozinn’s review in the New York Times May 24th. 2011)
But only in recent times has such gusto, developed and persistently pursued by promoters, supported by internet advocates as well as educational and private institutions, not to mention the younger growing audiences, proven new music to be of such a high public esteem.
What seems to have made a real difference in the new appreciation compared to a former unwillingness of audiences and press and programmers alike may be the actual high quality of music making. This new batch of musicians brings to new music projects a unique versatility, a high quality of training, as well as an innovative and engaging, invigorating dedication.
It is hard to put a time stamp on development. Some movements just happen because the time is right. They happen through minor shifts that are not tremendously noticeable and just lead to the next level of being. Whether just grounded in its “Zeitgeist” or a symptom of a more reflective lifestyle, these changes bring reality to a new level of consciousness

Photo: Cornelius Dufallo

The more I talk to some of these talented musicians engaging in new music projects, the more I become impressed with their very thoughtful way of connecting their musical narrative to an activism, making an actual socio- cultural impact in the process.
Many employ their talents for educational needs, environmental issues and practical-oriented solutions for different worthy causes. Although the need to communicate verbally seems to be an imminent new development for many artists- and typically many of them are writers themselves, if not public relation managers in disguise- they take seriously the need to clarify and conceptualize. They link this aspect to a very direct, pro-active and entrepreneurial approach that explores a connecting drama of performance, music and life in very creative forms.

As we converse about such philosophical aspects of his music making, Dufallo, who received superb classical training with Julliard’s teaching coryphées as Dorothy DeLay, Robert Mann and Marcel Kawasaki, describes some of Ethel’s projects for the coming season:”Ethel has already done so well in the past and we continue to have great projects lined up, like the continuation of our “Present Beauty” project. This describes a program very much in demand, as we have toured it already throughout the country to great acclaim. It relates to the concept of beauty in the present moment, featuring music by composers of Philip Glass, Huang Ruo (see my article: http://english.getclassical.org/2010/05/16/180/), Julia Wolfe, Mark Stuart and Terry Riley. The connective tissue of the program’s music is that in one way or another, all these compositions relate to the concept of experiencing the beauty of the present moment and its meditative element represented in their music through differing musical elements.”
Another program Dufallo describes is: “Music of the Sun.” It is an exemplary outreach project, involving a unique collaboration with Native American flutist Robert Mirabal from Taos, New Mexico. The program revolves around different practices of tribal festivals and sun mythology of Native American culture, as originated or transmitted from Taos’ Peblos reservations. These will be presented in connection with some music from the concert music world, such as John Luther Adam’s piece:”Sky with Four Suns,” describing the seeming existence of multiple suns through specific light constellations – the so called “Alaska-effect.” Dufallo pauses and exclaims:” I would also like to mention our connection to the Native American community in Arizona, where we partake every September at the “Grand Canyon Music Festival” which, in coordination with local High school programs, we engage kids from the reservations in creating pieces for string quartets. It is an utmost meaningful experience. “
The close connection to nature and environmental forces becomes apparent in some of Dufallo’s own works which will be presented at this program, like his “Aphelion” for solo-cello. This work describes the point most distant to a planet’s orbit, symbolizing the state of human loneliness, but also evoking thoughts about other cosmological aspects and our relationship to the sun and the earth, our own planet. ”It is important that we keep on thinking about these connections”, he remarks. “Dorothy plays this beautifully”, he adds, as he talks about this composition, which is something he never formally studied, but keeps studying all along.
“Even though I have been composing since high school, it never occurred to me that I should study composition formally. I was much too busy practicing violin, since everyone was so good at it,” he explains talking about his Juilliard years. He gives programming a lot of thought:”Concepts within a concert program give the audience something to hold onto. It helps people to go with you on a journey. My music is not programmatic, but we are using a conceptual idea, around which each piece centers and connect the different pieces with one another. We are performing music that can be very challenging. Some of it is intense, loud, and fast. In our experience it has helped audiences to relate, to accept those different and new aspects of our music, when we present it in a context.”
There is also another aspect, about Ethel’s performances: Stage behavior becomes more casual, less formal, which helps break down barriers between the audience and the performers. By talking, laughing and joking with the audience, what’s become known in theatrical performance as the” fourth wall” is virtually eliminated, creating a milieu rather than a staged presentation.
“We still do play in concert-halls, they just have superior acoustics. However we do perform as well in clubs and we have recently also reached out to unusual public spaces, where we like to take spaces over for installations. For example, for the opening of the new Alice Tully Hall, we performed a newly commissioned piece by Phil Kline in the lobby of the venue. We also like to position ourselves into the performance space, playing from different corners in the room, creating a different stage experience. For our 2008 BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) performance of “Truck stop”, director Annie Dorsen helped us with the concept of putting together different disciplines. The idea was to find local musicians on road trips, learn some of their music while in those different communities, new music we have not heard before on instruments producing different sounds. In Hawaii for example, we found slack key guitar player Jeff Peterson and in Kentucky bluegrass Banjo-player, Dean Osborne.
We then brought the musicians here, as soloists and installed a recording studio on stage. The “performance” became a recording session that was witnessed by the audience. “
Independent of all Ethel activities, Dufallo also started a group called “ne(x) t works” in 2003, a collective of avant-garde composers. He wrote “Mindscape 2” for the MATA Festival in 2009. Another group he got involved with (his first) and actually co-founded was “flux” which got invited to perform at the Ojai Festival. “I remember when Jazz legend Ornette Coleman came to Juilliard and I was impressed with his creative thinking outside the box. He was so inspirational, so deeply committed to his individual approach, representing the very best in the arts, America has to offer.”

As a composer/performer it can be difficult to decide which role one wants to partake in:
“I do perform more of the music of other’s than my own. I sometimes get a little bit sick of my own music. My 2009 recording “Dream Streets” consists of all my own compositions, which I have performed on several occasions.
By performing other’s music, I learn. I do from time to time perform a classical repertoire as well; however I do not enjoy it as much as I do when performing contemporary music. New music does not have the same baggage that, let’s say, romantic music possesses. First of all, the missing link of “communication” is a drawback for me, as is the weighing down of all the historic interpretations, associations, teachings, in short all the filters innate to traditional repertoire. With contemporary repertoire, I feel a direct connection with the composer and there is also some input possibility. I can suggest things while working with the composer on the performance of a piece, there is a give and take and there is clarity, no guessing. That does not mean I don’t enjoy listening to traditionally classical music, I do love it and it is deeply familiar to me. But as a performer I prefer being involved with the here and now of contemporary music. That includes the use of technology and the inclusion of popular music, which always played into classical music as well. It may be a little more shocking that Electronics found their way into instrumentalisation, but I am sure that immediately following the harpsichord, the emergence of the fortepiano was no small stride either. Why should it all stop at a certain point in time, why should it not rather continue? We have to keep on moving and growing, therefore we have to keep on changing.”
Cornelius Dufallo: http://www.corneliusdufallo.com/
Ethel’s website: http://www.ethelcentral.com/

Violinist Ittai Shapira: how everyone can relate, when personal events transpire into musical compositions

2011-05-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

So far, 14 compositions by different contemporary composers have been dedicated to violinist Ittai Shapira. Belonging to the now thirty something generation of performers of the New York classical music scene – he and pianist Jeremy Denk were roommates in college- he is now renowned as a versatile performer of an enormous classical violin repertoire, incorporating past and present, traditional as well as contemporary.
One of these premieres included the violin concerto written for him by Israeli compatriot and Pulitzer Prize winner, Shulamit Ran. It was performed at Shapira’s acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut in 2003 with the Orchestra of St.Luke’s. In 2007, it was incorporated into Ran’s compilation of works performed by Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Shapira’s international performances as a fine soloist with many leading orchestras as well as chamber groups, coupled with his varied recordings, show his widespread interest in standard and unusual repertoire, explaining why so many composers dedicate works for his performance.
Another Israeli compatriot, a composer who lately enjoys great international demand, Avner Dorman, wrote a violin concerto for Shapira as well, in 2006. It was performed with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
Dorman was, as was Shapira, trained at Juilliard after leaving Israel for New York. While Dorman studied composition with John Corigliano, Shapira studied violin with Dorothy DeLay and Robert Mann and privately coached with Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.
Since Ittai was involved in the Daniel Pearl Foundation, they decided to dedicate the piece and its premiere performances to the memory of journalist Daniel Pearl, as Dorman mentions in the liner notes to the concerto. Another concerto by composer Dave Heath found his way onto the soundtrack for the film about Daniel Pearl’s tragic death in Pakistan “The Journalist and the Jihadi”, via Shapira.
Glen Roven’s concert piece “The Runaway Bunny” was written for Shapira in 2006 and recorded with the Royal Philharmonic and Brooke Shields as narrator of the children story for Sony/BMG. This piece, as well as his performance on a Jerry Lewis’ Telethon, gained Shapira large audience exposure. The latter performance, nationally televised in the US., had a reported audience of 55 million. Other compositions dedicated to him include the recent “Katrina Concerto”, by Theodore Wiprud.
But even though Shapira could be very happy staying the performer in demand that he is, he has developed a widening interest in the contemporary musical laboratory of collaboration, arrangement, orchestration, a process that would lead him surely to explore his own interest in composition.
“I was presenting a music series, introducing young composers to help establish a connection to a younger audience. We presented virtuoso variations, dedicated to a great artist. I ended up performing and orchestrating the pieces. It was a great learning process,” he explains s he described his beginning experimentations with compositional elements, also a fruitful collaboration with composer Dave Heath, which began during his studies, when writing his own cadenzas, under the tutelage of his Juilliard mentor Robert Mann.
And Dorman says about his concerto,” While composing the concerto, Ittai Shapira contributed much information and advice on writing for the violin – for which I am very grateful to him.”
When we are discussing the development of his dual role as violinist and composer, during our conversation over lunch on the Upper West Side, Shapira becomes animated. This is clearly a passion for him too.
Champs Hill records had just released his own”Concierto Latino”, composed and performed by Shapira with chamber musician, violist and conductor Krzysztof Chorzelski, violist of the renowned Belcea Quartet. Concierto Latino embraces influences by the full spectrum of Latin composers including Villa Lobos and Manuel de Falla to Flamenco singer Camaron de la Isla, Shakira and the Cuban music of Bueno Vista Social Club.
In addition to the Latin musical scenario, a very personal event influenced the shaping of Concierto Latino up to its completion in 2007. The liner notes to the piece describes the decisive element of his composition:
On a freezing night in January of 2005, Shapira had been attacked by a gang of seven or eight men. Released from hospital the next day, Shapira dismissed the incident and promptly went on tour. Yet the attack left an unusual scar: daily zapping headaches, accompanied by a hazy yet distinct series of sounds. When Shapira decided to write down these sounds, the neural response was fascinating: he saw a brief internal snapshot of himself falling on ice. As the composition unfolded, so did his memories…so not only did the mugging prompt a musical response; that musical response in turn enabled a neural reaction, which did… have a remarkably therapeutic effect.
Conceived in three parts, titled:”The Attack”, “Lament”, and “Party”
The fact that this intense personal event triggered a response that influenced the composition so vehemently became a bit of an unintended marketing vehicle, used at pre-concert talks. While his double role as composer/performer stood out in itself, the personal story became a powerful catalyst, resulting promtly in 4 new commissions. Shapira explains further:”While I am actually a very private person, I do believe that it became an important factor for me to share the impact of the literal meaning behind the composition. The bottom-line is that music is really meant to communicate between people and the more the audience understands the background of a piece, also thanks to literal explanations, the better it can connect. It is important to me to be able to add a personal note; it gives the piece another dimension. It does not mean the music cannot stand on its own, but rather that we have a clearer idea to associate an interpretation with the music, which changes the music’s impact positively. Especially in new music, when you take the familiarity of traditional messages away, you need to substitute with something. It becomes essential to add a personal story, something that people can relate to and the public is less defensive, if they can share the knowledge of a meaningful interpretation, as in a real live drama. And who can’t relate to an attack, the lament and the going on of life – the party? “
While still living in Israel, Shapira had studied with the distinguished pedagogue Ilana Feher in Israel, as her last student. Shapira described her influence on him as profound and lasting:” It was not just about the music,” he remembers, “it was about the whole deal. How you dressed for a performance, how you behaved … the teacher was involved in your entire life, not just the music lesson.”
In Feher’s memory, dedicated to the nurturing and promotion of young Israeli violinists, he and his colleague Hagai Shaham recently founded the Ilona Feher Foundation. It is geared to assist gifted students by ”giving them the extra little push they need, advising them on choices of repertoire, networking , supplementing like providing demo-tapes for auditions etc…” clarifies Shapira. :“We focus on concrete projects. For example, we connected a student of Hagai, Itamar Zorman, who was very gifted with various teachers to get different perspectives. We then sponsored a demo tape and gave advice regarding his repertoire. Fundraising for a Carnegie Hall concert helped to get him exposure and he did win 3 competitions and a performance opportunity with the Juilliard Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall. So we see the influence of the ‘Feher Foundation’ in personalizing the direction of young artists.” Another artist Shapira is very fond of and mentions to me, is Netanel Draiblate, a talented soloist, also recently became the concertmaster and of the Annapolis Symphony.
Recently the foundation has also worked in partnership with different townships in Israel, training musicians and encouraging their continuous dedication as teachers in Israel.

Do the "shuffle"

2011-05-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

Photo:"Shuffle" at the Tel- Aviv Museum, Israel 2011

The latest idea in blending musical genres that were previously isolated from each other has resulted in …well, concerts delivered in a shuffle, I -pod style.
Here, the programming is determined by the audiences from a music-menu, catering almost entirely to that audience’s wishes.
The so called “shuffle- concerts” are performed by a group of classical trained soloists and chamber musicians, led by their innovative artistic director and pianist Eliran Avni. Each concert offers several musical genre choices in varied combinations, from classical to jazz, pop and folklore.
By not negating the existence of any genre, but rather through freshly coordinating its representation by the audience’ selection, these innovative musicians have yet found another dimension to successfully eliminate the judgmental weight of categorization.
By an impressively simplistic means, the “shuffle concert” process translates into a sophisticated experience. The audience is empowered through their own direct impact, shaping the results of an open- ended, exciting musical incident.
The idea was born by a conceptual realization from an everyday occurrence. Avni was on the treadmill, listening to his MP3 player as it shuffled its contents and The Pretenders became Prokoviev’s 5th Symphony.

Photo:Linor Katz (Cello) Eliran Avni (Piano)

“I was shocked and began to realize that it would be interesting to revolve a live concert around the concept of randomly different styles,” says Avni in a recent interview with me. He had also described this experience in an interview with Juilliard faculty member, Anita Mercier:”I was so shocked I had to stop the treadmill….The original shuffle concept is very much a chance concept; it’s about not knowing what piece will come next and enjoying the shock effect of switching between numbers and, in some cases, between radically different styles.”
There was also another experience which catalyzed the decisive decision to go through with this novel approach. Together with his friend Moe, Avni had sat through a classical concert performance of a string quartet which he did not enjoy in the least; not the playing nor the choice of repertoire. Leaving at intermission, he felt frustrated with the stifling atmosphere and shared his thoughts with Moe:”How can I, as a trained classical musician, expect others to sit through my performances, if I am not willing to do so myself… I understood something had to change.” And Moe supported his impulse. So did other friends, like clarinetist Moran Katz, who dared him to go through with his idea of the shuffle.
The concept has developed a bit since its first inception when Avni first started out with his original group of “shufflers”, who were mostly friends and musicians he had performed with before. Some of them also shared his Israeli background. This group included the sisters, clarinetist Moran Katz and cellist Linor Katz , the Juilliard violinist Lauren Basney with whom Avni had performed at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and oboist Roni Gal-Ed, whom he had performed with in Germany. Soprano Amy Justman was especially auditioned for the group.

Photo :Shuffle Ensemble

Relatively early on, they discovered that the difficulty of the program’s variety option was that in order not to compromise on quality, the group had to enlarge its members.
Learning 40 plus pieces and rehearsing on the same day of the performance was a challenge and pretty soon they decided to open the group to include more, equally talented musicians, to devide between the rather busy time scedules.
Avni explains, “We brought soprano Mary Mackenzie to share the soprano’s seat. Because (oboist) Roni is now on maternity leave, Jessica Pearlman shares the oboist’s seat with Hassan Anderson. And Angelia Cho and David McCarroll are sharing the violinist seat. This sort of format is very much in the “Shuffle” spirit of things – this way the audience doesn’t only get a different program each time, but also different talents and interpretations. I personally also find it really interesting to perform the same pieces with different musicians.”
The first “shuffle-concert “was performed on February 15th, 2010, at Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio with a variety of venues following suit, culminating with a recent Israel-tour, at the invitation of the Felicia Blumenthal Chamber Music Festival. Further tours are planned for the West-coast: Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego in November of 2011 and to London in 2012.

Photo:Shuffle at Weill Recital Hall

It remains to see, and I believe it will be truly fascinating how – in the long run- the audience’s choice of repertoire will influence the selection of pieces that will be included in the “menu”, which fluctuates already with the changing inputs from the musicians.
It will also be interesting to see how far the curating aspect of a concert experience will be missed. The “catering” aspects of a “self service” menu will certainly also be challenging, one which offers spontaneity and the zest of free flow, in lieu of a more reflective gusto.
Well aware of these limitations, Avni has led the group to pick the beginning numbers of each half of the program. Says Avni:“We needed to start with pieces we felt really passionate about…and have some control of the concert’s balance and structure by making sure that these pieces involve all the members of the ensemble. Some limitations also apply through the arrangements for the instruments included in the ensemble.”

Photo: Shuffle at Kosciuszko Foundation
Avni recognizes gratefully the support of producers Liat Shetret, Oded Naaman and Richard Lissemore, without whom his project would have remained just a fun idea. He cherishes the high caliber of his classically trained co-musicians, who support his vision of the “shuffle.” All of them see each concert as a random chance to leave the traditional selective process behind for the virtues of a true democratic spirit, broadened by a “cosmic” concert experience.
Go to the Shuffle-Website http://www.shuffleconcert.com/ where you can also find more information about the amazing individual artists, and concerts that let you choose while they play.

Pianists Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax: Sharing their lives at the piano

2011-04-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

I am enjoying a cappuccino, that borders perfection, at pianists’ Lucille Chung’s and Alessio Bax’ tasteful, un- cluttered and brand new

address on New York’s Upper-Upper West side.Lu

cille’s organizational skills translate into the modernstreamlined, yet comfortable chic atmosphere, echoing Alessio’s Italian classy design heritage that takes a decisively leading voice when it comes to the

kitchen as well as, to my delight, handling the professional grade cappuccino maker.

This generous space that the attractive young couple calls home, when in New York, holds two grand pianos. One in their study that for now doubles as a guestroom, for practicing and teaching; the other one in the living room, for practicing simultaneously or to entertain each other and guests who typically are music lovers or musicians as well.

Playing the piano is what both regard as central to their lives. That’s why they might as well spend time doing it together. Two young, successful musicians in their own right, they share the rest of their time together, between juggling the piano faculty at Dallas’ SMU and their increasingly busy performance and recording schedules. In great demand as soloists, they have found themselves increasingly performing as a duo as well.Not that they necessarily planned it that way. Even though it always seemed like a great idea and it had happened on occasion, their duo performances have only recently gained in volume, taking up about 20 percent of their time, which was previously engaged with their professional solo performances. And, the truth is, they enjoy spending this ‘quality time’ at the piano together.

Playing as a duo creates endless opportunities of preparing and performing wide ranging and well-rehearsed programs and finally offers them variety, by taking the music on the road to different venues they like to travel to, together. How much more romantic could it get?

“It takes a lot of coordination,” says Lucille, who is in charge of all organizational details for the team. Alessio smiles happily, while claiming no interest in that domain, confirming: “We just decided this year to block out increased time for our collaborative performances. We have always played together sporadically, but never had made the effort to plan for it formerly in advance.”

Lucille describes the psychology of playing together: “It just needs to be at the right time, then we love to say yes, since we are a great team. There is total trust and…we think so much alike, we don’t even have to talk while rehearsing. We just know after a halt, where to come in again and how to communicate what we would like to happen. We think as a unit and that is advantageous for improving one’s security level within the repertoire. We feel free to take risks during performance and still are aware of the safety net, the complete support at the same time.”

Alessio, who also performs in his second year of artist’s residency with the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and enjoys different colors and textures provided by the different instruments within Chamber Music, feels strongly about their two piano situation as well: “In a way it is an ideal situation in-between Chamber Music and Solo performances. It feels closer to a piano recital, in that there is greater freedom, yet there is also the sense of a strong partnership and a satisfying musical dialogue. The repertoire is wonderful and we can easily coordinate rehearsals.”

And then there is of course the social aspect of traveling together, which the couple enjoys anyway. They always like to accompany the other en route to performances, now as a duo, that extends to the stage. Lucille explains, “This year we have already an extra thirty duo concerts and right now we just came back from a whole Chicago tour that consisted of four different programs, including an exciting two-hour long perspective; live streamed from WFMT.com ,“ with solo, as well as duo performances, introducing both of their new recordings. This broadcasted show was followed by a program in Madison, Wisconsin, that included Brahms Waltzes Op. 39., as well as their own arrangements of Piazzolla Tangos.

Brahms will be performed as well this summer at the prestigious Music@Menlo’s festival.

Alessio’s CD is just in the process of being released on theSignum Classicslabel, entitled: Rachmaninov Preludes and Melodies and will be, I am sure, a further stunning example of Alessio’s virtuoso technique, which connects to a refined musical understanding and brings out the most expressive nuances within the music. Alessio pays homage to Rachmaninov, an artist he calls “the last of the Romantics.” And if one knows Alessio, one can feel a sincere kinship. But no matter whose music it is, he always devotes his serious exploration, and, in performance, it sounds so … incredibly right – in the best sense of right, as in finding beauty and truth in the music. On Alessio as a solo performer, please also compare my article http://english.getclassical.org/2010/11/05/pianist-alessio-bax-new-york-debut-recital-at-the-metropolitan-museum/ and on some earlier duo performances of Lucille and Alessio at Poisson Rouge also see my articlehttp://english.getclassical.org/2009/10/25/new-venues-open-their-doors-for-classical-music-in-new-york/

Lucille’s CD, is called Mozart and Me. Recorded last summer, at the Conservatoire de musique in Montreal, and just released by Disques XXI Universal, it touches on an important musical place for her. Mozart was the reason Lucille became a musician. She explains, “…His music was so joyful yet innately accessible, so simple and yet so deep. I immediately felt drawn in and was forever hooked. I remember vividly on one occasion while rehearsing the concerto with a second piano, I had a vision of performing in a brightly lit big hall with orchestra. I could “feel” the energy and the audience surrounding me. Little did I know that this would soon become a reality and my life…”

And she is a musician with every fiber of her tiny frame that could have just as easily belonged to a dancer. A bundle of focus, she gives every performance the full range of its emotional message. Since her debut performance, aged 10, with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, and subsequently touring Asia with the Orchestra, music became the natural habitat for the Canadian born Chung, of Korean origin. At the piano she is herself, with complete ease and natural gestures, whether giving a private lesson or in a grand recital hall.

Her Mozart Disc renders a most vivid account of her intimate pianism full of playful imagination – a perfect match for Mozart.

And then it gets personal: Was it thanks to the music that this couple met? Could they have imagined being married to a non – musician and does it not sometimes become too much of a good thing?

Alessio sees it this way: “It would be too different, if we would not both deeply care for music. Almost every single hour of the day we are involved with music. It becomes almost impossible to find a moment that is not musically related. So I cannot imagine being with a person whose life centered on totally different agendas. It would disconnect on so many levels. Every person, every couple is different, but my reaction is: How could it work otherwise?” And yet Lucille comes up with another, yet equally convincing point of view: “If you would have told me that I would marry another pianist before I met Alessio I would have said, I don’t think so. Rivalry, egos… every thought in my head would have answered it can’t work well and playing together on top of it? It would never have crossed my mind. And yet it has turned out to be quite a blessing. I love and respect his playing so much; it makes me want to play with him.”

Alessio adds,” As pianists we do not have to play with each other, there is no real interdependence as with a violinist and pianist for example and that could get tricky, if you chose someone else you’d rather play with. For us it’s a bonus, not a necessity.”

What about if the mood is not that great, you just had a fight and have to perform together on stage? “First of all, we are not very confrontational,” says Alessio with this expression that makes me believe every word he says. “We ultimately look for harmony and that translates into the music as well.” “And we never have gone to sleep without having resolved a problem,” says Lucille. “On stage we perform as one, focused as in a solo performance. I have played concerts when I was sick and the audience would not have picked up on it.” And, with a little bit of a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, “I don’t mean to sound corny, but I do feel that people get drawn into it when we play together, our romantic relation comes through in our playing in a positive, harmonious way.”

The couple met during the Hamamatsu competition in Japan in 1997, where Alessio was awarded first prize. At the time, Lucille was studying in Italy and was hanging out with the ‘Italian clique’ at the competition. Alessio was studying in Dallas, but since he was Italian, he joined the same group of friends. Their names happened to be in the first part of the alphabetical order that divided the groups for practice room assignments and scheduled performing time. So Baglini, Bannister, Bax and Chung spent time together while waiting to concertize, ate together and formed friendships. Yet after the initial contact, everybody went his or her own way. Until about a year later, Lucille sent out her new email address with a Christmas card greeting, which started an intense email- exchange.

It was not that easy at the time to keep up with the slow Internet connection and time constricted plans.

“The movie: You’ve Got Mail comes to mind,” says Alessio when thinking back to those times of waiting at the computer. Yet, while the relationship became more and more important to them, it was still limited to friendship, both of them were still invested in other relationships at the time. Alessio came to Florence to perform a recital and they even went out together, with their respective others, for dinner. And then Lucille came to Dallas. Alessio had just broken up with his former girlfriend and Lucille, who had accompanied her boyfriend, a violinist, who was performing with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra…well, to make a long story short: Lucille left her heart in Dallas and Alessio, who was a bit clueless about Lucille’s affection, came back to Florence to have dinner at “Dante,” the same restaurant in which they had begun their friendship.

The rest is history. Lucille moved to Dallas and enrolled as student of pianist and educator Joaquín Achúcarro, who already was Alessio’s great artistic inspiration. Now they both contribute as artistic directors of the Achúcarro – Foundation that has recently partnered with the Phillips Collection in Washington DC., as well as with the Bravissimo- Festival in Guatemala, presenting young artists. Lucille and Alessio have performed at Bravissimoyearly and one of this year’s highlights there will be a production that involves Stravinsky’sPetrushka ballet score, performed by. …Puppets. Incorporating a special childhood memory of Alessio, this will provide an interesting performance motif, produced by a puppet company based in Miami. The puppets will work with a video of a previous duo -piano performance of that score, by Lucille and Alessio.

When Alessio was invited to perform for the recorded Master class of Daniel Barenboim in 2005, he was impressed how well the Maestro understood how music relates to life and how extraordinary well he could explain that connection, making music the ultimate medium of human experience.

While still relatively young, the musical couple already has collected remarkable experiences throughout their melodic life, its travels and wide-ranging performances. Alessio draws on some of them in his blog: Alessio Bax…have piano, will travel (http://alessiobax.blogspot.com/)

“If there is something I've learnt from these various self-imposed musical "expeditions" of the last few years (two Trans-Siberian tours and three Canadian Prairies tours), this is precisely it. An invaluable lesson of what is REALLY important, in music, or life for that matter, and what at the end of the day our ultimate goal should be in music making. Beauty, simplicity, immediacy is what makes music so universal. I've been lucky to experience that feeling in some of the most remote corners of the globe and see first hand the amazing effect that music has on people. No matter how long we work on every single minuscule detail, we should never forget that gut feeling, that visceral emotion that inhabits great music and is able to touch every soul in the exact same way, regardless of geographical, religious or cultural differences.”

The key to their extraordinary partnership may just lay in the distinctiveness of their own individuality. Whether as solo performer or as a duo team, classical performance seldom gets more attractive.

Their websites are: http://www.lucillechung.com/ and

http://www.alessiobax.com/

"Niggunim" Hebrew for soulful melodies

2011-04-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

: Gil Shaham and Avner Dorman

To re-claim one’s cultural heritage has always been an agenda for the Jewish people, who were and are ethnically dispersed in the Diaspora. Saturday night’s program at the 92nd Street Y, just before the Passover holidays, was presented by virtuoso violinist Gil Shaham in a duo recital with his sister, the fine concert pianist Orly Shaham. Their performance was devoted to that purpose: celebrating Jewish heritage in music and, beyond that, in Gil Shaham’s own words: “placing it firmly into the 21stcentury.”Photo: Gil Shaham and Avner Dorman

Both Shahams charmingly and nonchalantly offered accounts about the program’s essence related to the question: what makes Jewish music Jewish? How does non-Jewish composer, John Williams’ quintessentially “Jewish” musical theme, associated with Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List‘s soundtrack, fit in?

The accompanying notes to the program by scholar Eric Wen, about the connection of Russian Jewish folksongs and the Yiddish language, explained thoroughly what Hannah Arie-Greifman, Director of Concert and Literary Programming at the 92nd Street Y, summed up as follows: “Music is the bone marrow of Jewish Culture, through the strong musicality of its language…” She described the program going beyond preserving its heritage but rather furthering it, thanks to the 92nd Street Y’s two commissions from two young Jewish composers: Jonathan Leshnoff and Avner Dorman.

The outstanding musical delivery of the program, made with utmost devotion to the emotional context of these soaring melodies, performed affectionately and with a tenderness seldom expressed in that manner, profoundly transformed the audience in the process. Recipient of the Avery Fisher Grant in 2008, Gil Shaham, who records on his own record label Canary Classics, has a wide range of internationally ranked “Bestsellers” recordings, and received multiple Grammys and Gramophone Editor’s choice acknowledgements.

: Composer Avner Dorman(left) with Orly Shaham and Gil Shaham

Photo Gil Shaham, Orly Shaham, Avner Dorman

Both, Gil Shaham and Orly Shaham, have received scholarships from the America-Cultural Foundation, as their prodigal talents became obvious. Orly became a student of Herbert Stessin at the Juilliard School, who just recently passed away and to whom she dedicated a meaningful obituary published in the Juilliard – circulated newspaper. A recipient of the Gilmore Young Artist award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant, she communicates through her radiant musical skills, concertizing internationally as well as a broadcaster and music lecturer. She also taught music literature at Columbia University and has served as artist in residence on National Public Radio’s Performance today.

The compositions presented at the 92 y performances, spanned a range of mostly Russian Jewish composer’s works of the earlier 20th century, except for Swiss born Ernest Bloch’sBa’al Shem and the two new commissions. One of these compositions, Der Rebbes Tanz from Yiddish Dance Suite for Violin and Piano, was offered to Gil Shaham by American composer Jonathan Leshnoff, composer in Residence with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, who recently made a name for himself with his Violin Concerto, recorded on the Naxos label.

The 92 Y’s commission, Niggunim, by Israeli composer Avner Dorman was enthusiastically received by the audience. There was something refreshingly new about the work, yet given the evening’s context concerning Jewish identity, by the Israeli composer, it seemed like a fulfilled promise.

: Hanna Arie-Gaifman and Avner Dorman

Funnily enough though, composing “Jewish music” seemed to be the furthest thing from Dorman’s mind, as the recent Allan Kozinn’s New York Times interview with Dorman suggests, “…Once Mr. Dorman got over his doubts - that writing self-consciously Jewish music ‘is not exactly what I do’- he hit on an idea for a piece that would …relate to elements of {a variety of Jewish local traditions}… (then) I also became interested in niggunim, this idea of universal melody.’”

Photo: Hanna Arie-Gaifman and Avner Dorman.

By trying to express something about Jewish identity, the young Israeli composer clearly found his own language – again. The many different influences apparent in his compositions including, but by no means limited to Middle Eastern ones, find their way to new musical life, merging with gestures that are full of surprises.

That was already clear with his composition of “Spices,” which conductor Zubin Mehta heard on Israeli television in 2005, and commissioned as a full score for an orchestral version and premiered with the Israel Philharmonic that same year. (See also my article http://getclassical.blogspot.com/2010/09/avner-dormans-compositions-percussive.html)

: Orly Shaham and Avner Dorman

Dorman was approached by Orly Shaham, who was familiar with his work, through her husband, conductor Robertson, who proposed the commission, as Kozinn points out. “It had to be substantial,” said Dorman about the Shahams’ expectations, after completing the successful premiere at the 92nd Street Y. And that sentiment describes his Niggunim well, as well as the entire evening’s program. Dorman, who joyfully admitted to little sleep, since he recently became a new father, was accompanied by his parents to the 92nd Street Y premiere and received a standing ovation while flanked on stage by the Shaham brother and sister performer team.

Photo: Orly Shaham and Avner Dorman“

The niggun is a fundamental music concept of traditional Jewish music”, says Dorman…”according to Habbad literature, the niggun serves a universal language: it ascends beyond words and conveys a deeper spiritual message than words can…”

What better way to celebrate one’s cultural heritage, than by opening up the conversation with the world? In the best sense of its artistic high level, the evening’s audience at the 92 Y had the opportunity to listen to this special universal language, delivered with musical beauty and dignity.: Avner Dorman with his Parents Mr.and Mrs. Zeev Dorman visitng from Israel.

Presenting: Pianist Alexej Gorwatch, Winner of the 2009 Dublin International Piano Competition. Zankel Hall Recital on April 14th. 2011.

2011-04-15T20:04:00.000-07:00

It certainly took some of the proverbial practice, practice, practice…. to get to Carnegie Hall, on the part of the 23 years old Alexej Gorlatch, who is continuing his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany; but it almost certainly took a lot more than that. All that practice, as well as his immensely abundant natural pianistic technique and musical talent, still does not usually lead directly from Hannover to Carnegie Hall, or does it? There is no doubt that the international piano competition circuit has become extremely important to fostering and rewarding young artists with the opportunities of performance experiences, and launching their professional careers in the process. Tonight’s recital was part of the first prize, awarded to Gorlatch as the winner of the Dublin International Piano Competition, in 2009. Gorlatch winning First Prize in Dublin (pictured at award ceremony with Mary Macaleese, President of the Competition) Founded in 1988 and sponsored by a private benefactor, the competition joined the Alink-Argerich Foundation in 2004 and is recognized as one of the finest International piano competitions worldwide. A member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions, it attracts a wide consortium of international competitors during its triennial events. Chaired by Irish pianist and piano pedagogue John O’Conor (Photo), who is also the competition’s artistic director, the competition relies heavily on its distinguished and reputable, international jury. In 2009, when Gorlatch competed successfully, Veda Kaplinsky, Piano Chair of the Juilliard School, whom I spotted in the audience tonight as well, was part of the Jury that awarded him the winning prize in Dublin. While competitions are often criticized for their demanding training grounds, taking young and impressionable students out of more nurturing hubs to expose their creative talents to rigorous rivalry and struggle for the medal, some of the competitors seem to develop positively during these taxing times. And the profit can be great for the ones who flourish naturally, even under the strain of competing. Of course once entered successfully, competitors usually begin making the rounds at various competitions. Different competitions enjoy different reputations, depending on who you ask. Some are known to be harder to win, some have an aura of being more artistically rewarding… but all have one thing in common. They support the unknown young artist on his road to becoming a performing artist, creating a name known to a jury, critics and an audience; and introducing these young artists to their first public appearances. Born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1988, Gorlatch has been rewarded with numerous honors since age 11 because of his early detected talent. He won another first prize at the prestigious Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan, as early as 2006. As a pupil of renowned piano pedagogue Professor Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hannover, he also particpated in the International Chopin Festvial in Duszniki-Zdroj, and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras in Japan, the Ukraine and Germany. In New York he performed (in February of 2010) at the People’s Symphony Concerts . (Photo: Professor K.H. Kämmerling in 2007) Gorlatch, who had no problem also impressing his New York audience with his solid winning program, especially through his subtleness of tone and velvet like quality of touch in its second half, which included Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op.60 and Four Mazurkas from Op. 67 and Op. 68. One felt put at ease by his relaxed stage manner and secure sovereignty at the keyboard, garnering him two standing ovations. The evening’s successful and well attended recital was presented for the Dublin competition by the prestigious management of Kirshbaum, Demler&Associates Inc. Even though Gorlatch was accompanied by the Executive Director of the competition’s board's executive committee, Adrianne Carolan, as well as artistic director John O’Conor himself, Gorlatch had a bit of regret that his father was not able to join him and his mother for this special evening in New York. The good news is, there will be many more chances to hear this up and coming artist, I am sure.

On May 18th, 2011 he will give his solo recital debut, in London’s Wigmore Hall.

A concert experience beyond the score

2011-04-09T15:55:00.001-07:00

Creatively showing the music in context and adding visual texture to its genesis seems to be the hot ticket when it comes to efforts to increase its appeal for today’s music audiences. That goes for new music’s live performances set in alternative settings, as well as for some motivating approaches within traditional venues, namely the concert hall.This multi-faceted approach reaches a zenith when seeing and listening to the Chicago Symphony’s outreach program “Beyond the Score”.Geared to educate newcomers and enhance their curiosity as well as to engage the regular audience, “Beyond the Score” has proven to be an attractive and efficient attention getter for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and others are following suit. The resourcefulness of its “sexy” productions, as well as its artistically high standard, has gained “Beyond the Score” a reputation reaching way beyond its educational value.In its 6th year now, each multimedia production of a “Beyond the Score” program selects a particular work of music, presenting aspects of that work integrating live musical examples with a narrator following a theatrical storyline, images projected onto a screen over the stage, and/or different sound effects, correlating to its historic background and aesthetic content. After the intense and creative examination of the selected work, the audience returns after intermission to hear the work performed in its entirety, bringing a new outlook and level of understanding along to the concert hall experience.Coined as “edutainment”, by Playbillarts,(http://www.playbillarts.com/features/article/8173.html “Beyond the Score” was brought to the Philadelphia Orchestra by its chief conductor Charles Dutoit in 2009, after he had conducted some of these types of presentations in Chicago.“I love this way of presenting music with historical and political contexts,” Dutoit was quoted saying. “This is the way I would teach myself and this particular series is at a much higher level than anything I have ever seen before… this isn’t one of those ‘blahblahs’ about music. Adding the theatrical element is what makes the series so fun and convincing.”Pierre Boulez, on the http://beyondthescore.org , addresses such questions as, is it really necessary to re-invent the music’s score, to analyze its zeitgeist and spell it out for an audience? Is the music not enough? He offers that a work of art is never born out of nothing:”It speaks more in depth, if you know more about the language of the composer, what he wants to express and how he wants to express it.”The series got started officially in Chicago in 2005, as the brainchild of English native Gerard Mcburney and it was taken up by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under its vice president for artistic planning and audience development and executive director of Beyond the Score, Martha Gilmer.I had the opportunity to meet Gilmer on her turf, in between rehearsals of the orchestra with celebrated Ricardo Muti, Chicago’s Symphony Hall’s recently welcomed conductor. Gilmer explained:”There are hundreds of orchestras reaching out to their audiences but our way to communicate with audiences is unique. The opportunity to experience a variety of cultural art forms, history, literature, poetry, visual arts, posters, graphics, film…written word, spoken word, dramatic presentations integrated into the realm of a live performance of a musical work, makes for a completely new experience and our audiences really leaped for that. When I saw Mcburney’s presentation of ‘Strange Poetry’ in 2004 for the opening of Walt Disney Hall, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and music director Esa-Pekka Salonen at the time, I knew I had found my partner to help bring classical music to a larger audience. I had seen something that had changed my understanding of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, into an entirely new experience.”That production was a collaboration of Gerard McBurney with Mcburney’s brother, theater director Simon Mcburney, with whom he had already created the very successful production of Lincoln Center’s “Noise of Time,” a multimedia presentation for the Emerson Quartet’s Shostakovich performance in 2000.Gilmer describes seeing the strong emotional response the audience had as being part of the attraction. She remembers a particular affecting reaction to a Shostakovich presentation, which evoked the political repression of the Stalin era, disallowing his 4th Symphony to be performed at the time of its composition. The scenery was supported by typical propaganda posters of the communist era that read:”Is music dangerous?”A man in the audience stood up during Mcburney’s narrative and shouted:”Long live the 3rd International!” which people thought to be part of the scripted performance. “This outburst showed me that yes, music is potentially dangerous. It’s emotionally affecting,” according to Gilmer’s account.Eventually, in 2009, Gerard Mcburney joined the staff of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as artistic advisor and artistic director of “Beyond the Score.”He definitely possesses the gift of communicating his enthusiasm for “Beyond the Score,” which came out even during our brief chat. In his creative hands, the score becomes a blueprint with many possibilities. The challenge lies in finding what speaks most about the essence of the work of music and then to present these essential elements within a bigger context. In the process he is de-fragmenting the score into all its facets, immersing himself into each detail which will make for a convincing re-creation.”…and for each work that will be something different…and it depends on the availability of artists as well as some lucky coincident.”As an example he describes the production of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, for which he, instead of depicting its historically known scandalous ballet production, rather chose another inherent musical component. The melodies, used by Stravinsky, were based on folksongs and, upon further explorations, rooted in Ukrainian traditional wedding songs. A specialist in this dying out art form was located in the Ukraine – thanks to the Chicago connection, and using a local choir within the Chicago area, broadcasted for the event. “It created an astounding effect,” recalls Mcburney, who, beyond the detailed orientation has a fascinating outlook on the bigger picture.”I never quite know exactly what the final creation will add up to, until it’s being performed. Every piece of art is individual, has its own language and needs to be re-created in a different way and with different means.” For Vivaldi’s Vier Jahreszeiten, Mcburney was looking for a visual means to associate the different species of birds evoked in the musical score. Available bird prints did not match the 18th century style of the music, until he retrieved Bird Illuminations, part of an original 18th century collection of Venetian prints. Copies had to be made and sent from the Italian collection the following day, just in time for the performance.”Things like this just work through the friendships built during the last 35 years of my collected experiences, in the many different fields I have worked in as writer, composer, producer….I consider myself a gypsy in the world of music, and this is where all the threads are coming together for me,” says Mcburney, as we leave Symphony Hall on his way to another appointment.The learning experience as an art form in itself may even bring back the community factor to the concert hall. Something that’s missing most of all.

Article first published as A Concert Hall Experiences Beyond the Score on Blogcritics.

Leif Ove Andsnes – A disparate program held together by stylistic elegance and sovereignty of each piece’s characteristics.

2011-04-07T13:41:00.001-07:00

While visiting Chicago (Photo), I heard that the personable and very handsome Andsnes, one of Europe’s finest pianistic exports, who has acquired seven Grammy Award nominations and many international awards, was in town for a concert program. He also is performing the same program tonight at Carnegie Hall. This was the perfect opportunity for me to assess Chicago’s stylish Symphony Hall. Located at the premier address, Michigan Avenue, the entire experience of the program fit in with the city’s mixed architectural skyline, a bit of old and a bit of new. While that mix exerts a certain charm in Chicago’s architectural landscape, at first glance, the concert’s program appeared a bit lacking in coherence. However, Andsnes’ great effortless style and elegance, which was constantly present in his playing, gave the program’s an overall seamless quality without taking away from the essential expressivity of each individual piece. The two Beethoven Sonatas that flanked the Brahms and the Schoenberg pieces in the April 3rd. program told a lot about Andsnes’ technical prowess, as well as his great sense for architectural structure in music. Beethoven’s Waldstein, which the program noted as a groundbreaking work, “revealing a previous unknown sound”, was performed with great sonority and alluring explorations of the composition’s core, yet fulfilled its main promise; namely to reveal. Perhaps there was even a nod to the last Beethoven Sonata No.32 in C Minor, Op.111, as a “Farewell to the Sonata form” as Thomas Mann in his Doctor Faustus coined it; and Andsnes’ dynamic range within the Brahm’s Opus 10 Ballades brought out – well, the endearing quirkiness of Brahms, with just the right amount of unassuming drama. The most electrifying playing though was heard in Andsnes projection of all the fine nuances in Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces, Op.19. Here Andsnes expressed a sheer limitless array of color. One of the Encores, a Kurtag flourish of a piece called Scraps of a colinda melody- faintly recollected, was rendered with a most pianistic pianissimo, a Chopin Waltz in A-flat Major op.42 and Schumann’s Romance in F-sharp Major, No.2, Op. 28 gave a romantically infused introspective farewell. Andsnes’ (Photo)celebrated status as a performer has already afforded him a sizeable EMI and Virgin discography and just last month he signed a new contract as a Sony artist. They plan to feature the forty year old Andsnes playing Beethoven’s five piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, both performing and directing from the keyboard. I was taken by surprise to hear of Andsnes’ just recent decision to step down from the post of music director of the 2012 Ojai Music Festival; a post previously held by some major interpreters of classical music with a cutting edge. I suspect, as he showed backstage visiting fans baby pictures of his now 10 month old daughter on his I-phone, there may be a time constraint reason. As he admitted smilingly: “On nights before concert performances, I get to sleep through the night in a separate room from the baby.” Thank god for connecting, yet clearly separate rooms in hotels, as well as for permitting the music to speak for itself, even without a binding contextual program.

Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players: musically devoted to the beauty found in “caviar” as well as in the “potatoes” of music repertoire.

2011-03-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

Now in their 10th season, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players have earned their special place in New York City music lovers’ hearts. A stone throw from Lincoln Center’s main venues, the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church on 152 West 66th Street provides a modest but intimate setting for the chamber music series, commemorating the powerful legacy of the founder and conductor of the Jupiter Symphony Orchestra, Jens Nygaard, who had performed for audiences at Alice Tully Hall, as well as the homeless and victims of natural disasters alike. His passion for music not only glorified already celebrated works, but he sought out lesser known and neglected works or composers whose names had been forgotten, which he presented with great appeal. This charismatic personality in teaching and music-making touched many lives before he passed away in 2001. The Emmy Award winning documentary “Life on Jupiter,” has accounts of Nygaard’s highly spirited and relevant impact, told by his friends and colleagues. Run by private funding, the enthusiastic efforts of the Chamber Players’ manager and Nygaard’s widow, Mei Ying, as well as former first bassoonist and now music advisor, Michael Volpert, the series is dedicated to continuing Mr. Nygaard’s artistic quest for beautiful music and interesting performance. It also keeps on providing performance opportunities for some of the former orchestral musicians as well as talented guest artists. A small but loyal and informed audience follows this quest on a very low budget. Tickets are not expensive. The performances are held on twenty Monday afternoons (2pm) and evening (7.30pm) programs. Besides playing some of the standard gamut, the performers who come from a roster of first rate, internationally performing artists, notably explore a handpicked, highly selective repertoire. This means of course intense rehearsal times for the musicians who often have to learn little known music and put it together, within the same weekend. Those rehearsals typically take place at some of the actively engaged volunteers’ homes. Providing support on a regular basis are Leslie and Harmar Brereton, MD. As one of the loyal benefactors the Jupiter musicians can count on, Leslie, an amateur pianist herself, enjoys sharing her fine Steinway Grand piano and music room with the hard working musicians, who will never have to leave her house hungry. Her generous hospitality extends to her offering her home across from Lincoln Center to some of the Jupiter musicians who travel from out of town to perform. This particular Saturday three of the regular Jupiter players, cellist Inbal Segev, former Jupiter principal clarinetist Vadim Lando and former Jupiter principal horn player Karl Kramer, were joined by guest artists, pianist Roman Rabinovich and violinist Dmitri Berlinsky, to prepare a challenging program. The musicians form an international crowd; the mood is friendly – and the music is stirringly beautiful. Sometimes the Russian violinist Berlinsky is on the same page with the Israeli cellist Segev, when Kramer from Norway, argues tempi. Later Kramer mitigates between the Russian Lado and Rabinovich, the other Russian at the piano. The impression is that the music can only be so alive, because of people like these devoted musicians who choose to spend the bigger part of their weekend, arguing over its nuances in a never ending quest for perfect beauty and harmony. There is yet another rehearsal necessary which will take place at the cellist’s home on Sunday. And then of course the performance itself on Monday will bring out new perceptions, inspired by the different acoustics and the presence of the audience in the church. “The critics will come in the afternoon,” proclaimed Mei Ying, who remained busy sorting piles of index cards, containing notes on the repertory of the Jupiter Symphony Orchestra, during the entire rehearsal. Her tiny physical stature does not give away her sheer endless energy, when it comes to taking care of her agenda: keeping the music going. The program of Monday, March 28th, offers a truly varied selection that the clarinet virtuoso Vadim Lando charmingly introduces: “As if we did not have enough music to play, we were asked to still include this piece by Weber, The Variations on a theme from “Silvana” Op.33 (1811).” Robert Kahn’s Serenade in F Minor for piano, clarinet & horn Op. 73 (1923) is one of those fantastic pieces that is hardly ever heard performed elsewhere. It does exist in a variety of arrangements for different combinations of instruments. Kahn was born in Mannheim (1865) and, as Michael Volpert, who now turned pages for pianist Rabinovich explained, Brahms offered to take Kahn on as a pupil when he heard his music. But Kahn, who was in awe of Brahms, as is quite audible in his composition, was too modest to accept the offer. He did however become president of the Prussian Academy of the Arts in 1914 and the amazing pianist that he was had two famous pupils: Arthur Rubinstein and Wilhelm Kempff. He escaped Germany in 1938 and emigrated to England. The talented pianist Roman Rabinovich, winner of the 2008 Rubinstein competition and the superbly softly voiced violinist Dmitri Berlinsky, lead in Mozart’s Piano Trio K.548, which anticipates his “Jupiter” Symphony. After the intermission where cookies are served, Karl Kramer gets the opportunity to shine in 4 octaves of horn playing mostly to himself in a Haydn Divertimento a tr’e for horn, violin and cello. But the absolute highlight of the program is the last one performed: Schoenberg’s “Verklaerte Nacht” (Transfigured night) Op. 4 (1899) transcription by Eduard Steuermann in 1932 for piano trio. The transcription of the original String Sextet was permitted by Schoenberg, even though he never got to hear the finished piece of his talented student, Steuermann. He would have loved it, is my guess. Cellist Segev convinces with assured, yet soulful lines, her beautiful deep tones intertwined with Berlinksy’s heartfelt dialogue, who takes the unfolding drama to its melodic heights. Pianist Rabinovich unites the most sensitive moments with his utmost pianissimo and seemingly expands time until he creates virtuosic turmoil with all the power of his well balanced hands, over the keyboard. Based on a romantic poem by Richard Dehmel, the piece was performed, together with original works by Schoenberg, by Steuermann at a private music society founded by Schoenberg and frequented by the circles who surrounded Berg, Webern and himself at that time. According to Michael Volpert, critics were not allowed. Alfred Brendel has been a pupil of Steuermann. Michael Volpert, the raconteur, loves to involve the audience and his highly informed and low key way of explaining interesting details, makes me wish to hear more of the background of every piece performed. Volpert had worked with Nygaard in the Jupiter Orchestra and had grown close to the man he describes as,”an extraordinary figure, whose charisma just drew people in.” He continues to share how he became involved in programming for the Jupiter series:”I loved the fact that Jens performed unusual works, we shared that passion. At this point we probably try even more to keep that balance.” So how does one pick the program, and which piece for which artist? It seems to be a process that has no definitive rule, but gets there as circumstances evolve:”First we make a roster of dates, establishing who is available when. Once we have the musicians, we choose the style accordingly. Every artist has a personally different approach, different preferences and different things to offer. One may have the more stellar technique, while the other may offer a better tone. One is great in romantic repertoire, others prefer modern or classical. Usually I choose one larger piece, and build the program around it. Sometimes I look more for variation within a program; sometimes the pieces are historically related or the program becomes thematic. “But most importantly, we do what we do because we love the music and being with the musicians. Some are here every other week; some twice a year and we are all fans. The musicians must enjoy making music with each other. In that sense we are a community, by now a lot of friendships have developed.” But while the musicians must be on their highest level, the music has to be interesting, but not every piece has to be a masterpiece. In fact, that would be undesirable, according to Volpert:”You can’t just have caviar! Every good meal must be balanced; you want to have some potatoes as well.” correction of the name: Michael Volpert

To read more about the Jupiter Chamber Music Players go to their website: http://www.jupitersymphony.com/ The next “out of this world” program on April 11th, 2011, will host guest artists: CMS pianist Alessio Bax; Cynthia Phelps, principal violist of the New York Philharmonic and violinist Stephan Jackiw, winner of the 2002 Avery Fisher Grant.

WQXR’s Green Space discourse: Salonen deserved more echo

2011-03-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

Jerome L.Green Space

Having the opportunity to listen in on a live-broadcast conversation with Esa-Pekka Salonen, the internationally renowned composer/conductor and curator of the Lincoln Center’s festival “Hungarian Echoes” (taking place March 10th -27th), sounded like a wonderful proposition to me. This was a presentation of WQXR’s Green Space on Tuesday, March 7th.
I would have just wished that the energetic moderator, a driving force in the New Music scene, Nadja Sirota, had let the conversation really take off to higher grounds. Sirota is a successful Juilliard graduate violist and faculty member at Manhattan’s School New Music department, as well as a performer and interpreter of the new new music scene, so she certainly neither lacks the knowhow nor the charisma to engage her subject in a meaningful discourse.
The Q2 production at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR, which accommodates a small audience to experience the process of radio broadcasting, is an ideal multi-media performance space that could be the cultural platform for New York and beyond. This could have been true in this case, had Salonen been given the chance to get in more lines.
Esa-Pekka Salonen

Instead, there he was, the current leader of the British “Philharmonia”, whose vocational career has catapulted him, even though he is on the younger side, into the internationally recognized top league of enigmatic conductors, hardly being given the opportunity to share much of his insights with the audience.
He was the undisputedly most interesting guest one wanted to hear from, as he sat next to Sirota while pianist Conor Hanick performed Ligeti on the harpsichord. And there he remained sitting silently, while pianist Marino Formenti filled in for Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the piano with some Bartók pieces and while musicians of the New York Philharmonic offered a somewhat awkward potpourri of different movements of works by the three featured festival composers: Bartók, Haydn and Ligeti.
Even if the pieces represented the composers of the festival, the characteristics of Ligeti on harpsichord, or the tender piano pieces of Bartók’s “Hungarian Dances,” had little in common with the symphonic festival and they certainly did not help answer the question thrown out by Sirota to Salonen and pianist Formenti: “What makes them Hungarian? “

Nadia Sirota

The only information I really took away from the conversation which gained lively momentum through the emotionally charged, but a bit chaotic, Formenti was the fact that the Hungarian thread was to be understood somewhat loosely, since Hungarian geographical territories continuously shifted according to political alliances within the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Culturally, what was really thought to be Hungarian was often rooted in Gypsy music.
However the music of Hungarian-born Bartók and Haydn, who had worked at the Esterhazy court in Hungary, and Ligeti, born into a Jewish-Hungarian family from Transylvania, remains fascinating. Their music was highly innovative for its time and therefore captivated the interest of Salonen, the true modernist spirit, to curate the festival.
As far as Salonen’s personal input about the festival, he volunteered one important fact, namely that he finds himself at a stage in his life where he now has free choices of performances. Luckily for us, he obviously likes the Bartók, the Haydn and the Ligeti. This was even clearer when I heard his Bartók rehearsal with the New York Philharmonic that same morning. He was really fantastic at it. Demanding yet devoted, he negotiated with the already excellent and capable Philharmonic players several nuances of tempi, dynamics and coloration. He stopped and started them, even stopping them mid-bar where they immediately picked up fluidly. Sometimes he did this with a little humor: “We managed to bury the trumpets…twice…”, sometimes with firmness, but always making sure of getting his way, in a compelling manner. Concert master Glenn Dicterow sat to his left with the violins, opposing the violas on the right hand side of the conductor – a relatively new seating arrangement, agreeable with Salonen and Alan Gilbert ( compare with my concertmaster article: http://getclassical.blogspot.com/2011/02/first-fiddle-glenn-dicterow.html )
Esa-Pekka Salonen

The atmosphere stayed always friendly, but there was also a tremendously focused concentration in the orchestra, as they conformed audibly to the energetic, modern dance-like movements of the Finn. It was an exciting way to listen to Bartók’s inventive themes that actually seem so much less confrontational as we get more and more familiar with them over the years. He really – as Dicterow remarked on the way to rehearsal, is not at all that “avant-garde” anymore. As wonderful as this rehearsal was, I felt that at the Green Space performances, “Less is more” would have worked better.
I went there for Salonen’s vision and how it connected to works at his festival, as well as to get to know something about his personality. The incredibly important fact that he had worked closely with Ligeti, before his death in 2006, was only briefly mentioned, but never elaborated on. A world of influences on a potent composer and conductor could have been brought to light, by the talented performer and radio show host known to champion New Music of this high caliber, so why didn’t Sirota do it? She had the space, the time, and the man right with her.
Salonen, who had not even taken the time to change since the rehearsal must have felt similarly, after beating traffic all the way to 160 Varrick Street, even if he did come by limousine.

Evgeny Kissin plays his Liszt - program at Carnegie Hall

2011-03-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

The Concert : Tonight -that's Kissin !

Finally, Evgeny Kissin's Liszt-Tour reached Carnegie Hall. Not only was Kissin at his very best; Liszt himself was presented at his very best.

The hall's wonderful acoustics carried full bodied resonances of Liszt's overtones, overpowering even the most stubborn coughs around me. Lyricism was presented in abundance without being artificially sweetened into any kitsch, just blissful and delightful play. Liszt, the virtuoso composer, who established the piano-recital as we know it with his famed "The concert, that's me" came across as the master composer, finally receiving the appreciation he so fully deserves. Kissin delighted with absolute keyboard mastery, bordering wizardry. An unforgettable evening.

Evgeny Kissin: Jerusalem at Heart

2011-03-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

Photo:Tomer Appelbaum

Even though the pianist’s ‘Liszt – Recital Tour’ did not actually start out, as originally planned in Jerusalem, and instead started in Madrid, playing in Jerusalem for the first time was of great moment to Kissin’s heart. As he put it, “ Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim Tishkach Yimini ...” Douay-Rheims Bible(If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten)

I could not even begin to imagine the impact of this literal transcription.

Kissin performs concerts in Tel Aviv on a regular basis, but this concert, held on February 16th, (instead of as planned on January 8th) was the first of its kind, his first Solo recital here and had a locally invested objective: to help raise funds for the Jerusalem Music Center.
The initiative for the concert, as Kissin told me, was based on his wish to perform in Jerusalem itself and, looking for this welcomed opportunity, he approached his friend, Lady Annabelle Weidenfeld.
As a member of the Center’s Advisory Board, Lady Weidenfeld, in conjunction with the Jerusalem Foundation and renowned pianist Murray Perahia, the organization’s president since 2009, obliged enthusiastically and the concert was planned as part of Kissin’s 2011 world tour.
The concert, to honor Liszt’s 200th bicentennial was held at the International Convention Center ’Binyanei hauma’ in Jerusalem to accommodate as many people as possible. This was part of a Liszt recital tour which put Jerusalem on the classical music map along with the usual venerable venues including Carnegie Hall, the latter on March 9th, 2011.
Situated within the picturesque neighborhood of ‘Mishkenot She’ananim’, near Jerusalem’s Old City, JMC was founded in 1973, inspired by the vision of legendary violinist and mentor to many great artists, Isaac Stern and Teddy Kollek, then eminent mayor of Jerusalem.
As an advanced training center for Israel’s young musical talents, JMC’s mission - as executive director Hed Sella in an interview with Sarah Carnvek explains, is not geared to discover the next prodigy, but is rather invested in helping talented young people to become all-round musicians.
Says Sella:”From the JMC point of view, we try to be apolitical and invite only those with the best musical quality. We are involved in several projects that see Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs playing together. We believe in coexistence.”
Without being a school, JMC provides a most formidable education, like the ‘Perlman Music Program’ that makes it possible for students to play in an orchestra under the baton of Maestro Yitzhak Perlman, as well as study chamber and classical Arabic music; and also sing in a chorus and receive individual lessons from a world class faculty.
Kissin agreed to donate proceeds from his Jerusalem concert to support the JMC training programs for young pianists at the center. According to Sella, “It was a solid reaffirmation of high esteem for Jerusalem’s culture.”
It most certainly was a gesture to honor Jerusalem, which had honored Kissin before. In 2010, Kissin was the recipient of an honorary doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Conferment of the honorary doctorates

Kissin has increasingly made public notice of his heritage, with the intent to ideologically stand by the Jewish people and halt anti-Semitic tendencies.
A written interview with the Jerusalem Post in January 2011, depicts Kissin’s strong sentiments, towards his Jewish identity: “…In spite of the fact, that I… grew up in an assimilated family and knew nothing about Jewish history, let alone religion…when I was a child, I wrote a will (yes!) The content of which, I believe, reveals a lot. It read as follows: ‘when I die, bury me in a forest…with the following inscription: Here lies Evgeny Kissin, a son of the Jewish people, a servant of music…See, that’s how I identified myself already as a child.”
When living in England, Kissin was exposed to rising anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiments. He felt an obligation, being in the public eye, to come to Israel’s defense.
My article examined his public outrage voiced in his open letter to the BBC.
His fan site incorporates a library that he describes with statements like these....”Authors who are mainly non- Jews, many of them Arabs, giving interviews in support of Israel….I started to speak up in public, in order to counter the raging anti-Israel hysteria in much of the world.Since I was well known and hundreds of thousands of people all over the world were coming to my concerts and buying my recordings, I felt that I had to tell them:”If you like my art, this is who I am, who I represent and what I stand for.” Kissin explains his convictions to his fans on his website with essential historic facts about Israel, in an attempt to counteract anti-Israel propaganda.
While I was very familiar with Kissin’s commitment of speaking out in support of Israel’s democratic rights and obligations, I became only recently aware of his heartfelt love of and proficiency in the Yiddish language.
Doomed by the threat of extinction, Yiddish was the vernacular language of Jews living in Eastern and Central Europe before World War II, and has become a national treasure of Jewish culture. In an interview in Yiddish, with Dr. Max Kohn on the video channel of the “Forverts” (the Yiddish version of the Forward), Kissin explains how he taught himself the ‘Alef Beis’, the Hebrew letters necessary to read Yiddish in its “Urtext.” He also promotes his CD, ‘On the Keys of Yiddish Poetry,’ featuring poems by Yiddish poets which Kissin recites in Yiddish. The interview (in Yiddish as well), is available on Youtube. He also has done live presentations in Yiddish at Verbier and Montpelier.
Not unlike the American people, Israelis are bound to a multitude of ethnic presences, even though Israelis are only one generation removed from their ancestors’ cultural heritage.
At the Jerusalem concert, the Russian keyboard master played for a practically sold out hall, despite the short notice change of date. The prevailing language heard, besides Hebrew, was Russian. As I sat next to an older lady, who was muttering comments in Russian, I gathered she was a piano teacher. We were sitting in the front row, and she watched every move on stage critically. She might as well have been an acquaintance of Kissin’s own great teacher, Anna Pavlovna Kantor.
The great school of Russian-Jewish musicianship prevails in Israel after a significant wave of Russian Jew emigration in the Seventies and Eighties. This is made evident, for example, by the large percentage of Russian descent musicians within the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kissin was celebrated throughout the performance, with young and just as enthusiastic older fans approaching the stage and handing over one bouquet of flowers after the other.
Immediately following the concert, a flock of admirers, music students and all, followed Kissin to the make shift Greenroom, of the Convention Center. One could think this was a scene from a Rock concert; fans hovered around Kissin, struggling to get a glimpse, an autograph, a photo from their idol.
At the Greenroom, a very friendly and courteous Kissin, greeted his fans, including myself. We had been in touch over email, but it was the first time we met in person.
His affable and responsive salutation :”Shalom Ilona, at last we meet,” after having him heard perform the most remarkable concert , with the most definitely ideal rendition of the Schubert –Liszt - transcription‘ Soiree de Vienne Valse Caprice No.6’, was just the perfect encore for me, personally.

Article first published as Evgeny Kissin: Jerusalem at Heart on Blogcritics.

Vivian Fung: Composing Collaborations - between Gamelan and New Music Chamber Ensembles

2011-02-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

“I find the most inspiration while travelling” says composer Vivian Fung, whose first commission for the New York Chamber Society was performed under the baton of Gerard Schwarz in 1995.

She was 19 years old at the time. Her interests in music are influenced by her wide ranging travels and exude cross cultural pollination.
Fluent in Cantonese as well as English, Fung unites both worlds of her Asian heritage and the Western influences of her schooling and surroundings, comfortably within her personality. “My background is Chinese but I grew up in Edmonton, Canada, and my training is Western throughout,” Fung explains to me over lunch on the Upper West Side, at ‘Nick&Tony’ near Lincoln Center. Exclaiming to be a big “foodie,” the delicately built young composer examines the menu, settling for an exotic sounding version of a hamburger. She is decisive and matter of fact, yet agreeable and comfortable with defying categorizations. When it comes to music her take is especially definite:”There is no line for me, marking classical music from non-classical.”
After earning her doctorate in composition from Juilliard in 2002, the energetic young musician started teaching music theory as part of the faculty of Julliard’s Literature and Materials of Music department.
An inspirational trip to Bali in the summer of 2004 brought about some exploration of South East Asian Gamelan music and led her to curate the innovative ‘World Music Series,’ at Juilliard. This venture allowed her to channel some of the exciting and foreign artistic influences into her ‘other life’ in academia and to introduce the students to different cultural elements, broadening their musical horizons.

“I would invite top notch artists, talk about their culture and background and just introduce the students to different influences.” she remembers, contagiously excited. She explains how this came about: “I had just come back from Bali, and had studied with one of the foremost Balinese Gamelan groups named Cudamani, which happened to go on tour in the US that spring of 2005, and so I invited them to give a lecture-recital at Juilliard.”
It is easy to see how Fung’s innovative project won her enthusiastic followers throughout the Juilliard student body. Personal interaction is existentially important for Fung:”Since composing for me is a very collaborative process, with the performing musician(s)and I am interested in a true involvement, it is important that there is a passionate approach towards my work, about my music. It helps, of course, to have a personal relationship as well. When the performer is enthusiastic, learns the piece by heart and gives the performance full attention and effort, the result is something greater than the piece itself. ”
Naturally, the personal factor always comes into play; and especially so with most of the promising collaborative circles of new “music scenes,” with the often overlapping interaction of performers, composers, conductors and educators. Based mostly in America’s Metropolitan areas, these groups of musicians also seem to provide more and more often their own audience base. Remarkably though, a perpetual artistic individualism prevails through even the most collaborative efforts. It seems as there has never been a more exciting conglomerate of mixed stylistic, highly original and creative voices around.

Inspiration - Bali

Fung exclaims: “My work as a composer is so personal; I am always open for influences that inform my choices. Of course the Asian undercurrent is always going to be there, this is always going to be part of who I am. But ultimately it’s all about one’s personal journey. Of course I am aware who my colleagues and friends are, and we do have a community. I love also interacting with the audience, talking about my piece and experiencing a connection. It is important to me, that the audience is diversified. I do not believe in elitism. I am very involved in the Chicago Fulcrum Point New Music Project, a chamber ensemble found in 1998 by acclaimed musician, conductor and music educator Stephen Burns. They will present the world premiere of my “Yunnan Folk Songs” on March 22nd, 2011, as part of their concert “Speaking in Tongues. In the Chicago area, Fung was also composer –in- residence for the Music in the loft series in 2005/6.

Gamelan Performance

True to Fung’s academic interest, the “Yunnan Folk Songs” is a project, based on vast research by Professor Zhang Xingrong of the Yunnan Art Institute, China. Since the early 80’s he has established an immense ethno-musicological collection of folksongs preserving cultural edifices of 25 minority nationalities in Southwest China, recording and transmitting their distinct languages and musical outputs.
Says Fung: “I can go in-between a lot of things, can be an observer of different traditions, without having to stick to any particular way. How you relate to the world and other people comes from an imagination from within. The same goes for musical composition. My musical reference to certain cultural influences is always characterized or filtered by my inspiration of certain aspects of it.”
With the Yunnan Folk song- cycle for example, Fung felt an immediate urge to explore the strong emotional impact of the raw and earthy voices, expressing an uninhibited emotional quality delivered by means of intense contrapuntal textures.
This seventeen-minute cycle of seven songs for mezzo-soprano, baritone and chamber ensemble is a still in process artisticinvestigation that she would like to explore even further and maybe develop, at some point, into an operatic work.
To find enough time for her increasing emergence as a composer, Fung made the decision to leave Julliard’s teaching position in 2009. “A leap of faith,” as she admits.
“I really enjoyed teaching as well, but I just could not be able to branch out, in the way I wanted to, having such limited time,” says the married Fung who is also considering time issues, concerning the debate of starting a family.
For the time being, she relishes the highly personal involvement with the artists she creates her works for: “My relationship with performers is becoming more and more important to how I shape a new commission, as well as the potential longevity of my work.”

Vivian Fung

Fung tells about her friendship with pianist Jenny Lin , a well recognized young performer, who is known for her fine musical skills in both classical repertoire as well as a new music pianist: “In 2005, Jenny approached me to write a new work for her on prepared piano, which became Glimpses, premiered by her at the ISCM Miami Festival in 2006.
This work has been performed numerous times, by Jenny and has since been picked up by such pianists as Margaret Leng Tan, Vicky Chow, and Bryan Wagorn, who will perform it at the America Society, New York, April 26th. 2011, celebrating the composer as the rising star of Canadian music that she is. Part of this celebration will also be the Canadian Afiara String Quartet , currently the graduate resident string quartet at The Juilliard School in New York, where they serve as teaching assistants to the Juilliard String Quartet.
“I think that it was thanks to the care, Jenny and I applied working on finding the right notation and nuances that helped get the work “out there,” says Fung. “Already then, Jenny recognized the potential in Glimpse’s first movement, “Kotekan” to be built up into a larger, more complex work. This idea led to my piano concerto “Dreamscapes” for Jenny that was commissioned by Andrew Cyr for the Metropolis Ensemble and was premiered at LePoisson Rouge in November of 2009. So…if you listen to the Piano Concerto, there is a quotation of “Kotekan” about 4 minutes into the concerto and that material is greatly expanded upon.”
Violinist Kristin Lee attended Fung’s class at Juilliard, and was fascinated from the get go. A mutual collaboration with the violinist, whom Fung describes as gutsy, virtuosic and lyrical at the same time, started when Fung got invited to one of her performances.
“I invited Andrew [Cyr] to join me and we both were blown away by her performance. Andrew invited Kristin to join the Metropolis Ensemble, where she also became the concertmaster for the performance of my Piano Concerto in 2009. She loved it, enough so, that she sent me an email after a rehearsal and asked me to write a violin concerto for her…The relationship I have fostered with Kristin resulted also in her accompanying me to Bali, this past summer of 2010, while I was touring with Gamelan Dharmaswana, in residence here at the New York Indonesian Consulate…the trip made our musical friendship grow deeper…The cadenza was a collaborative effort, it will be a tour de force,” says Fung, as she invites me to preview the performance of mentioned cadenza, at its inaugural benefit performance at Riverpark, with the Metropolis Ensemble on March 8th, 2011. The world premiere of the violin concerto in its entirety is planned for sometime in the fall of 2011.
“I am also an active community member, fostering additional relationships with rising composers and performers through workshops and outreach programs. In my role of the New York Foundation for the Arts music fellow for 2010-11 I have been involved as a mentor in their Immigrant Artist Mentorship program, where I share my artistic experiences and resources, helping a young composer in her early career to achieve her goals.”
And she has indeed already plenty of valid resources and experiences to share.
Fung’s very next important date is the Canadian premiere of her String Quartet No 2. , taking place in Edmonton, her Canadian hometown.
Presented by the Edmonton Chamber Society and featuring the Shanghai String Quartet on March 5th. 2011, the work was a commission by the Shanghai String Quartet in 2009 in celebration of their 25th Season. Another piece for String Quartet, Pizzicato, composed already in 2001 and recorded with the Ying Quartet and released by Telarc in 2008, will be featured by the Escher Quartet as part of Chamber Society of Lincoln Center’s Opening Night, Fireworks -Concert at Alice Tully Hall, on September 26th, 2011.
Expect nothing less than Fireworks!
For more Information about the composer Vivian Fung, see her website: http://www.vivianfung.net/

Setting Pianistic Standards: The Arthur Rubinstein Society And International Piano Competition

2011-02-18T12:18:00.001-08:00

Arthur Rubinstein

"You don’t have to be a pianist, but you do have to be a musician that we know and respect, to be invited as a juror of the competition,” comments Idith Zvi, as she invites me into her small office, which has a grand piano and is filled with portraits of Arthur Rubinstein.
As the society’s artistic director, she (with only the help of a small staff) manages all efforts that make the Arthur Rubinstein Society and International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv, Israel, the renowned arena it has become for young pianists. For young pianists who like a challenge that is, since word is out that this competition is one of the difficult ones.

According to the brochure, founding director Jan Jacob Bistritzky’s aim was to “link the artistic legacy of Arthur Rubinstein with the cultural life of Israel."

Bistritzky, who emigrated from Poland in 1971, brought his professional expertise with him. In Warsaw, he had already directed the world-famous Frederyk Chopin Institute and the Chopin Piano Competition. This is also where he met legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein, whom he brought on board to reside over the competition held in Israel every three years. Rubinstein held the position of Jury chairman in its inaugural year, 1974, and again in 1977.

J.Bistritzky; A.Rubinstein

From the beginning, the jury was chosen to boast international appeal as well as to encompass the highest artistic expectations. Members from the highest ranks of performing artists and educators accepted the invitation, making the competition a red carpet event of the classical music world. Maybe it was the Italian virtuoso Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli who, as member of the 1974 jury, helped decide the vote for Emanuel Ax, as the first prize winner of the very first competition. Perhaps it was the Israeli born Yoheved Kaplinsky, current chair of the piano faculty at Juilliard that helped swing the vote for Kirill Gerstein, at the competition’s tenth round in 2001.

The principle of the competition is straightforward: 13 Jurors have a simple vote, during each stage of the competition, naming the candidates who will go into the next round. In the first stage, all accepted competitors play a 40-50-minute recital with an audience.

The Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition -Jury of 2008
Photo: The Jury of 2008 left to right:Dang Thai Son; Peter Cosse; Claude Frank; Yoheved Kaplinsky; Robert Levin; Piort Paleczny; Nikolai Petrov; Menahem Pressler; Uri Segal; Tamas Vasary; Jonathan Zak; Arie Vardi.

The jury decides which 16 competitors will go to the next round. In round one and two, the performer can choose the repertoire, as long as it includes a classical work and a romantic work, as well as a given selection of Israeli works. At the second stage, the jury chooses the 6 finalists, which will be ranked at the third stage. The repertoire includes one chamber music quintet of a given list, as well as two piano concerti, again one a classical period work and the other a romantic or Twentieth century- specified work. The six winners will receive 1. Prize of $25,000, 2. Prize of $15,000, 3. Prize of $10,000 and 4.-6.th Prizes of $3000 each. The Competition Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals, given for first, second and third place, are designed by Pablo Picasso and bear the competition’s inspiration, Arthur Rubinstein’s portrait. They are also engraved with Picasso´s facsimile signature as well as the emblem of the State of Israel, minted by the Israeli Government.

1.,2.,and 3. Price Medals. P.Picasso

Luminaries of the piano world, like Martha Argerich and Leon Fleisher, have appeared on the list of honorable jurors, as have Lev Naumov and Karl Heinz Kämmerling, to name just a few. Prominent Israeli pianist, composer and educator Prof. Arie Vardi has been part of the jury many times from 1977 onwards and currently serves as the society’s music advisor and chairman of the jury. It was Arie Vardie, who sought after Idith Zvi’s many talents for the society. As a pianist, educated in Israel and the United States, Zvi had reinvented herself often, shifting careers from performing artist, Broadcast producer and Festival founder, to coming full circle as the society’s artistic director. Her life has always centered around music, and her energetic impact has changed Israel’s cultural landscape in the process.

Idith Zvi
As a talented piano student, Zvi finished the conservatory at age 11. Before entering into the obligatory Israeli Army service, she had studied first with Naima Rosh, a pupil of Ilona Vincze and then was transferred to Ilona Vincze herself. Working at the army radio station, Zvi excitedly found a whole new outlet, allowing her to creatively engage with music, without having to sit and practice the piano in solitude.

But she did receive her Artist Diploma at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music and, when accompanying a student -cellist at a Masterclass, given by Leonard Rose , together with violinist Isaac Stern and pianist Eugene Istomin, Rose convinced her to continue her music studies in the United States. She auditioned for Jerome Loventhal, longstanding member at the Juilliard faculty and a performer, who at the time was performing with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv. He accepted her as a private student, in New York. Enrolled as a communication major at the Philadelphia based Temple University, she commuted to her piano lessons in New York every week.
That summer of 1968, she attended the Marlboro Festival. A summer she will always remember as a highpoint within her forming years as a musician. Zvi shares her fond memories of the livelong friendships she forged, especially with Richard Goode, who recommended her to move to New York full-time. She followed his advice and continued her postgraduate studies at the Mannes College with Claude Frank. “Shy and insecure, I arrived in New York not knowing what to expect and found myself at the centre of the New York classical music scene,” Zvi remembers.

Pianists Samuel Sanders and Murray Perahia, and violinist Alexander Schneider were amongst her circle of friends. She toured with violinist Yuval Waldman. And then, her father passed away in Israel and she returned home. An only child, she felt her place was here, close to her mother, and she started to make a living as a piano teacher. As a replacement for a radio producer, she launched her second career, radio producer for IBA, the Broadcasting Authority of Israel, working at the classical music station on National Radio.

Connecting her passion for classical music with her talents as a broadcast producer, writer, and editor, Edith Zvi initiated live broadcasts of concert performances. The annual Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s celebrations became public radio celebrations, and Zvi’s broadcast of the Rubinstein competition of 1977 added the necessary publicity to the coveted event of the classical piano world, putting the public eye efficiently on Israel´s important role on the map of international competitions.

Zvi´s broadcasts reflected on the IPO´s festive celebrations and the International competition, making these events popular and bringing more listeners to the radio programs as well.

The enormous success of an Independence Day Broadcast, with hundreds of children performing music in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Art Museum, inspired Zvi to create her own Chamber Music Festival, the first one in Israel at the time. Even though the lively and entrepreneurial powerhouse postponed the project for many years, she founded the Upper Galilei chamber music days in Kibbiuz K’far Blum in 1985, and stayed on as its artistic director for 10 years.

Live projects of the festival’s radio production became a large cooperation “Kol ha musica ha camerit” between the Office of Education and the Upper Galilei regional council and public radio. Zvi describes it as a huge responsibility: “I was running a one woman show. I was producer, director, and performer and even though it was a very satisfying work, it was time to move on.”

From 1995-2000, she served as Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra which had established its home at the Tel Aviv Museum. The group of 35 musicians had just parted with its musical director, Shlomo Mintz, and was in a dire financial state. Ultimately Zvi had to recognize that she was not really “dealing with music but with budgets.” That same year, in 2000, she made her move back to radio, and joined the Rubinstein Society as their deputy director. And, then without really changing its job description, the position turned into artistic director in 2003.

[The Picture shows the staff: (from left to right: Rivka Chernia(financial administrator) Orly Venturero (office manager), Shuly Haberman(producer) and Idith Zvi (artistic director)]

Making the competition vivacious and successful is a lot of work. We start after a competition comes to an end; we draw our conclusions of what worked and what didn’t and start preparing the next one. Planning dates requires a lot of coordination with the orchestra. In this case, it’s mainly the Israeli Philharmonic and the Hall. We are producing live performances with ticket sales, which provides an artistic relevant frame for the performer. Even though it is a competition, which is always challenging in so many ways, there is also the true concert experience, with a real audience present. The jurors have to be invited and chosen. We do like to have a good mix of returning jurors as well as new ones,” describes Zvi.

"Congratulations"

On the forever difficult question of how is it possible to determine a “winner” when inherently “immeasurable” artistic qualities are to be measured regardless, Zvi counters: “The jurors do not debate with each other. They simply name their choices. The mix of jurors helps for a more objective outcome and to create fair conditions. Jurors are not allowed to enter their own current students into the competition. Of course every juror has a personal taste, when it comes to preferences of musical interpretation, but there is also something generally true about a certain level of quality in the competitors.”

She continues, “I personally do not have a vote. I just know out of my own experience, it can be a really challenging experience and the standard is constantly rising. With recording techniques being so extremely advanced, the performer has to raise the level of the live performance as well. And most of them are used to doing just that. Many competitors travel from one competition to the next. I personally would not be competitive enough, accepting failure, without falling apart. I admire their enormous drive and I know how hard it is. Sometimes I just want to hug them, when they are suffering self doubt and despair. But the least I can do is make them feel comfortable. We have lovely host families that accompany them from the moment they arrive in Israel and are at their service. They are accommodated throughout the three weeks of ongoing competition, in a hotel with pianos in each room and their flights are subsidized with 500 dollars.”

At the end it’s about the exposure, the concert experience possibility, the PR and of course the prize itself. The branding as the next “winner” may not make for a sure career breakthrough quite yet, but it certainly is a great entrée.

While the program of the competition is the same every year, and varies only in the Israeli composer section, the opening concert, performed by the winners of the previous competition varies each time and underlies the artistic director’s choices. For this year’s competition opening concert to be performed with the Israel Camerata, Jerusalem,on May 10th, 2011, Edith Zvi has selected my favorite, the Schumann Piano Concerto in A-minor, as well as the Mozart piano concerto 488 in A–major and the Shostakovich concerto for piano, trumpet and strings. The concert will be performed by the winners of the 2008, Roman Rabinovitch (Israel) and Chin Yun Hu (Taiwan), who both shared the second prize, and Khatia Buniatishvili (Georgia).

This year, pianist Yefim Bronfman confirmed that he would join his former teacher Arie Vardi as juror. Too bad that due to health reasons, Alfred Brendel , who was supposed to attend as a special guest of honor, had to cancel.
I attended last year’s competition and can recommend it for an exciting challenge even for a member of the audience. You just may hear the next Rubinstein perform.

This year´s competition will be held from May 10th - May 26th, 2011.

For more detailed information, go to http://www.arims.org.il.

This article was first posted by the author at BlogCritics.

Pianist Marika Bournaki: on a Schumanesque quest--finding herself in the process

2011-02-05T22:19:00.001-08:00

Marika Bournaki

It is easy enough to identify striking talent, even at a young age. For musically-talented performers, this often seems to set a process in motion that can lead to an unstoppable, out of control ride. Parental support and teachers’ ambitions frequently play into rising expectations and young performers are often left to fight for themselves, dealing with the stress of having to perform well at all times. Intensive training must conform to some of the highest and most competitive standards, but these are not often in sync with a teenage state of mind and can easily leave the budding artist feeling overwhelmed by an inescapable, spiraling wheel of critique and approval.
I wonder if this is how it sometimes appeared to the young, French-Canadian born Marika Bournaki, whom I met with her boyfriend, David Aladashvili, in November of 2008, at New York’s Juilliard School cafeteria. Marika generously shared with me her thoughts on the different stages and experiences of becoming the serious artist she set out to be. This has grown into a tender friendship over the past three years, where I have followed Marika, with a distinct appreciation of the interesting young woman and maturing artist she is becoming.David and Marika, both freshmen at the time, had met at the Juilliard Pre-College Division. David had left his home in Georgia, and Marika followed in her father’s footsteps, who, before creating a home in Montreal, had studied violin with Julliard’s pre-eminent Dorothee Delay.
Marika’s promising pianistic talent had always created a lot of attention around her, making her what she describes as “the Golden child” of her piano teacher in Montreal. This renown gave her confidence and pride in her ability to perform, as well as lots of opportunities to do just that. Laughingly she described this as turning her into a bit of a “drama queen.”
Because she had experienced pain at the instrument, she sought out, even at 12, the help of Israeli born pianist and professor for music at the Juilliard School, Yoheved Kaplinsky. Veda, as she is affectionately called by her students, studied with Ilona Vincze-Kraus at the Israel Academy of Music and then under Irwin Freundlich at Juilliard, earning her Bachelor, Master and Doctoral degrees. She had also studied with Brooklyn-based pianist and teacher Dorothy Taubman, whose claim to fame lay in discovering an analytical approach that facilitates the physically complex elements in a natural piano technique; thus helping many pianists to overcome painful injuries or limitations and gain greater freedom and precise articulation within their playing. Since 1997 Kaplinsky had been appointed head of the Juilliard Piano College Division and Artistic Director of its Pre-College Division.
Marika flew down from Montreal weekly, when she was 12, to the Pre-College Division, and at fourteen began attending the Professional Children School in New York, while still studying with Kaplinsky.
Marika felt extremely lucky to have been accepted by Mrs. Kaplinsky, “since her hands were all messed up.” Mrs. Kaplinsky told her that she would not be able to play at all, if she did not undergo extensive retraining. Marika also had an overwhelming feeling of doubt which created a dilemma for her. At that time she was looking less for glamorous performance opportunities, but rather for stability, depth and security.
With some modesty, she also had to accept the fact that she was not the only talented performer around, and that her status of “child prodigy” was becoming a relative term. She was one of many, in a tense competitive environment; all of them gifted and eager to fulfill their legacy.
While a little dose of self- doubt probably effectively wards off a potentially exaggerated sense of self, it is equally important for a performer to enjoy the act of performing and … to be able to trust his or her ability to do so most efficiently.
The process of retraining one’s piano technique is not an easy task and Marika always felt, that she was a “ very emotional player, and, swept away by the music” she was playing. She had a difficult time concentrating on what it was she was doing technically, while playing.
However, “Something had to be right,” she admits smiling, as we continue one of our conversations , “something must have settled in,” since she now feels enabled, quite fluid and comfortable most of the time.
This week, I had the privilege to sit in on one of Marika’s piano lessons with Kaplinsky at the Julliard College where Marika is now completing her studies. They worked together on the Mozart D-Minor Concerto, No. 20, K.466. The experienced teacher acknowledged Marika’s great talent, but advised her on how to correct her posture. By hovering over the keys closely and by holding her shoulders up, she was shortening the efficient reach of her arms, thereby hindering a free transposition of the weight of the whole arm into the keys. Kaplinsky also pointed out how Marika must watch her emotions while playing:”Try to determine if you are getting the right sound rather by what it sounds like, than what it feels like.” Marika tries again….”Ahh now that sounds much better. You should not feel tight at any time, or let the knuckles of the fingers collapse,” says Kaplinsky and lets Marika examine how the sound is affected by different ways when releasing her weight into the keys, at different speeds.
This year, Marika continues to get lessons from Kaplinsky, but another teacher, Matti Raekallio, has been added as a second teacher.
Marika has mixed feelings about that. While she enjoys a variety of input, she also worries about being exposed to confusing differences.
Of course we are only talking about nuances here. Marika sounds extremely proficient and most of the time creates very fresh, and at the same time, quite distinguished interpretations.
Her affecting cluelessness about her own pianistic prowess gives us some glimpses into a young artist’s soul-searching process. What possibly many young performers experience is still individually heartfelt and makes the sometimes glamorous seat at the piano a very lonely place to be, as well.
Of note, film director Bobbi Jo Krals is also following Marika’s development closely. Her achievements, like her “From the Top” featured NPR broadcast and Carnegie -Weill Recital Hall performance presented by the Glenn Gould Foundation, will appear in his feature documentary, “Making Marika.” Produced by Robbie Hart and to be released by “Adobe Productions International” in the near future, the documentary “will reveal the backdoor politics, alliances, marketing and sacrifice (financial and personal) required in the hope of making Marika into a star,” according to the media’s production website. This project, consiting of filmed material covering Marika's life during the past several years, should touch on some interesting discrepancies, to be encountered between academic training and actual survival within the music industry.
Since the filming began Marika has gained from a lot of personal experiences, allowing her to distance herself from the “Making Marika” process and, in turn, to be a bit more patient with her progress. In the meantime, Marika even had the chance to meet her idol, pianist Martha Argerich, while chosen to participate at the 2009 Verbier Festival. (see Photo)
Her personal growth is also reflected in her music making, as for example in the wonderful intimate Audio recording, titled: “Happy Birthday Mr. Schumann” featuring works by Robert Schumann, the Piano Concerto (Op.54), Abbegg Variations (Op.1), Widmung (Arr.Liszt) and Arabeske (Op.18), which will be used in the documentary. The accompanying DVD that shows her life performance of the Schuman Concerto, with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in St. Petersburg, also gives Marika her own and very personal voice in the liner notes. She says: ”In reflecting on Schumann’s life, it occurred to me that he must have struggled to secure his place within the musical hierarchy of his time…His struggle to deal with failure, combined with challenging personality and self-confidence issues makes his music immensely touching. His humanity is what ultimately inspires me to connect with his work.”
And to convey this, is what it’s all about, Marika.
Marika's website is: http://www.marikabournaki.com/
(See my article on David’s Aladashvili’s debut at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall http://getclassical.blogspot.com/2010/03/concert-review-david-aladashvili.html

First Fiddle: Glenn Dicterow, Concertmaster of NYC’s Ultimate Band, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra

2011-02-01T19:23:00.000-08:00

“Guess who this trunk used to belong to?” asks Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, as he leads me through the backstage rooms and hallways of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall; his home away from home, only a New York block away.
We are standing in front of a huge antique - or at least old fashioned –weathered-looking black trunk, impressively marked with travel stickers indicating its many different destinations.
“…..long history with the New York Phil…” he coaxes me into guessing the celebrity, whose travel companion the trunk had been before it was given to Dicterow, to hold the concertmaster’s possessions on his trips with the orchestra.
“Yes, you guessed right.” He turns back to me, “It’s finished with a red velvet interior and belonged to no other than – Leonard Bernstein.”
Since he joined the New York Philharmonic as concertmaster in 1980, Dicterow has played first fiddle under the preeminent Maestros who have served as the New York Philharmonic music directors’ guest conductors from around the world, and leading soloists.
Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel and now Alan Gilbert…. Here is a true collective of all singular personalities, with different temperaments and musical expectations. It can’t be an easy task to appease all of these charismatic leaders and keep one’s own integrity, leave alone one’s own sanity.
Yet, thanks to his remarkably generous spirit, it seems that Dicterow has managed to do just that, highly successfully.
On the faculty of the Juilliard School and as acting chairman of the innovative Manhattan School of Music ‘Orchestral Performance Program’, Dicterow also follows his other vocation: Music Education.
In addition, he performs regularly as a guest soloist and has a varied discography of chamber and solo recordings to show for it. In collaboration with his wife, violist Karen Dreyfus, who is equally involved in teaching, he co-founded the “Lyric Piano Quartet”, in residence at Queens College CUNY and together with Dreyfus and Cellist Inbal Segev; Dicterow formed the “Amerigo Trio” in 2009. (See also my article: http://getclassical.blogspot.com/2011/01/inbal-segev-love-affair-with-cello

Amerigo Trio

As much as Dicterow cherishes his freedom to pursue all other facets of his life in music, it is the “Concertmaster” position that, as he says, “rounds off my musical life.”
The responsibility that goes along with the job description of concertmaster is immense and Dicterow sheds light on much of what it entails:
“As concertmaster, one is expected to perform all the violin solos of the symphonic literature. Besides that, one is the most essential conduit from the conductor, so to speak the first line of communication, to the entire orchestra and responsible for all the string’s bowings and musical phrasings. Usually I go over the score a few weeks before its performance, to check the bowings. The conductor, especially if he is the music director of the orchestra, usually entrusts the Concertmaster with the bowings that establish the string section’s articulation and phrasing. Changes are usually finalized in rehearsal…
“Sometimes – mostly with guest conductors- it happens that a conductor has a particular choice of bowings that may be regarded as unusual. That sometimes calls for drastic changes and has its challenges.”
Of course every conductor brings his own vision to the podium and Dicterow has some rare insights to share:
“Sometimes, establishing challenging bowings even becomes part of the particular signature of a conductor, as was the case with some of Lorin Maazel’s idiosyncratic bowing. A brilliant violinist himself, Maestro Maazel had a particular interest in achieving a certain pacing, through the physicality of using challenging bowing. It is thanks to challenges like these and the mastering of them, that the job never gets tiring,” says Dicterow reminiscently.

Backstage N.Y.Phil. Library

But just when one may think, why not let everyone work things out for themselves, free bowing for all, and other problems are revealed:
“You work it out, and sometimes you change. Free bowing is not unproblematic either. Besides the fact, that it does not look pretty if the string sections are not coordinated through simultaneous moves, bowing is essential- like breathing. The bow arm influences the color and it shapes the phrase. One of my colleagues, Joseph Silverstein, brought a rear mirror to rehearsals of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in order to control the orchestra’s essential discipline of bowing.”
The legendary Stokowski insisted on a free bowing technique with the Philadelphia Orchestra. And so does present Music Director, Alan Gilbert, for particular sections.
Under Gilbert, the configuration of the String section’s seating got altered from its former arrangement. The wider spread between the first and second violin sections, originally located right next to each other and now facing each other on juxtaposing ends of the fanned out positions, with violas and cellos located in between them, was inspired by European orchestral traditions. Dicterow explains:
“We are always in the process of trying to achieve the best possible result and usually everything has certain advantages. For instance, in this case, the separation creates a more antiphonal effect. The negative aspects are that certain strategic problems arise when similar material has to be played by sections, separated by a larger distance. It becomes audibly harder to establish exact timing and the violinists have to rely rather on the visual input of their leaders, than on when they used to hear more clearly, in the closer arranged setting before.”

Concert Stage before Rehearsal

Indeed audiences seem to be pleased with the results of New York’s premier band led by Maestro Alan Gilbert who, hired for a five - year term as Music Director and well into his second season now, will soon engage in efforts to concretize plans to renovate its home, Avery Fisher Hall.
According to Dicterow, the acoustics of the large concert hall that has no reflective wall or ceiling for optimal resonance right now are most enjoyable from their performers’ location – on stage.
Dicterow grew up within a family deeply rooted in musical tradition. He remembers lying under his mother’s concert grand, listening to the sound of music created by both of his parents. His extraordinary talent was evident early on and he made his solo debut, aged 11, in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (where his father, Harold Dicterow, served as principal of the second violin section for 52 years). He fondly remembers charismatic Maestro Zubin Mehta as a familiar face, visiting his parents. Later, Dicterow followed his father’s destination and served as concertmaster in Los Angeles, before following Mehta to the New York Philharmonic.
He describes the atmosphere within the orchestra as friendly and collegial, but during its concert season locally, too hectic to socialize.
It is during the typical two- week concert tours, that the orchestra experiences the social connection to the fullest. “On tour we are confined naturally to the same location and schedule, and even though it is usually a frenzied performance/ travel schedule, there is time for mutual dinners and some fun. We do feel like a big family and we do get along. With the New York Philharmonic, everybody is allowed to be an Individual but you are also part of a whole entity. That makes the New York Philharmonic sound so charismatic. A lot of the younger generation’s new talented instrumentalists originate from China and Korea and out of the 97 musician’s on the current roster of the Philharmonic, 48 are women, I believe.”
Dicterow went on to describe the mutual respect for each other as well as the high artistic level and each instrumentalist’s competence and effort. Everyone “plays their hearts out” and guest conductors often remark on “how fast we get it.”
In his Biographic notes, published on the New York Philharmonic’s website, http://nyphil.org/meet/orchestra he acknowledges that he basically had no chance to escape the, for him, practically predestined world of music:
“When you grow up as a symphony brat as I did, you cannot help but feel attracted to that way of life. It surrounded me. There was no way I was going to be a lawyer.”
And New Yorkers, band and audiences alike, are thanking him for that after every performance. When he returns to his private chamber, his dressing room on Avery Fisher Hall’s fourth floor, a bottle of Champagne awaits the seasoned concertmaster, celebrating his so fully-engaged way of “playing the fiddle.”

Article first published as First Fiddle: Glenn Dicterow, Concertmaster of NYC's Ultimate Band, the New York Philharmonic on Blogcritics.

An Ecstatic Entourage - and a talk with Timo Andres at the Ecstatic Music Festival Marathon Initiation

2011-01-20T19:37:00.000-08:00

Being in a state of ecstasy, according to the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, means being joyful or also enraptured.This accurately describes the vibrant atmosphere at Merkin Concert Hall’s “Ecstatic Music Festival” that opened on Martin Luther King’s Day, Marathon on January 17t.h.
Many of the participating artists of the festival who will give individual concert performances at Merkin Hall throughout March 28th were mixing with the audience during the 7-8 hours continuum of performances. And integration was a keyword, igniting sparks of enthusiasm and instilling excitement. The crowds spilled over into the lobby and out into the street, in front of the Kaufmann Center’s Upper Westside performance hub.
As announced by the New Yorker, the festival “…provides a window into {the} movement in music {established during} the past decade, where a critical mass of young New York based composer/performers {has} been blurring the boundaries between classical and popular styles.”
But being there actually felt much more emotionally charged than the above description even comes close to.
The festival’s curator, Judd Greenstein, created a very personal feel, by choosing from what seems like a conglomerate collaboration of his own entourage.
As managing director of the (also included at the festival) NOW Ensemble, a chamber music quintet with unique instrumentation (flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano) and as a composer in his own right, Greenstein has also successfully figured out new music marketing possibilities and, in the process, created a revelation.
He also co-directs New Amsterdam Records, a record label and artist’s service organization based in New York City. According to his own mission statement, he is committed to making: “music without filters, made by musicians who bring the breadth of their listening experience and the love they have for many different kinds of music into their own playing, writing and producing. It is music without walls, without an agenda, and without a central organizing principle…opening doors for artists to enter, creating new spaces for them to fill, and touching new outer edges where musics meet.”
At the festival, pianist/composer Timo Andres performed his “Everything is an Onion” from his 2010 composition: “It takes a long time to become a good composer”, as well as Charles Ive’s “The Alcotts” from Piano Sonata No.2, at the Marathon.
He is one of several performers who studied composition at Yale University. Like many of the festival participants, he is active in a broad spectrum of activities which make for a lifestyle of music. He, like many of his colleagues, likes to share his thoughts, articulated on his blog, as well as in person. We shared a coffee and a conversation in between performances.
“Like for any musician, my musical impulse is a result of many different influences. I attribute it as much to the open-mindedness of some of my mentors who guided me, as to things I discovered on my own. I grew up with my paternal grandfather listening to – then – cutting edge music of Bartok and Shostakovich and I never have to worry about the mechanics of the piano, thanks to my wonderful teacher Eleanor Hancock, who taught me during eleven years the principals of a natural piano technique, based on the research of Dorothy Taubman.“ He later also studied with Frederic Chiu and has performed avidly, specializing in contemporary music series, such as the wordless Music Series that was initiated by (le)Poisson Rouge music director Ronen Givony, as well as giving solo recitals with the momentum-gaining Metropolis Ensemble, which prompted Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer to assert: ”New music cannot be intimidating when played with this degree of skill and zest.”

Timo Andres at a Metropolis House Concert
Andres’ debut album, “Shy and Mighty” released in May 2010 by Nonesuch, features ten interrelated pieces performed by Andres and co-pianist David Kaplan, another Yale graduate, who also attended the ‘Ecstatic’ marathon performance. Alex Ross in the New Yorker described the composition: Shy and Mighty “…achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene…more mighty than shy, {Andres} sounds like himself”. Sections of Shy and Mighty will also be performed by Andres with pianist Bred Mehldau at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in March.
Andres is fully aware that his generation has re-enacted a long history of composers who were also performers from Mozart onwards. These artists were not only creative as musicians but also creative in managing their own careers and bringing their music to new audiences.
When he tells me he is “self-published”, he points out his knowledge of typographical work and how it helps to design a readable score. His engagement with Bookbinding and page layout has made his individual score production process, an A-Z reality. His composing and performing are two sides of the same coin.

Timo Andres
“I could not ever give up one for the other – they inform each other; it’s a continuum”, he says. And for influential impact on his compositions he explains, “A lot of music I listen to is all electronic or integrates electronics. My music is very influenced by these musical techniques, with structures and forms looking back to Minimalism and based on repetition. Looping patterns to build musical structure always fascinated me, from the first day I heard Steve Reich’s music.”
Describing the festival and his relation to Greenberg as its curator he says: “The festival represents some of the best trends in the experimental music tradition. In a sense it is a laboratory for trying out new things in a collaborative environment, where people are open to be surprised and the only boundaries are one’s own taste. The festival represents Judd’s taste, whose compositions and general intelligence I already admired as a freshman, when he was a graduate-student. All my friends have records on his label today which certainly brought some definition to the New York musical scene.”
What the festival seems to offer in particular is a home based scene for its involved artists, creating somewhat of a new music milieu.
There is a remarkable overlap of festival- participating artists who, at the same time, are some of today’s most passionate and significant entrepreneurs of current music-business ventures.
Vicky Chow, is the classically trained pianist for the New York based eclectic contemporary sextet Bang on a Can All –Stars. In 1987 three young composers, fresh out of Yale, made their first concert into an inspiring 12 hour -marathon of new music, testing the market for their programs. In 2000 they founded the “people’s commissioning fund” that encouraged audience members to participate in the commissioning for new works. Chow also produces and curates a new music series at the Gershwin Hotel in New York City, and Bang on a Can runs a summer ‘educational’ festival for young composers, located in the Berkshires.
“Neurotic and Lonely,” a title from composer/performer Gabriel Kahane’s acclaimed “Craigslist Lieder” album recorded in 2006, brilliantly plays on this generation’s neuroses. Cynically insightful, the modern day bard presents his charming and diverse artistry, time and again putting classical Schumann or Schubert -Lieder presentations in direct rapport with contemporary ones, to great effect.

In Kahane’s compositions, traditional music rings new – promoting a timeless feel for both –the old and new genres. Son of acclaimed pianist Jeffrey Kahane, the “piano chops” may fall naturally not far from the tree, as David Kaplan points out to me.

That he is a child of his own time, Gabriel shows with his curatorial creativity, promoting a particular sensitive strand of music making DNA. For a commission, as part of the MATA festival held in November of 2010 at Brooklyn’s “Issue Project Room”, Kahane curated and presented contemporary compositions, including his own, as well as Schubert’s “Dichterliebe”, in German Diction at the piano.
“I am certain that we can all agree that the phrases “genre-bending” and “genre-defying” are not long for this world….The plan is very simple: create a static frame – in this case the pianist who sings – and then offer a varied repertoire..” says this protagonist of music who simply seeks musical inclusiveness, showing what new and old have in common. “I defy you not to hear Pop music in {Schumann’s} “Ich grolle nicht”, says Kahane.
And perhaps our focus should indeed not be on differentiations within the performance culture and stylistic distinction but should instead embrace the festival’s “constructive narrative” as Greenstein, Andres and Kahane – amongst others- are ecstatically pitching for.
Kahane concludes: “ …the listener will come to the conclusion that distinctions of genre can be done away with, leaving us with Duke Ellington’s oft –quoted nugget: “There are only two kind of music: good music, and the other kind”.

Kahane, himself a Brown graduate, had commissioned a piece by Andres for the MATA project. He and the young Yale-trained composer do share a lot of common interests, says Andres. They will perform together at the Merkin festival’s March 5thconcert, exploring the composer Charles Ives and dissecting various musical influences on Ives’ music and their own compositions.
This concert will include a wide trip throughout music history, starting with Bach- arrangements by Kurtag as well as some songs of Ives, performed by Kahane.
“I am arranging “Conneticut gospels” – for piano and Hammond organ with the influence of Ives in mind, so to speak from one Connecticut composer to another”, says Andres acknowledging, not without a certain kind of pride, that Ives, like him, went to Yale and was recognized as the first genuine “American” composer.

Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall until March 28th

For a complete schedule and more on all the other participants of the ecstatic music festival go to: ecstaticmusicfestival.com

Inbal Segev - A Love Story with the Cello

2011-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

At the invitation of Isaac Stern, whom she met at a master class at the Mishkenoth Festival in Jerusalem, Inbal Segev left her native Israel in 1990, to pursue her passion for the cello in the United States. Only 16 years old at the time, she lived at the residence of cello pedagogue Aldo Parisot, attending his famed studio class. She then matriculated at Yale University’s class of 93 and then also attended Julliard’s class of 98, where she studied with Joel Krosnick, a cellist with the Juilliard String Quartet, and Harvey Shapiro of the Primrose Quartet.

Inbal Segev
She also did eight years of independent study with Beaux Arts Trio-founder Bernhard Greenhouse, a musician she greatly admires.
Looking back on her years of formal study and training, she acknowledges the importance of her degrees, a bachelor from Juilliard and a master’s degree from Yale, but she also feels that it was a good choice for her to follow the lead of inspiring teachers, regardless of their association with any particular school.
If she has any regrets at all, it would be that she did not take full advantage of the range of intellectual challenges available to her at Yale. Limited English language skills and a rather timid personality made her focus on the one thing she could do best back then: playing the cello.
“I breathed cello”, Segev remembers.
And then she talks about her love for the instrument that has dominated her life. She was only five years old, when her mother, a high school teacher, introduced her to classical music broadcasts. Some broadcasts featured the cello, leading to Segev’s first cello lessons. When, at age seven, her exceptional talent became apparent, the America Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF) provided for her education at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem.
Her love story with the cello continues to this day. “The cello is more than a beautiful instrument, it’s my friend”, says Segev, meanwhile a mother of three. “Fortunately, my husband and my parents have helped me tremendously to maintain a balance between my career and my family,” she was quoted as saying in an interview with Cosmos in 2008.
She recalls how her Mom and grandmother had made it possible to buy her first good instrument, a Gaetano Rossi. When she got married, her husband knew how much she would love an ‘upgrade’. With the help of a loan from his employer, her new cello was a 1673 instrument built by Francesco Ruggieri, a contemporary of Stradivarius.
She also remembers one of many times her family supported her spontaneously and without hesitation:
“I was pregnant with the twins Joseph and Shira – now four, when I got a call from Christian Steiner at two in the afternoon. There was an emergency cancellation of a cellist who was supposed to perform that same night, and Christian wanted me to fill in. I knew the famous Messiaen’s score that was programmed, “Quartet for the End of Time”, and said ‘OK. I will do it’. My husband - bless his heart - rushed to the car rental and returned to chauffeur me and my cello for the four-hour ride. My Mom came to babysit Ariel, now six years old, and Steiner, star photographer to musicians and himself a concert pianist and artistic director of Tannery Pond, was thrilled that I made it in time, pregnant and all.”
Segev’s last minute performance at the prestigious summer chamber music series at Tannery Pond in the Berkshires was a big success; in 2010, she returned for the third time, with pianist Alon Goldstein.
She often performs with musicians she has known for a long time, such as former Aldo Parisot student, Jian Wang, one of the stars of Parisot’s Yale cello ensemble.
When I meet with her just before the great snowstorm at the end of December, she had just returned from an Israeli Consulate co-sponsored concert tour that had taken Goldstein and her to Beijing, Wuhan and Zhengzhou.
Every now and again, ‘old’ connections even create new opportunities. This was the case when pianist Alon Goldstein recently introduced Segev to Avner Dorman, the young Israeli composer whose mandolin concerto for Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital just received a Grammy nomination (see my article http://blogcritics.org/music/article/notes-on-the-grammy-nomination-party/).
Dorman will now compose a cello concerto for Segev.”It will be an interesting process”, she says. “I wanted something Middle Eastern for the cello. It’s going to be difficult, but I like challenging scores.”
Dorman’s composition will not be the first concerto written for her: Accompanied by the Polish Radio National Symphony, she had recorded a cello concerto by American composer Max Schubel for the Opus One label in 2001.
Neither will it be the first recording with a Jewish connotation:
“I discovered I have something to offer there”, says Segev, who does not describe herself as observant, but rather as someone who likes a little bit of tradition. As an Israeli, she also identifies with her cultural heritage.

Inbal Segev
In 2004, Segev released her third solo CD, “Nigun”, a compilation of Jewish music, under the VOX label.
Back in 1991, she had her orchestral debut performance with the Israeli Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. She remembers the strong impression her early experience of performing with Maestro Mehta had made on her:
”At the time I was 17. That was back in 1991, and we performed at the Tel Aviv Mann Auditorium. I played Beethoven’s ‘Triple Concerto’; Guy Braunstein was the violinist and Itamar Golan was the pianist. Mehta was very complimentary and his backstage manner had a calming effect on me.... he was so sensitive to the soloist. He gave the right support without imposing his tempo. His musical ideas were clear, and I felt I could communicate what I wanted with ease.”
Segev continues to perform with many distinguished artists, but she regards being a co-founding member of the “Amerigo Trio” as one of the greatest commitments of her career.
It was at Bowdoin/Maine, where violinist and concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, Glenn Dicterow, heard Segev perform for the first time. As a result, Dicterow and his wife, as well as viola player, Karen Dreyfus, and Segev herself realized that playing chamber music together could add a wonderful dimension to everybody’s life. In 2007, the group decided that what the Maine Sunday Telegram had called an “extraordinary interchange of musical thought” needed to be formalized. This led to the official founding of the trio in the summer of 2009. Since then, Amerigo has performed at some of the most prestigious concert series in the United States, including Lorin Maazel's Castleton Festival in Virginia, in the summer of 2010. Maazel, the former music director of the New York Philharmonic, had inaugurated the Castleton Festival on his Virginia estate the previous year. “Living at the house of Maestro Maazel for a week, who is enigmatic and very knowledgeable – he also speaks seven languages - was a charming experience”, says Segev. “I taught some students of the orchestra and we (the Amerigo trio) performed, of course.”

Amerigo Trio
The trio just completed its debut recording of serenades by Beethoven and Dohnanyi, to be released in 2011 under the Navona Records label. The ambition of the trio, named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, is to explore the riches of the string trio repertoire, both old and new. Strad Magazine praised Amerigo’s style, purpose and captivating energy.

Photographer Chris Lee is responsible for the trio’s photographs; the ones capturing Segev with her cello are taken by her cousin, photographer Ephrat Zalishnick. Looking at these images, one sees a multi-faceted woman, confidently slipping from her role as mother and homemaker into the role of performer.

The trio’s website: http://www.amerigotrio.com/
Inbal Segev’s website: http://www.inbalsegev.com/
Rich Text
Article first published as Inbal Segev - A Love Story with the Cello on Blogcritics.

Book Review Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music by Angela Myles Beeching

2011-01-04T01:03:00.000-08:00

My job is to help musicians turn dreams into action plans that lead to success”, says veteran music career counselor and educator, Angela Myles Beeching, herself a classically trained cellist. The second edition of her successful career manual, Beyond Talent, published by Oxford Press in November 2010, offers comprehensive updates on developments in the music industry, particularly as they relate to the much expanded role of the Internet.

Beeching also provides inspiring examples of innovative musicians who successfully managed to create new communication channels by exploiting market niches for presenting their art. These include novel combinations of classical with non-classical genres, and genre-blending collaborative works, many of them happening at non-traditional venues. Beeching’s examples prove that producing a concert, advertising it, and releasing one’s very own album are all within the artist’s reach, even in economically challenging times.

She stresses that a successful career is always based on a person’s initiative; it does not happen randomly and without goal-oriented effort. Artistic talent may provide a starting point, but it is the power of strategic planning that crafts a fulfilling life in music.

In short: Beeching empowers her readers to take the “magic wand” into their own hands.

According to her approach, “… it takes the courage to dream, the power to plan, and the will to get things done.”

Add to that an honest assessment of a person’s distinctiveness, strengths and weaknesses, and Beeching takes things a step further by offering tools to quantify and relate these personal assets and liabilities to the realities of the music market.
To help with the often unnecessarily terrifying task of having to “pitch” creative ideas and present them in entrepreneurial terms, she provides concise instructions and ‘handholding’ examples.

No doubt, Beeching’s long career as Director of Career Services at the New England Conservatory has provided her with unique insight into the realities of artists’ working lives. She, herself, is ready to move on: “While at NEC, I got a lot done, with great students and colleagues, and now I am enthusiastic about
exploring new opportunities”, she explains.

“For example, this year I've been a visiting consultant at Indiana University, focusing on a new initiative called Project Jumpstart, launched this past fall. It is fascinating work: I travel to Bloomington for eight weeklong "residencies," and in between work via Skype and email with a student team. The innovative piece of this project is that it's student-driven: the students are at the center of choosing workshop topics, speakers, moderating panels, and surveying the community.”

Describing her new projects further, she continues: “I see a key aspect of my role at IU as facilitating the development of student leaders. I've been meeting with both faculty members and students to learn what's most wanted and needed in terms of career development and entrepreneurship. We're looking to partner with the IU Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and help students tap the wealth of learning opportunities cross-campus. In a large school with terrific opportunities for university-wide collaborations, the goal is to build a new model for career preparation, tailored to the specific needs of students at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.”

And that’s not all: “Other projects include the Young Performers Career Advancement program, which I facilitate from January 7 to January 11 at the Arts Presenters Conference [in New York City], and at Chamber Music America I'm doing advising appointments and a workshop session on project management.”
Beeching is a co-founder of NETMCDO, The Network of Music Career Development Officers, and presents lectures and workshops at conferences for art administrators, music educators and performers.

On January 11, 2011, at 5PM, the Julliard Bookstore will host a one night event with Beeching, featuring a discussion and workshop based on her book, Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music.

For more information on Project Jumpstart, go to http://www.music.indiana.edu/departments/offices/project-jumpstart/index.shtm

This article was first published by Ilona Oltuski at: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-reviewinterview-beyond-talent-creating-a/