RIP Milton Babbitt

Milton Babbitt, one of the most influential composers and teachers of the 20th and early 21st century died on January 29th. Allan Kozinn's obituary in the New York Times gives a good idea of his interest both in esoteric serialism and popular music.

Here is three and a half minutes of pure awesomeness: Post-Partitions for piano, as played by Robert Miller. Post-Partitions utilizes an all-partition array, which in layman's terms is the distribution of all possible vertical distributions of the 12-tone row across segregated registers (partitions) of the keyboard throughout the course of the piece. Thus, while you see (or for those of you with transhuman powers of perception, hear) the row reoccur regularly throughout the piece, you can also observe each and every possibility of the row's vertical distribution across the registers of the piano. Once every distribution has been reached, the piece is over.



A graphical representation of the piece might help, as seen in the following video (performer not listed - Alan Feinberg, perhaps?):

Fazioli Liminal Spotted in Richmond

Yesterday was my last day of examining, so I had some time to head over to the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond (just south of Vancouver) afterwards. Spotting a Fazioli Liminal in the wild was a great conclusion to the week. Today it's back to Toronto and a farewell to the truly exceptional food that I've been enjoying around town for the last week.

ARCT's and Japadogs in Vancouver

This week I'm examining for RCME in Vancouver, my old stomping grounds. Over the last few days I've been administering both ARCT Performance and Piano Pedagogy exams (alongside my wonderful colleague Patricia Miller), and it's been a pleasure observing so many fine young pianists and teachers.

But in addition to being a hotbed of pianistic talent, Vancouver is home to an incredible amount fine cuisine (including the Japadog, pictured at left), and I've had a great time enjoying some fine Chinese and Japanese food in both Vancouver and Richmond over the last few days. But old habits die hard, so I was able to fit in one visit to White Spot, a West Coast institution whose burgers are a cult item for many who grew up in Vancouver.

For those of you who aren't yet aware of what's in a Japadog, the Japanese-styled hot dog which became famous during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the one I tried yesterday afternoon is called the Terimayo, which has fried onions, teriyaki sauce, Japanese mayo, and seaweed garnish. It's not only the toppings that make the hot dog, but the basics as well - the all-beef sausage is very high quality and I the bun is also astonishingly good. I hope to go back for another later in the week.

RIP Antonin Kubalek

Another sad day in the piano world - Antonin Kubalek, the legendary Czech-Canadian pianist, passed away a few days ago in Prague.

Death notice on the CBC website
Article in the Canadian Encyclopedia
Article in České Noviny
Wikipedia entry on Kubalek

From a message sent out earlier today by Peter Simon, President and CEO of the Royal Conservatory:

It is with deep regret and sorrow that we share with you that our friend and colleague, Antonin Kubalek, passed away following complications of neurosurgery in Prague on Wednesday January 19th at the age of 75.

Antonin joined The Royal Conservatory faculty in 1979, and taught for both The Young Artists Performance Academy and The Royal Conservatory School. Antonin was also a recitalist, recording artist, broadcaster, record producer, and two-time Juno nominee. He recorded 24 LPs and ten CDs on Dorian and other labels.

Antonin leaves behind his wife Patricia, daughters Ildiko, Helen, Karolina, and son Darius. There will be a grand "send off" possibly at the Duke of York for his many friends and admirers. Karolina will also prepare a memorial concert and CD in his honour. The dates for these events will be set upon the Kubalek family’s return to Canada.

The Ultimate Guide to the MTNA International Day of Collaborative Music

Saturday, January 22, 2011 is the International Day of Collaborative Music, a massive one-day initiative dedicated to the art of making music with others. The Collaborative Piano Blog is one of the official partners of the MTNA Year of Collaborative Music, and my project for the IDCM was the creation of The Tapestry Songbook, a one-day workshop for singers and pianists interested in working in the field of new opera at Tapestry New Opera, culminating in a recital at the end of the day as part of Tapestry's studio series in Toronto.

But there's a whole lot of stuff happening Saturday all across North America, and here are some of the highlights I was able to track down:

• The Connecticut State Music Teachers' Association is holding a seven and a half hour marathon of ensemble music at Danbury Fair Mall starting at 10:30am
• Auburn University is holding a faculty and student recital of ensemble music at 4pm in the Goodwin Music Building Recital Hall
• The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is holding a recital (on Sunday the 23rd) of faculty and alumni featuring Margo Garrett(!)
• The Eastman School of Music will be featuring a day-long series of recitals (more here and here) curated by Dr. Jean Barr
• Virginia Tech will be holding an event at 7pm coordinated by Tracy Cowden (more info here) that looks at the rehearsal process of chamber ensembles. Audience members are free to come and go as they please, as well as sit on the stage with the performers. (Update: Tracy sends along this link, which gives a great account of the work that she does at Virginia Tech)
• The University of New Mexico's Victoria Pyle will be hosting a 2pm recital of students in her collaborative piano program 
• Students of the Lincoln Music Teachers Association will be performing all day in the Westfield Gateway Mall
• In Kansas, the Hutchinson Area Piano Teachers' Association will be hosting an ensemble concert at the Dillon Nature Center starting at 10:30am
• Students at Arizona State University will be participating in a showcase recital of various ensemble works at 5pm in the Katzin Concert Hall

Best of luck to everybody involved in the International Day of Collaborative Music, whether coordinating, curating, performing, workshopping, rehearsing, lecturing, volunteering or merely enjoying the awesome performances!

If you have information on or anecdotes from any other IDCM events, official or unofficial, please leave a comment.

Harold Brown Remembered

Sad news out of Vancouver: Harold Brown, one of Vancouver's most beloved pianists for many years, passed away last week at the age of 93. David Duke writes in the Vancouver Sun:

Harold Brown was one of Vancouver’s most remarkable musicians, a pianist of extraordinary insight and a collaborative musician of strength and sensitivity. I doubt you can name a singer he didn’t work with; his was a musical mind of great originality, and he had a boundless enthusiasm for ideas.

He was a great friend of new music, and a source of practical but ever helpful advice for composers who bothered to ask for his opinion or criticism. I was lucky enough to watch him shepherd a set of my early songs from the page to premiere at that musical pressure cooker, the Banff Centre: HB and his singer made them sound a good deal more effective than they no doubt were, but I wasn’t going to complain.

Another memorable revelation was a performance—it must have been in the late 1970s— with mezzo Delia Wallis. In Schubert’s perhaps too-famous “Serenade,” HB turned the piano into the world’s biggest guitar; no performance I’ve heard since seems half as inspired.

I adored Harold's playing, which had a wonderful clarity of sound that he never lost, even in his later years. One of my fondest memories of Harold is a non-musical one, and took place in a rehearsal room (in the Yaletown Community Centre, I think) midway through an afternoon of voice auditions. This was in early 1998, the year that Wendy and I were married. I asked Harold if he had any advice for me on the occasion of our upcoming marriage that summer. His reply: "Yes, I've got some advice. The first 50 years are the hardest. After that it's easy."

A memorial service will be held this coming Saturday, January 15 at 1pm in First Unitarian Church at West 49th and Oak.

Entering the US as a Staff Accompanist?

Crossing the US border to take up work in the collaborative piano field can often be tricky these days. On Athlete of the Keyboard, one anonymous commenter writes about their difficulty obtaining an entrance visa into the United States because of the nature of the staff accompanist position for which they were hired:

You may find it interesting that in my recent application for a work visa, as a Canadian hired as a staff accompanist at an American university, the university was challenged by US Immigration to prove that an accompanist is a "specialty occupation" (which was the category of work visa we applied for). According to their Occupation Handbook, a staff accompanist does not even need a bachelor's degree, and we were required to prove several points in order to defend the visa application, including proof that other universities require degrees of their accompanists and that the training and knowledge needed for the job necessitated a university degree. After putting together a sizable document, the visa was finally approved. And this isn't even a full-time position (yet), because this music department has always relied on "casual labor" for their accompanist needs until now. They're trying to get a staff position established, but it's a tough sell with the upper administration, especially with tight budgets.

The fact that university accompanists are Staff instead of Faculty, and are paid through different budget lines than professors, does make an impact on respect, status, and treatment on an institutional level. How the faculty deal with the staff accompanist is really the most important factor, though, because the students and administration will follow the faculty's lead.

I've finally reached the point where I will not work with faculty that treat me like the hired help to be pushed around, because the students will take that to be the model for how to treat an accompanist. I may not have a doctorate, but I have a master's in accompanying from a prestigious program, fellowships at world-class programs, professional experience with world-class artists and like to think of my position as collaborating with the faculty as well as with the students. When that happens, it is the best of both worlds, because I get to play the music I love all day and contribute to the development of the next generation of performers and teachers, too.

One option for anyone working at an educational institution is to apply for TN-1 status under NAFTA, which waives the need for a visa. For the position in question, I can guess that since it wasn't a teaching position per se but a position at the specialty occupation level (better than the support staff level, I suppose) TN-1 status might have been out of the question.

My experience crossing the border in recent years has been limited to summer festivals and examining, so if you have a story, opinion, hints, or relevant facts about entering the US to do work in the collaborative piano field, please leave a comment.

Remembering Donald Himes, Pianist, Educator, and Composer of the Mr. Dressup Theme

A few days ago, I was very saddened to hear about the passing of Donald Himes, one of my colleagues at the Royal Conservatory. Even though you may not have heard of Don, if you live in Canada, you've heard him play - he wrote the theme music and played the musical numbers for the long-running CBC kids' show Mr. Dressup.

Don started off his TV career in the mid-60's with "Butternut Square", starring alongside Ernie Coombs (who played the role of Mr. Dressup) and Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers). After the show ended in 1967, each of the two main characters went on to create their own spinoff series based on their Butternut Square characters - Fred Rogers with WQED Pittsburgh and Ernie Coombs with CBC Toronto. Don Himes joined the Mr. Dressup creative team, wrote the theme music, and played the episodes.

Here's the opening segment from a CBC British Columbia broadcast in the mid-80's:



Don also did a lot of pioneering work in the relationship of movement to early childhood music education, especially through his relationship with The Feldenkrais Centre and the generation of teachers whom he mentored. Marion Harris wrote a lovely remembrance on their website:

It is with great sadness that I let you know of the sudden death of Donald Himes on Monday, January 3rd. Don had been recovering wonderfully from recent hip replacement surgery; so it was a deep shock to all his friends and family when, due to post-operative complications, this vibrant and much-loved man passed away.

Don was truly a Renaissance man. His full life included the professions of musician, dancer, choreographer, composer and educator. The latter included Principal of the Toronto Dance Theatre School, Piano and Dalcroze Eurhythmics Teacher for the Royal Conservatory of Music and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Instructor. Don was recently awarded the 'Honorary Diplome' from Geneva, the highest award in the Dalcroze world.

Generations of children grew up running to the television as the sound of Don playing his piano composition introduced the long-running, and extremely popular television program, Mr. DressUp (Canada’s equivalent of Mr. Rogers).

Don and I graduated from the Amherst Professional Feldenkrais Training Program in 1983. Our friendship grew when we shared living space for three years during the training, and later as we collaborated on numerous workshops and projects. He has been a faithful and highly respected teacher and colleague at The Feldenkrais Centre since it opened in 1991.

His devoted students benefited from his vast knowledge and delighted in his sophisticated dry humor. At the end of each (Feldenkrais) class his students would gather round as if in a salon, sharing experiences and soaking up his words of wisdom.

Donald Himes lived life his way - with elegance and grace.

His presence and contributions will be greatly missed, their loss deeply felt and leaves a void in the Arts, Dalcroze and Feldenkrais communities, and in our hearts.

More links:

Notice in the National Post's Ampersand
CBC News article
Toronto Star obituary
Notice in the Winnipeg Free Press

1936 PH Grand Piano in Copenhagen

Image by Jamie Thompson

Take a gander at what Jamie Thompson of Urban Flute Project spotted in the wild last summer in Copenhagen: the elusive 1936 PH grand piano at the Danish Museum of Art and Design (featured in this past post). My goodness, that piano would look wonderful in my studio.

Athlete of the Keyboard

Every so often someone on the People for the Ethical Treatment of Accompanists Facebook Group writes something that makes me stand up and cheer. Michael Yenny's recent comment is one of them:

The collaborative artist is an athlete of the keyboard. Period. His/her body is subjected to ongoing battering/abuse equivocal to that of professional football players or military personnel. The resident collaborative artist is also one of the most intelligent musical personnel in a university department. In an ideal situation, the collaborative artist should always be paid the same as university faculty (not less). If the situation is not ideal, then a strict written accompanying policy should be constructed identifying which services are salaried and which services are to be paid additionally through budget means. The collaborative artist is a highly trained professional, plays all day long, every day, and should be treated with the personal and financial respect he deserves.

How are you being treated these days? Do you feel that people truly understand the commitment you bring to performance situations? Are you fairly compensated for the work you do?

Leave a comment and let's get the discussion going.

Two Full Days of Auditions

I've just finished two days of playing the Toronto auditions for Vancouver Opera's upcoming October 2011 production of West Side Story. You can see my piano setup in the Elgin Theatre rehearsal studio (w/genmaicha to go from Teaopia) at left. While I don't play much in the way of musical theatre in Toronto, it was totally fascinating to watch the audition and casting process, and getting to work with some top-notch dancers, actors, and singers in the process.

Especially interesting was playing for the dance auditions, where the dancers show up at the top of the session, learn the routine, then get placed in smaller groups for an elimination round that will determine who gets through to the singing and acting auditions afterwards. The excerpts I had to play for the dancers today were the climactic dance sequence from "Cool" in the morning (it's HARD) and the opening of the dance sequence from "America" in the afternoon. All in all, I probably played each excerpt at least 30 times through the rehearsal process and auditions.

Tomorrow it's back into the studio with some pretty serious playing stats to bully inspire my students with: 7 hours yesterday and 7.5 hours today.

Help Meerenai Shim Commission a New Work by Daniel Felsenfeld for 2011-12

In these days of uncertain public funding for the arts, it's more important than ever that musicians take the lead in creating and funding their own initiatives, using new media to quickly reach out to those who can make a difference financially.

San Francisco flutist Meerenai Shim has a vision of commissioning New York composer Daniel Felsenfeld to write a work for flute, cello, and piano for Trinity Chamber Concerts in Berkeley for the 2011-12 season. The cost: $5,000.

Here's how she's doing it: using Kickstarter, a funding platform for the creative arts. With Kickstarter, you specify your project, the amount of your financial target, your deadline, and then start getting the word out about your project. What's at stake: you only get your funding if you can get enough supporters to hit the financial target.

If you're interested in contributing to this project, you can visit Meerenai's Kickstarter page for more info. The deadline for the project funding is January 19. If they reach their funding goal of $5,000 by that date, the funding will go through. Here's Meerenai talking about the project, which is 52% funded at the time of writing:





(Via Maura Lafferty)

House Concerts - Links and Resources

If you're looking for the hottest new concert venue, look no further than your own living room. It looks like house concerts might be one of the big new cottage industries of the music field in 2011, if Nick Krewen's article in the Star is any indication.

Although the house concert concept is nothing new (ever heard of a Schubertiad?), the current changes in the classical musical field might be the perfect fertile ground for many of us to gain a following through playing in people's houses. Where things get interesting is through companies like Home Routes, who book the artists and venues, so artists, agent, and venue are all paid through a small cover charge. And since it looks like Home Routes specializes in the folk-oriented evenings, the field is wide open for someone to create a classical-oriented operation along the same lines.

Here's an introductory video about the house concert experience from Concerts in Your Home:



Links to more resources, which I'll be updating as more information becomes available:

What is a house concert?
Musicians are in the house, a Vancouver Sun article also featuring Home Routes
How to put on the perfect house concert by Bob Bossin w/Martha Stewart
House concerts: a cottage industry from Concert Blog
House concerts for art music: multiple stakeholders, audience development, and sustainability, presented by Anne Ku at the 16th International Conference on Cultural Economics, Copenhagen
House Concerts Guide and 2010 Calendar
Classical House Concerts
Living Room Concerts
Bobcat House Concerts
Shady Grove House Concerts
Music Up Close House Concerts

I like how many of these start-ups are either created by the artists themselves or act like agencies for the artists they represent. Since it doesn't take much money to set up a living room and the presenters presumably billet the artists, costs can be kept down for everyone involved. If an agency is able to book artists on a complete regional tour, the musicians could conceivably make a decent profit from the tour. From the Star article:

Podolak says the admission to attend a house concert is $15, with the musicians keeping 85% of the gross and Home Routes retaining 15%. Musicians are billeted and fed by homeowner presenters, and Podolak says performers can net as much as “$2,000 per week.”

If you're looking to go this route as a classical artist, you'll need to identify your audience, connect with them, bring them into your ensemble's community (probably via Facebook these days), and eventually leverage that trust to sell your product, whether CDs, future concert appearances or other materials. Also see the previous post Impending Doom or Golden Opportunity? for a look at how the rockabilly quartet The Millwinders are able to create a regional cult following by playing in small venues.

What house concert experiences have you had? If you were performing, how were you compensated for your work? Homeowners: what were the takeaways from hosting an event? Companies: is this a worthwhile business opportunity? If you were in the audience, did you have to pay a cover charge?  How much? Did you feel you got your money's worth?

Feel free to leave your answers in the comments. Anonymous commenters are welcome, as always.

Revising the Career Options List

For the last 5 years, one of the most visited pages on this blog has been the list of Career Options in Collaborative Piano.  Nevertheless, it's going to become necessary to add more job possibilities to the career options list as the profession changes and evolves.

Pianists, what I would like all of you to do is this - take a look at the original career options post, consider the kinds of work that you and your colleagues do, whether collaborative, non-collaborative, at the keyboard, in the classroom, or doing other things in other places, and leave a comment here, on Facebook, or Twitter, as to what I can add to the list.

The collaborative piano profession is a constantly evolving field (especially in these interesting economic times), so your input is very much welcome.

Gilded Steinway

Maxfield Parrish meets Fragonard

We be slumming when reading Henry James

I'll have the 1893 Veuve while practicing Hanon 52

Let us consider the merits of new opera, as exemplified by such modern classics as Pelléas et Mélisande

Call the post-chaise; I'm not in the mood for using the Bugatti this morning

Do you like Jaguars? Outside my villa in Paris I have 12.

I am also partial to Bentleys, but at present only own 3

(via cdbobzien)