Happy New Year from the Collaborative Piano Blog

As I sit here sipping a festive glass of Polish bison grass vodka, I would like to wish every one of you all the best for the next stage of your musical journey. May you combine the richness of of genuine artistic discovery with the satisfaction of financial success. May you build on your strengths and recognize your weaknesses. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, so I hope you have the courage to take that step, persevere, and reach your goals. Success takes many forms, and may yours bring new growth to the musical field as well as the realization of just how important you are to the musical community.

Best wishes for a safe, healthy, and profitable 2011 from the Collaborative Piano Blog!

Salvador Dali Piano Sculpture

That Salvador Dali piano sculpture is sporting some serious pumps, and was spotted at the Time Warner Center in NYC by kiminnyc. For a better but non-embeddable look at the sculpture, take a look at these two photos by wallyg, who writes:

Surrealist Piano was first conceived in 1954 and cast in 1984. The mold was created and approved during Dali's lifetime. This 98-inch bronze casting was cast in 2000 at Perseo SA Foundry.

You can read more about the exhibition here.

Mangalesh Dabral's Accompanist Poem

In India, the art of the tabla accompanist is every bit as intricate and satisfying as that of the piano collaborator/accompanist in the European tradition. I can also imagine that tabla accompanists (collaborators!) have to deal with the same sidekick/flunky stereotypes that many of us in the European tradition are fighting to make a thing of the past. Accompanist by Hindi poet Mangalesh Dabral looks at the years of apprenticeship and traveling recollected in the act of performance. Here's an excerpt from the English translation:

Accompanying the main singer’s monolith-weighed voice
His own is beautiful delicate and quavering
He is the singer’s younger brother
Or his apprentice
Or a distant relative who travels on foot to learn
Under the main singer’s baritone
He matches his own echo since old times

You can read the whole poem here.

More accompanist poetry from previous posts on the Collaborative Piano Blog:

Dick Allen's The Accompanist
Ken Weisner's The Accompanist
Arni Ibsen's The Accompanist
Pauline Arnold's Dear Soloists
William Matthew's The Accompanist
Darren Morris' Accompanist for Florence Foster Jenkins

Carol Burnett: The Recital Skit

Carol Burnett's legendary nod to the art of vocal chamber music and the joy of mid-century elitist modern music that nobody gets...



(Via @violinscigars)

Speedlinking - 29 December 2010

The last week and a half has been a pleasant break from a busy semester, with lots of time for family, whether they be familiar faces, recent arrivals, or newly discovered relations.

But now it's back to the grindstone for most of us in a few days, so here are some links to get you back on track once 2011 rolls along:

• Billie Whittaker continues to compile great lists - her latest ones are for Musical Directing and Music Copyists
• More required reading for CP's (again, via Billie): Music Directing the School Musical from Peter Hilliard
• Fellow Eastman grad Erica Sipes writes about the benefits of collaboration in The value and fun in being a sponge-like piano collaborator. About those long hours as a studio pianist:
  

  Most piano collaborators spend a high percentage of their time in the studios of music teachers and professors. Some lessons might be more interesting than others, but for the most part I think it's safe to say that if a pianist wants to, he or she can soak up a tremendous amount of information every time the situation involves a coach, teacher, or conductor. I've learned a lot of really interesting things in such situations, from the basic mechanics of playing many different instruments to musical concepts.

• As music teachers, we teach not just an instrument but the entire culture of playing it. Piano teachers might be interested in ways to get their students to watch this 2-hour documentary about the 20th century's great pianists (Via Nathalie Wickham):
  
  
  

Merry Christmas from the Collaborative Piano Blog

Here's to a healthy, happy, and restful Christmas and New Year for everyone in the Collaborative Piano Blog community. Be sure to take advantage of your time off, as the busy season is right around the corner. Here are a few videos to get your Christmas break underway...

Heather Lundstedt with pianist Scott Douglas performing Jason Robert Brown's Christmas Lullaby from Songs from a New World:



Jimmy James doing an impersonation of Bette Davis singing Feliz Navidad:



And finally, a clip which shows that, even at this festive time of the year, there are still moments in which a keyboard player cannot ever, ever miss a note:

Impending Doom or Golden Opportunity?

In case you haven't heard, the classical music world is in a state of rapid change. Many of the institutions, gatekeepers, and paths to success that many of us have come to take for granted are transforming beyond recognition.

Maybe we can learn something from how non-classical artists are operating these days.

A few weeks ago I went to see a show by the rockabilly quartet The Millwinders, whose frontman James Henry happens to be our next-door neighbour. I can't say that I'm a frequenter of indie bands, but a number of things I don't notice at classical gigs were apparent right away:

• there were t-shirts available for sale, as well as a promotion for that evening where anyone who bought a t-shirt would also receive a custom Millwinders business card, featuring cartoon portraits of band members on pop-out guitar picks
• Numerous people in the audience recorded video and photo footage (being a polite classical musician, I asked before taking photos, but realized afterwards that they really, really wanted people to take photos during the gig)
• drunk people can be very supportive fans
• they used the built-up excitement of the show to promote their upcoming CD release

All this was for an unsigned but brilliant band playing for less than 100 people, without a record on the market (yet) and a targeted web presence consisting of only Facebook and MySpace Pages as well as fan-taken photos and videos. Since they know how to find and engage with their audience in the cult genre of rockabilly, they are able to develop a dedicated following and busy performing schedule, which they then leverage in order to promote next actions, such as the opportunity to buy t-shirts, see future shows, and eventually purchase their upcoming album. 

So why aren't classical musicians making a bigger effort to play in bars or clubs, as Toronto fashion designer Rosemarie Umetsu remarked a few days ago (see tweet at left)? Why are so few classical musicians encouraging people to take photos and videos of their shows? Are there interesting and unique products that classical musicians could make and sell in order to better monetize their engagements? 

Classical music, like rockabilly, is basically a cult genre consisting of a large number of cultish works and sub-genres that in large part evoke the music and instruments of the past. If approached using the right tools and methods, this field and the educational system that fuels it could be leveraged to find and tap an entirely new generation of fans. Fortunately, classical music entrepreneurship is on the rise in a big way, and I'm glad to see that more and more schools are offering courses on the art of self-promotion. 

In the coming year, look for a much larger amount of posts about new artists, approaches, and opportunities. Rather than focusing on how the sky is falling, I would like to look at ways that artists are overcoming these challenges.

In the meantime, here's a reading list recent articles that show just how rapid and acute these changes are happening and a few hints on how to succeed in the current climate.

• Arts Marketing: Embrace the future by being a part of the revolution from Killing Classical Music
  
• Soho the Dog: No Future
• Hanging by a string: can classical music adapt? and Orchestras, opera companies must make splash to be heard by Kyle MacMillan in the Denver Post
• How did we get here? by Drew McManus on Adaptistration
• Portent and Another Portent by Greg Sandow
• The New Rock Star Paradigm in WSJ, about how OK Go is able to succeed without a record label

Dan Feyer is the World's Fastest Crossword Solver and a Collaborative Pianist

Every year as the fall season winds down in December, I have a compulsion to spend my newly found free time doing crossword puzzles. According to a NY Times article earlier this month, that type of brain activity is exactly what one needs in order to develop an open minded, playful approach to problem solving.

“What we think is happening,” said Mark Beeman, a neuroscientist who conducted the study with Karuna Subramaniam, a graduate student, “is that the humor, this positive mood, is lowering the brain’s threshold for detecting weaker or more remote connections” to solve puzzles.

This and other recent research suggest that the appeal of puzzles goes far deeper than the dopamine-reward rush of finding a solution. The very idea of doing a crossword or a Sudoku puzzle typically shifts the brain into an open, playful state that is itself a pleasing escape, captivating to people as different as Bill Clinton, a puzzle addict, and the famous amnesiac Henry Molaison, or H.M., whose damaged brain craved crosswords.

But that's not all. CPB readers might be interested to know that the current American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion Dan Feyer is a collaborative pianist and musical director in New York. From the Times article on Dan:

“Music directors teach actors the music, accompany them in rehearsals and conduct the band,” Mr. Feyer said. “On Broadway, the music director is the guy with the baton in the pit. Off Broadway, it’s the guy sitting at a piano conducting with his head.”

So how does that guy become a puzzle ace? Besides training like an athlete, Mr. Feyer said, it helps to have “underlying brain power and a head for trivia.” He always had high grades and test scores, he said. He excelled at math as well as music, abilities that he thinks go together with crossword solving.

What they all have in common, he said, is pattern recognition — as he begins filling in a puzzle grid, he starts recognizing what the words are likely to be, even without looking at the clues, based on just a few letters.

“A lot of the time, crossword people are musicians,” he said, noting that Jon Delfin, who has won the tournament seven times, is a pianist and music director. “Mathematicians and computer scientists are also constructors.”

That makes for only slightly less cold comfort, since I have difficulty solving a Times crossword past the Wednesday level.

Here's Dan solving Saturday puzzle in under 5'30":

The New York Times Knowledge Network's Classical Music Primer

My latest article for the Music Teacher's Helper blog looks at a new online course that the New York Times Knowledge Network will be offering in early 2011: How to Listen to Classical Music, to be taught by the Times' Daniel J. Wakin. This will be interesting for students and classical music novices, and at a fraction of what this type of course usually costs when given through a music school.

Help Your Students Discover How to Listen to Classical Music with the New York Times Knowledge Network

Visit The Collaborative Piano Blog On Your Mobile Device

Many of you now begun to migrate from your desktop or laptop computers to mobile devices for your daily web surfing. Thanks to a new feature just announced by Blogger in Draft, you can now visit the Collaborative Piano Blo via a dedicated mobile template which kicks in as soon as your device is detected. One useful way to read CPB posts on the go is to sign up for a free email subscription, which will arrive in your inbox before 9am EST whenever at least one post has been published in the previous 24 hours.

Stay tuned...

Rosanne Philippens & Yuri van Nieuwkerk Play Ravel

I really like the visually engaging camera work on the Dutch television show Vrije Geluiden (click here for a memorable past performance) in this clip of violinist Rosanne Philippens and pianist Yuri van Nieuwkerk playing the second movement of Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Piano. I only wish the microphone was a bit closer to Rosanne, as some of her softer sounds seem to get lost alongside a much more brightly recorded piano.

Winterreise at the Gerschwin

For those who weren't able to see Operamission's recent Winterreise (featuring stunning performances by tenor Adam Klein and pianist Jennifer Peterson) at the Gershwin Hotel in New York, you can watch the entire cycle on five YouTube videos below.  It might be useful to refer to the text and translations if you haven't already got them memorized.

Bingo for Collaborative Pianists

My goodness, this has been a busy December so far. In case you've played one too many of the 24 Italian Songs and Arias at juries and feel like you're going off the deep end, Billie Whittaker has a solution: Backstage Bingo!

Here are the cards that Billie created:

Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Roe Play The Cat's Fugue

I really like visual representations of works on YouTube. This Anderson and Roe video uses a unique style to graph both the pitch and compositional structure of Greg's Cat Fugue arrangement. Such representations are par for the course with Pro Tools-using trance artists (such as 7 Skies), and more classical artists should consider using such a visually engaging way to make the form of a complex work both accessible and attractive.

The Gerschwin Piano Quartet Plays Stefan Wirth's Tango-Fugue on a Theme by Astor Piazzolla

There should be doubling fees all around in this video of the Gerschwin Piano Quartet playing Tango-Fugue on a Theme by Astor Piazzolla by Stefan Wirth. The Gerschwin Piano Quartet (who are also accomplished woodblock players) are Mischa Cheung, André Desponds, Benjamin Engeli, and Stefan Wirth.

Sometimes People Just Don't Get It Redux

Øyvind Jo Heimdal Eik sends along the following AdSense WIN via an RSS feed ad placement for Saturday's post:

Sometimes People Just Don't Get It

I've seen a good number of Xtranormal videos popping up in the last few days (these are text-to-movie cartoons made out of self-written dialogue). Among the arts-related videos, two of them stand out for singers and pianists. Many of us playing musical theater auditions have been put in this position:



You Should Take Voice Lessons sums it up for all those over-educated, under-utilized singers performing at a world-class level and having to put up with morons on a daily basis who haven't got the faintest clue how much work goes into the development of a professional opera singer:

The Top 20 Classical Music Blogs for December 2010

Here are the top 20 classical music blogs for the month of December, as ranked by the folks at Wikio:

1	Sequenza21/
2	Clef Notes
3	Intermezzo
4	Nico Muhly
5	Opera Chic
6	PostClassic
7	The Collaborative Piano Blog
8	The Opera Tattler
9	Musical Assumptions
10	Sandow
11	Proper Discord
12	A Beast in a Jungle
13	oboeinsight
14	Adaptistration
15	The Stark Raving Cello Blog
16	Michael Huebner's Blog & Column - al.com
17	Opera Today
18	Ionarts
19	Andrew Patner: The View from Here
20	Lynn Harrell

Ranking made by Wikio

Examining in Huntsville

I always enjoy being on the road, even for a few days - this weekend I'm hearing voice and piano exams in Huntsville, Alabama for the National Music Certificate Program, the American arm of RCM Examinations. Being a lover of fine cuisine, I'm always on the lookout for memorable restaurants. By the way, the main course I had earlier this evening (see image) followed an amuse-bouche of deep-fried grits with horseradish sauce. I finished the meal with a slice of red velvet cake. If you have any suggestions for more fine Huntsville eateries, I still have one evening before I head back to Toronto...

Stephen Blier, Song, and FSH

Justin Davidson's recent article on Steven Blier in New York Magazine sheds some light on one of New York's most famous vocal coaches. I particularly like his diet of one new song a day:

Today, he still tries to encounter at least one new song every day. YouTube helps. So do a network of advisers and his own meandering taste, which embraces pretty much anything that can be delivered effectively by a voice and a piano: Norwegian art songs, Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire,” Cuban ballads, Broadway tunes, zarzuela arias. What separates the ones that interest him from those that don’t is not style, but a nugget of emotional intensity. “A song is the closest thing I know in waking life to dreaming,” he says. “It’s a coded version of reality. It’s not like playing a scene from Chekhov, where you’re trying to look like you’re having a tea party or a nervous breakdown. Instead, you’re enacting a coded, ritualized version of that moment, and somehow everyone in the hall is dreaming along with you.”

What many people don`t realize is the difficulty with which Blier works because of Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, its progress confining him to a wheelchair.  Through it all, he works to bring to life the often-mistaken-for-dead art of the song recital and the singers who adore the genre. Here is Blier talking about his brainchild the New York Festival of Song:

An Interview with Martin Katz

Last summer at SongFest in Malibu, iCadenza's Julia Torgovitskaya sat down for a 20-minute interview with Martin Katz, one of the world's premiere collaborative pianists. Here he is talking about his decision to go into the collaborative field, inspiring singers, preparing song repertoire, conducting, what makes a good vocal coach, and how technology can help or hinder us. In case you're not yet familiar with Katz's recent book, The Complete Collaborator: The Pianist as Partner is quickly emerging as the leading textbook about the collaborative piano profession.

The William Bastard Piano Trio

This is not a joke: an English composer by the name of William Bastard (no relation to William the Conqueror) published a piano trio in 1908. The score can be found below for free viewing and download:


W. Bastard - Piano Score - Trio (sol mineur) pour piano, violon et violoncelle. Op. 3. -

The Bastard Trio might pair well in recital with some piano works of Ludwig Schytte, who lived around the same time.

(Via Bob Silverman)

Update: there was a comment on Facebook as to a possible Norwegian birth under the name Ole Bastard, but I somehow doubt this.

Happy St. Cecilia's Day + Happy Birthday Benjamin Britten

November 22 is the feast day of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Coincidentally, it also happens to be the birthday of Benjamin Britten (Thanks @mlaffs!), and W.H. Auden dedicated his poem "Anthem for St. Cecilia's Day" to Britten, who then set it for a capella choir as his Hymn to St. Cecilia. The video below (performed by the Cambridge Singers, conducted by John Rutter) shows the text throughout the work, which helps in engaging with the poetry. What starts out as a kind-hearted ode to the musician's muse ends up becoming a meditation on the horrific events unfolding in Europe at the time - Auden wrote the poem in 1940. What makes the composition of this work even more astonishing was that on his departure from the United States in 1942, the score was confiscated by customs officers. Britten then re-wrote the work in its entirety while on the boat back to England.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Measha Brueggergosman and Marc-André Hamelin Perform Wagner's Im Treibhaus

Im Treibhaus from the Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner

Measha Brueggergosman, soprano
Marc-André Hamelin, piano

This video was recorded at the Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway last June. To have been in that audience must have been a pleasure indeed. The Risør Chamber Music Festival will be in residence at Carnegie Hall next month - you can find more information here.

Jumpstart Your New Opera Project With Tapestry's New Composer-Librettist Speed Dating Event On December 13

One of the hardest steps of the opera creation process is finding a composer/librettist partnership that really works. If you're an opera creator who hasn't previously been asked commissioned to write an opera or been accepted into a workshop or laboratory program, it can be downright challenging to find a creative partner with whom you will click, or even know where to find one.

That is about to change...

On December 13 at the Duke of York pub in Toronto's Annex, Tapestry New Opera Works will be presenting its first Composer-Librettist Speed Dating Event.

Basically a facilitated point of entry event for writers and composers who are eager to get the ball rolling on an operatic project, here's how it will work:

We have long referred to the special collaboration between a writer composer team as resembling a courtship. The first step in creating new relationships is the opportunity to meet new people. Using the structure of a speed dating Creative Artists in Workshop/networking event, this evening will be an opportunity for you to introduce yourself to a variety of writers or composers who are interested in the creation of new opera projects.

Come with an idea or project in mind or come with an openness to learn about new potential collaborations.

At the exploratory session for this program that Tapestry held in September, there was a lot of interest.  Therefore, you're going to need to register well ahead of time to ensure that you get a spot. To sign up for event, call Amber Ebert at 416.537.6066 x224 or email her at ambere [at] tapestrynewopera dot com.

An Interview With Armen Guzelimian

Armen Guzelimian is an exceptional pianist who has worked with many of the finest singers and instrumentalists in the world, as well as being a specialist in the field of contemporary music. Here he is in conversation with Julia Torgovitskaya from iCadenza:

Maybe You Could Film Me While I Demonstrate This

My latest article for Music Teacher's Helper looks at a simple but often overlooked technique for showing your students what you want: have them videotape you with their cell phones while you demonstrate. Try it - this really works. In several cases, it has helped my students to learn pieces quicker and with less errors than before.

Naxos Music Library is Now Available for all Toronto Public Library Patrons

I just found out this evening that all Toronto Public Library cardholders have free access to the full Naxos Music Library - the world's largest source of online streaming classical music. To take advantage of the service, all you need to do is visit the Toronto Public Library's Naxos Music Library Portal and log in with your library card number and PIN.

Enjoy. 

(Thanks, Sophie!)

Win 2 Free Tickets to See Alexander Ghindin Perform with Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi November 18 in Roy Thomson Hall

One of the coolest things about being a Collaborative Piano Blog reader is having the chance to win free stuff every few weeks, especially if you happen to live in the Toronto area. Here's the latest contest...

Liz Parker of LIZPR has in her awesomeness offered two free tickets to Thursday night's Roy Thomson Hall performance of Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi featuring the Toronto debut of Alexander Ghindin, the youngest-ever laureate of the Tchaikovsky Competition. You can find more info about the event on Facebook here and here.

To win a pair of tickets to Thursday night's concert, you need to answer the following question:

What's your favourite thing about Vladimir Spivakov?

Send Liz Parker an email (liz [at] lizpr dot com) with your answer to the question by 5pm on Wednesday, November 17, after which Liz will hold a draw for the winning submission and then contact the lucky winner of two free tickets to see Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi.

Good luck!

Update 11/17 5:26pm: Congratulations to Joan Heels, who has just won two tickets!

Music Ministry Links

The music ministry is a sector of the collaborative piano world which I have sadly neglected in these pages, so a huge thanks goes to Sarah Jones on Facebook for a heads-up about another excellent collaborative piano-oriented blog: Perspectives of a Church Accompanist. Laurie Iskat looks at important issues for the church pianist, including:

• Warmups for Choirs and Accompanists
• Prelude to a Prelude
• Playing for Invitations
• Using Young People in the Music Service
• Stepping Up the Transpositions
• Seven Tips for Playing Hymn Introductions

If you know of any other great music ministry sites and resources, tell us about them in the comments.

Call for Musicians: American Bach Soloists Academy from July 11-23, 2011

If you're interested in spending a few weeks in San Francisco learning about historically informed performance practice, you might want to take a look at the American Bach Soloists Academy, to be held at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from July 11-23, 2011. Be sure to check out the application materials page if you're looking to apply. From the materials, it looks like students enrolled in the program will be working with a variety of faculty, but harpsichord specialists will be interested in working with Corey Jamason.

(Thanks, Maura!)

The 2011 WTO Aria Frequency List

Every year, Kim Witman posts a list of the most frequently heard arias from the Wolf Trap Opera audition tour. While the list is not a barometer of the most strategic arias to offer in auditions (which will differ for every single singer), it has proven invaluable for pianists in being able to gauge which arias one should learn in order to develop a complete operatic repertoire. The 2011 aria frequency list boasts its own page on the WTO site, with soprano and mezzo soprano results collated so far, and tenor, bass-baritone/bass, and countertenor lists to follow shortly. Stay tuned for updates when the rest of the aria inventory comes online...

Update 11/17 10:19pm: Kim Witman sends word that aria frequency lists for all of the voice types are now online in pdf format. This should be standard reference material for every collaborative piano studio, so download and print as soon as possible!

Giving Kids a Voice Through New Opera Creation

Every summer, Tapestry New Opera's INside Opera program runs an opera creation program for at-risk kids in the Cabbagetown neighborhood of Toronto. This is no basic opera in the schools program - a composer and librettist on the creative team help the kids create, produce, and perform their own opera. The students themselves are able to take ownership of both the process and final product, with a bit of assistance from the composer/librettist team.

The following documentary was created by Juan Baquero at the 2009 INside Opera workshop, featuring the kids of City Hope in St. Jamestown. Joining Tapestry's Education and Outreach Director Amber Ebert are librettist Dave Deveau and composer Glenn James. The total running time of the documentary is around 30 minutes, but if you're interested in how a contemporary opera outreach program can create an unforgettable experience for at-risk kids, you won't be disappointed.

If you think that this program is important both for the kids of Toronto and the future of opera in Canada, here's a unique opportunity to help: Visit Tapestry's page on the Pepsi Refresh Project and vote twice a day so that the company can win $25,000 to go towards the program.

How To Be A Choral Accompanist

Laura Lowe has written a concise yet definitive guide to what choral accompanists need to prepare in order to be a pianist for your typical volunteer church choir (TVCC for short). Part I looks at how to prepare the vocal lines and Part II covers learning the piano part, working with a conductor, and finding trouble spots before the first rehearsal. Hopefully a third part is in the works...

How To Be A Choral Accompanist, Part I
How To Be A Choral Accompanist, Part II

Lest We Forget

An Interview With Anna Goldsworthy, Part 1

One of the most notable new books about music this fall is Anna Goldsworthy's Piano Lessons: A Memoir, which not only tells the story of her own artistic development growing up in Australia, but is a celebration of a decades-long relationship with her teacher, Eleanor Sivan. Anna's successes and failures are all tempered through the lens of an extraordinary Russian teacher whose mission is to create a fully realized person as much as a first-rate pianist.

Earlier today I had the chance to meet Anna at Indigo Books in downtown Toronto. She gave an elegantly revelatory mini-recital (Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C# major from the WTC Book I, Chopin's Nocturne in D flat major, Op. 27 No. 2, and Liszt's Rigoletto Paraphrase), interspersed with readings from Piano Lessons. Afterwards, we had some time to chat, and Part 1 of our conversation is transcribed below:

Chris Foley: I noticed when you were playing that your performance of each composer's work had a clear stylistic integrity. Is that something that you learned from Eleanor Sivan?

Anna Goldsworthy: Yeah, I think that was in large part her teaching from an early age. Understanding the style through a physical understanding, but within that understanding, the individuality of each composer within that style because they don't all sound the same just because they were written at the same time. And within that even further, understanding that every piece by a certain composer is a different facet of that composer's experience and artistry and understanding the individuality of every single thing.

CF: How do you combine the whole spiritual journey of learning music and becoming an artist with the business of music?

AG: The business of music can take up a lot of time - the organization of a career - and it's very easy, outbound, to become a professional emailer rather than a professional pianist. I've spent so much of my time drawing up engagements, it helps when you have a manager - my trio has a wonderful manager who now takes care of that, and I've got people who take care of the solo aspects of that for me too. My father said to me when I was quite young that the world's not going to beat a path to you. You actually have to go out there and make it happen. And I didn't quite believe it at the time. I sort of thought if you market a career it just naturally happens. But the reality is that in Australia it doesn't just naturally happen. You have to get out there and make it happen, and you have to knock on those doors.

One of the things about being a pianist in Australia is there isn't necessarily the heritage of that artistic culture. I mean, there is a good artistic heritage there, but not as much as there is in Europe or the United States. I'm not sure what it's like in Canada. But what that means for an Australian musician is you actually have to make your own opportunities. A cellist colleague of mine recently said to me "You have to make your own fun" and I think she's right. That can mean a lot of work and a lot of organization. But it can also mean a tremendous amount of freedom. So, I set up my National Trio Series four years ago, and it's wonderful. We own the series and we can do whatever we like with it since we invented it. And it's a huge amount of time generating the audience base. It's a very steep learning curve about publicity and marketing, organization and management, much of which we've now been able to pass to somebody else, but there's something wonderfully liberating about that too, and there's something quite creative knowing it's your baby and that you own it.

CF: And at the same time you're a writer. How do you fit the writing into the performing life?

AG: It's a challenge. I tend to operate without any particular pattern or design. If I have a deadline in one area or another it can change my life for that week. This year has been a very busy performing year for me. I've had a lot of concerts and the writing has taken a bit of a back seat. I'm hoping to get a bit more writing done when I get back home. By Christmas I won't have quite so many engagements.

But it is a constant juggling act. I also have a two-year-old son, and working out how to make the week work while I'm looking after him, trying to practice, trying to write, trying to run a music festival, and trying to teach is just a bit of a logistical nightmare. But every aspect of my life is so enriching that I'm loathe to give any of it away.

CF: How important was it for you, when you were younger, to have a mentor? In your case, it was Eleanor Sivan - what did she do for you as a mentor? How would you recommend that young pianists find a mentor?

AG: To answer the first part of your question - crucially important - I wouldn't be a pianist today if it wasn't for Mrs. Sivan. Her influence extended beyond that. I think she has really contributed to my philosophy of life as much as my philosophy of music. I think having a mentor outside your immediate family can be so stimulating for a young person, and very important. That's the beautiful thing about being a musician, is that we have these institutionalized relationships with teachers in a way that other fields of human endeavor don't necessarily have. I've felt it particularly since I've started writing - I don't have a really clear writing mentor in the sense that I had this really strong musical mentor.

How do you find a mentor? In my case, it was sheer luck - my grandfather found her for me. He was a district superintendent in education and he chanced upon her teaching one day, and he told her she had to become my teacher, and told my dad she had to become my teacher too. I was fortunate in that way. For another young person, I suppose you find out who's around. I think you do need to have a certain chemistry with a mentor for it to work. These relationships can often be very hard work. It was very difficult for me when I was nine particularly, to try to understand that she had an extraordinary will that would take some getting used to.

CF: Do you teach as well?

AG: I do. I teach at the University of Melbourne two days a week, and I have some terrific students. But it's tremendously time-consuming and tremendously energy-consuming but it also makes you that much of a better player They're really wonderful, full of energy and curiosity, and eager to learn.

CF: Mrs. Sivan wasn't just a teacher that taught skills. She also taught the whole spiritual and cultural journey as an artist. How important is it for teachers to know that, and to be able to pass that on these days?

AG: I think it's really important because those areas, particularly areas in which modern society can be a little deficient. It's really difficult for a young person to be immersed in themselves in the physical act of music without examining why they're doing it, what they're trying to communicate through music.Technique is important, obviously. You can't neglect technique. And technique is a large part of my studies as well, but always as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. It's very easy to turn music into a sport, and almost fetishize technique, to become addicted to competitions, which is one of the things that competitions can engender, this fixation on playing louder and faster and more accurately. And of course we need to be able to do all of those things, but only at the service of art. That's a dimension of something she imparted to me at an early age, and it's something I really do try to convey to my students. Some of them are quite receptive to this idea. Others I can see their eyes glaze over, and they sort of think, cut to the chase, show me how I'm going to play that Bach piece. But it's something that I hope even those particular students will come to as they mature.

CF: What do you think musicians can get out of your book? What are the takeaways?

AG: It depends on the person. A number of musicians have said to me it really resonated with them, and really spoke to their own coming of age as musicians.

CF: I got the feeling when I was reading it, I was like, oh my god, that happened to me, that same thing happened to me.

AG: Yeah. And so to articulate that particular aspect of human experience, which hasn't really been explored that much in literature before, I think a lot of musicians have really responded to that. Mrs. Sivan's teaching is so profound, and so wise, and so idiosyncratic, that although many musicians, I'm sure, have arrived at similar realizations, I think there's something quite striking about encountering them in her very distinctive voice, too.

CF: She was able to articulate that very bluntly, and really got to the heart of the matter.

AG:Yeah, I think so, and, it's an interesting thing because I conveyed her through my book using her own fragmented English - her English is not perfect by any means. At times I questioned whether I should be doing that or whether I should be converting her voice into something smoother and more polished, more correct. But actually, in some sort of strange way, there's a particular poetry to her voice that got lost if I tried to do that. The analogies she reaches for are so wild and so surprising, and the way she put language together can be so startling and unique, that I didn't want to lose that. There's also a beautiful rhythm, a beautiful rhetoric in the way she constructs sentences, which I feel is particularly musical.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our conversation in the next few days...

The Collaborative Piano Blog is 5

In early November 2005, my schedule had an odd anomaly in it: almost a week with no rehearsals or concerts. This ended up being the perfect time to collect some handouts, writings, and compilations I had previously used for classes and workshops on collaborative piano and republish them as a blog project. Little did I know that over the next five years, this project would take over my life and develop a huge membership to become one of the world's largest blogs on the art of the piano, classical music, and music education.

As my schedule gets busier, I find it harder to have the emotional space to write articles and spend quality writing time. Nevertheless, so many of the opportunities that have presented themselves to me over the last few years have come about either directly or indirectly from this blog, so I'm always thinking of ways that I can continue the kind of content that has above all helped to expand the scope and prominence of the collaborative piano profession. In the next while, I will be starting a slightly new direction in the blog: interviews. At the Bay Street Indigo, I will be talking with Anna Goldsworthy about her Piano Lessons: A Memoir. Stay tuned for the full interview in the coming days.

I would also like to thank everyone who has supported and advised the direction of the Collaborative Piano Blog over the years, including Kim Witman (whose blog was the very first to link here), Jean Barr, Rena Sharon, Jan Grimes, Allison Gagnon, Ken Griffiths, and Margo Garrett. A huge thank also goes out to regular readers, including those who keep up via Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed, email subscription or visit the site directly. I'm also humbled by the sheer volume of traffic: over 500,000 page views, over 254,000 visits, 1185 RSS subscribers, and 1288 fans on Facebook. Thanks for your support and I look forward to the next five years on the Collaborative Piano Blog!

The Top 20 Classical Music Blogs for November 2010

Here are the top 20 classical music blogs for November 2010, courtesy of Wikio's blog-ranking algorithm:

1.	Nico Muhly
2.	Clef Notes
3.	PostClassic
4.	Opera Today
5.	Proper Discord
6.	The Opera Tattler
7.	The Stark Raving Cello Blog
8.	Adaptistration
9.	A Beast in a Jungle
10.	Musical Assumptions
11.	The Collaborative Piano Blog
12.	Sandow
13.	Opera Chic
14.	Andrew Patner: The View from Here
15.	Sequenza21/
16.	oboeinsight
17.	Intermezzo
18.	Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog
19.	Prairie Oboe Companion
20.	Ionarts

You can also take a look at the complete classical music listings made available by Wikio. The November rankings should be up on the Wikio site in a couple of days.

All Souls' Day: Richard Strauss' Allerseelen

Many poets tend to create narrators who initially have trouble showing the extent of their feelings. It's only through the process of moving through the poem that we really get to the heart of the narrator's true emotions. Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg is no exception. In his Allerseelen poem, the poet begins by describing the ritual of arranging flowers on a table. By the second stanza, we sense the presence of the one he has lost, and by the third, we realize that he has set aside this one day out of the year as a time in which he gives himself permission to grieve, to feel the enormity of the loss he has suffered. One gets the sense that we are let into an ongoing personal ritual, a ritual that has been going on for some time, and one which will be repeated many more times. You can read the full text and translation here; it's also worth taking a look at the Wikipedia article on All Souls' Day.

I must admit I had a bit of a difficult time finding a YouTube recording of Richard Strauss' Allerseelen that I actually liked. Many performances seemed terribly overwrought, and not without ensemble issues on the first page. I finally settled on Jessye Norman's recording with Geoffrey Parsons, which I admire for its honesty and simplicity.

Henry Cowell's The Banshee

About Banshees:

The Bean Sidhe or Banshee makes her appearance when someone in the household is about to die. She haunts only the families of the "high Milesian race" - those whose names have an "O", "Mac" or other prefix. One exception to this rule has been granted by virtue of the Irish poets who have given her to some of the Norman-Irish families - the FitzGerald's for example. In any event, she heralds the demise of only those who are of authentic noble stock and it is with great dread when her piercing "caoine" or keening is heard. In many respects, this mysterious creature resembles traditional Irish keeners or mourners of old; as with her mortal counterparts, those who have seen her describe her as drawing a comb through her hair, similar to tearing the hair out in anguish, which the ancient mourners used to do. Incidentally, or maybe not, while the Banshee is considered benign, she supposedly has a sister force who isn't; this force is called the Lianhan Sidhe and her sole purpose is to seek the love of mortal men. Their desire for her ultimately destroys them.

Henry Cowell performs in this 1933 Folkways recording.



A quick warning to anyone performing this work: do NOT clean the piano strings beforehand. Dust and dirt on the piano strings increases friction and helps to create a much bigger sound. Clean off the piano wire gunk and you'll lose over half of your sound in the piece.

The Choirmaster's Burial

The volume levels aren't too good on the transfer of this recording with Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Graham Johnson, so it might be worthwhile to follow along with Thomas Hardy's text once the video starts...

He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
“Mount Ephraim”—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death’s dream,
Like the seraphim1.

As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke, thereupon.
“I think,” said the vicar,
“A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be.”

Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.

But ’twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster’s grave.

Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.

The Ghost of Class Piano Studios Past

Via jesiiii on Flickr, a multi-keyboard monstrosity in vomitous yellow...

The Field Marshall from Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death

Death's triumphant ride over the battlefield, chillingly performed by Dmitri Hvorostovsky. [Hallowe'en hive call: who is the pianist in this video? He is awesome, but unnamed in the video's description.] Update: A huge thanks goes to Pamela for the positive ID on the pianist: he is none other than Ivari Ilja, a long-time collaborator with Hvorostovsky and head of the piano department at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Vladimir Horowitz Plays Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1

Liszt's program note on a scene from Lenau's Faust that was the idea behind Liszt's Mephisto Waltz #1:

There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by, and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the fiddle from the hands of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad abandon out of the room, into the open, away into the woods. The sounds of the fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale warbles his love-laden song.

Vladimir Horowitz, piano

Franz Schubert's Der Doppelgänger

The narrator of Der Doppelgänger (text by Heinrich Heine) has a dark past he's dealing with and comes face to face with it in one of Schubert's darkest songs. He's not over his girlfriend yet, and even after she's moved away, he still stalks her former residence. To make matters worse, he comes face to face with the specter of his former self, also stalking his girlfriend's residence at the height of anguish. Face to face with the enormity of how far he has fallen, the ending of the song could not be more ambiguous. Is this a scene that he has repeated before? Or is the tonic major that ends the song a return of hope that might help him move on?

Jan Martiník's performance at Cardiff in 2009 (with Alexandr Starý on piano) is a brilliant reading of this dark and complex psychological portrait, one of Schubert's last.



You can find the English translation of Der Doppelgänger here.

Felix Mendelssohn's Hexenlied

The text of Hölty's Hexenlied is really a paganistic celebration of spring, but all the imagery of witches, goats, dragons, broomsticks and Beelzebub places Mendelssohn's setting perfectly into any Hallowe'en-themed festivities.

Gudrun Sidonie Otto, soprano
Wolfgang Brunner, Hammerklavier

Abandoned Piano, Desert Center School, California

(Via SoLostAndFound on Flickr)

Sviatoslav Richter Plays Le Gibet

Le Gibet from Gaspard de la Nuit: 3 Poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand

Sviatoslav Richter, piano

Ah! ce que j'entends, serait-ce la bise nocturne qui glapit, ou le pendu qui pousse un soupir sur la fourche patibulaire?

Serait-ce quelque grillon qui chante tapi dans la mousse et le lierre stérile dont par pitié se chausse le bois?

Serait-ce quelque mouche en chasse sonnant du cor autour de ces oreilles sourdes à la fanfare des hallali?

Serait-ce quelque escarbot qui cueille en son vol inégal un cheveu sanglant à son crâne chauve?

Ou bien serait-ce quelque araignée qui brode une demi-aune de mousseline pour cravate à ce col étranglé?

C'est la cloche qui tinte aux murs d'une ville sous l'horizon, et la carcasse d'un pendu que rougit le soleil couchant.

--Aloysius Bertrand (you can find the translation here)





(Image via neonwilderness)

Samuel Barber's Now I Have Fed and Eaten up the Rose

Over the next few days, the Collaborative Piano Blog will be celebrating Hallowe'en by posting videos of some of the spookiest vocal and instrumental works with piano. Hope you enjoy the orangy redesign, which will revert back to its regular look on November 1.

What a better way to start than with Samuel Barber's Now Have I Fed and Eaten up the Rose, with a text by James Joyce. A recently re-animated corpse remembers his lost love and munches on a rose, although no longer able to tell if it's a red or white one. Ángel Rodríguez Rivero is joined by pianist Laurence Vernà in a creepy song that might just make one reconsider burial in favor of cremation...

Collaborative Piano Studies at SUNY Fredonia

The School of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia has just approved a Master of Music Degree in Collaborative Piano. The new program is currently accepting students for the 2011-12 academic year. Dr. Anne Kissel sends along the following information about the program and how you can apply:

The Master of Music in Collaborative Piano at SUNY Fredonia is an intensive program for pianists interested in developing an expertise in the vocal and instrumental collaborative repertoire. In addition to weekly lessons and coachings with Fredonia¹s esteemed performance faculty, students in the program take coursework in lyric diction, opera coaching, instrumental chamber music, and song repertoire. Students may have the opportunity to assist in productions of the Hillman Opera and to perform with Fredonia¹s distinguished large ensembles. SUNY Fredonia¹s collaborative masters students perform frequently with Fredonia¹s top student singers and instrumentalists in concerts and master classes, honing their craft as flexible performers of varied repertoire. Graduates of this select program will gain a breadth of experience and knowledge, enabling them to pursue a variety of different career paths on the stage, in opera, and in academia.

Auditions for the 2010-11 academic year will be held on February 26 and March 26. Candidates will select repertoire to prepare from a given list, which will include two contrasting instrumental sonatas, four songs, one aria, and one short solo piece (memorized), as well as sight reading. Collaborative partners will be provided at the audition.

For more information, please contact

Dr. Anne Kissel
2171 Mason Hall
(716) 673-3479

http://www.fredonia.edu/music/

Complete list of Degree and Diploma Programs in Collaborative Piano

Win 1 of 3 Free Copies of Gretchen Saathoff's Goal-Oriented Practice

I've always been a big fan of books about practicing. The combination of quick tips and longer narratives from different authors have been really useful to me in finding a practice process that works.

But the problem with many practice books is that once you read all the inspirational passages and put the book away, you can often forget how to put their ideas into practice once you get into the studio.

Being a gadget junkie, one of the first things I did when I downloaded Gretchen Saathoff's Goal-Oriented Practice ebook was find out how I could transfer it to my iPod Touch. Once I added the .pdf file to my iBooks shelf, I found that I could read and refer to the ebook right at the piano, which made all the difference.

Gretchen takes the physical set up of playing very seriously, and is a strong proponent of a healthy approach to the mechanics of playing. She spends a valuable amount of time looking at ergonomics, eliminating distractions, warm-ups, and learning processes. Her method of interspersing practical tips in bulleted form with slightly longer meditations and anecdotes helps to vary the flow of the ebook. Subsequent sections deal with a variety of useful tools, with titles such as "Practice Tools You Already Own", "Activate Your Practice With Your Animated SELF", "The Little Coach On Your Shoulder", and "Outside the Box".

If you actually spend the time reading this book at the piano (or other instrument) as a counterpoint to practicing, you'll get a much better sense of the questions that this book poses about the way you play and practice. If you decide to take the journey into the heart of the issues that Gretchen raises, it will probably take quite some time to really get the import of her words. Throughout the ebook, Gretchen's calm and guiding hand helps you towards the eventual realization that the ultimate guide to gauging your own artistic process lies within yourself, and can be accessed through tools you already possess. She also states that she is available at any time to answer your questions if you own the book.

The $24.95 price tag for Goal-Oriented Practice (available both here and here) is around the same as many competing books on practicing. Unlike paper books, once you own the ebook, you can read its .pdf file in many different ways (ie. from printed copy, on a computer, iPad, or smartphone), and I recommend a format that allows you to use it right at the piano. Compared to what a single lesson with Gretchen would cost, the ebook starts to look like a very good deal, and comes with customer support from Gretchen as well if you have any questions or further issues.

But wait.....

For the Collaborative Piano Blog's upcoming 5th birthday, Gretchen has graciously offered a free download of Goal-Oriented Practice to 3 lucky readers.

Here's how you can win:

Send an email to collaborative piano [at] gmail dot com with "Goal-Oriented Practice" in the title. The first three people to respond will win.

Update: 


Congratulations to the three winners, Ron, Andrei, and Tina! The competition is now closed.

A huge thank you goes to Gretchen Saathoff for making this deal available to CPB readers.