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Goldberg, Variation 16 :: 4.26.2010

Variation 16, Goldberg Variations.mp3

Here's an example of the work we're doing on the Goldberg Variations. In this case, for the french overture that promenades right down the middle of the work, we pushed brass tacks into the hammers. This combined with a fast speed of attack and limited dynamic range manage to evoke the sound of a harpsichord.

Enjoy!

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Two Recordings: Goldberg, and Andres' Shy and Mighty :: 3.30.2010

I'm very happy to tell you about two exciting recording projects:

The first involves recording the Goldberg Variations of Bach on a 100 year old German salon piano, with some creative preparations to the instrument deployed in the repeat sections. The idea for the project comes from the artist Patrick Bernatchez of Montreal, and we've been working intensively on developing ideas and experimenting with the charming piano we procured... it has a lavishly beautiful tone, and we are having fun making it sound like a harpsichord, an organ, and even like an electric guitar, using a specially built amplification system. Eventually, my recording will be used as part of a complex multi-media art work, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a chance to explore the question: at what point does Bach's music stop being Bach? Bach wrote his keyboard music understanding that it would be realized on many different instruments... the specific sound was necessarily an abstract concern to him, and so the experiment is actually implicit in the music. Here's a photo from a recent session on the instrument:
Then, next month is an event I'm really looking forward to. My good friend and fellow ivory pounder Timo Andres will give a concert in New York (May 17 at Le Poisson Rouge) to kick off the release of the CD we recorded together last year, which introduces his hour-long "album" for two pianos, called Shy and Mighty. This is very exciting for us both, as the company is none other than Nonesuch Records, and they've done a wonderful job making it sound shy when it needs to be shy and mighty when it needs to be mighty. They've put up a press release for the disc here.

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Making Himself :: 2.19.2010


This is just a drawing I hope you'd enjoy. I must confess it's a knockoff of a drawing by cartoonist Saul Steinberg, which he doodled in class at Yale. The idea was just so moving to me, I couldn't resist doing my own version.

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Allegory of the Concert Attires: setting and dramatis personae :: 9.27.2009

Setting: Starbucks inside Barnes and Noble, Lincoln Center, 66th St. and Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, NY, USA.


Mr. Embroidered Smock—is THE talk-of-the-town clarinetist, playing Principal with the Latest Chamber Orchestra, and keeping the Asian end up with a solo record contract in Korea.

Mr. White Tyantails—the wildly (but transiently) successful competition winner is just back from 36 concerts of the same romantic violin concerto. His next three seasons are booked, but he's frustrated with his (two) managers at Big Company Artists, who take weeks to return his calls.

Mr. Good Suit—in his large piano studio at University of the Midwest, his DMA diploma hangs on the wall so the ink can dry. He’s in town for a few things here and there, but next up is to play on a lieder concert in Merkin.

Mr. Sweaty Tuxshirt—first picking up mallets for the All-State Youth Orchestra, honing his skills at Good University Music Department, spending summers at Somelake and Othermountain Festivals, Farawayvalley Repertory Orchestra, in Europe with the Festspielorchester Randomstein-Schönebaum... after just one season in his new Symphony job, he’s jaded as the best of them, and still just as fun to drink beer with.

Mr. Corderoy Jacket—wins an ASCAP Award for every 8 minute ensemble piece he churns out. He spends most of his time trying to meld the twisty rhythms and whiny melodies of his favorite band, Waiting for Yesterday, into the strictures of his dogmatically modernist Ivy League training.

Mr. and Mrs. All Black—the hard hitting, smooth talking, Blackberry clicking, iPhone flicking, New York, New Music, power couple. They made the trip from Brooklyn to meet a composer who's a friend of a friend.

Ms. Flowing Gown—is the cellist-turned-hero of her beloved hometown, Smallville, Redstate, especially after she soloed with the Redstate Regional Orchestra at 17 and made it to Juilliard. Sometimes she changes her dress at intermission, because you just can’t play Rachmaninoff Sonata in yellow.

Ms. Colorful Cape—she loves nothing more than to shake her classic proportions and wink her painted eyelids through her favorite coloraturas and arias... but her aspiration, her real aspiration, is to sing art-song. Debussy... ah, Debussy! and yes, of course, Schumann... but if only the tuttis weren't so long! says she.
Ms. Pants Suit—always on time and productive in rehearsals, she is the newest of several violists in the promising but faltering Elitist String Quartet. Admired widely for her sound, she more than compensates for the occasional ambiguous note with luscious vibrato and gutsy body gestures.

Ms. Crossover McLeatherpants—is 50% Irish and 35% Japanese. She writes her own songs, strums chords on the piano, and plays Vivaldi on electrified anything. She's in town for a photo shoot with a wind machine, and you can ask her Nutritionist about what happened to the remaining 15% of her.

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Back to 1968 with Zimmermann's Requiem at the Berlin Phil :: 5.08.2009

Late last month I had the rare concert experience of hearing a program that was not only powerful, wonderful, and extraordinary, but that really transported me to the times in which the works were conceived.

The Berlin Philharmonic under Peter Eötvös began with two Bach Chorales arranged by Schönberg and the Siegfried Idyll of Wagner. From this artfully constructed program, the Bach-Schönberg was beautifully tuned, and conveyed the outright religiosity with which the great synthesizer of the Baroque was viewed at the turn of the 19th and 20th Century. The Wagner was simply magical, as the Berlin orchestra's strings have the ability more than any other orchestra I've ever heard to play truly pianissimo, carrying the tone as if it were a slumbering, crowd-surfing infant.

The main event of the program, though, was the Requiem for a young Poet by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, written in 1968.

The first extraordinary thing about it is the scale: four cori spezzati, tapes, a veritable military band of a wind/brass section, vocal soloists, a jazz combo, two pianists, an accordion player, a mandolin, and more. Over the tape track, one heard bits of poetry, speeches by Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and others, a Beetles song, bits of Beethoven’s 9th, and at the very end, conflated recordings of political demonstrations from 20 or so different countries. At one absolutely frightening moment, two actors yell simultaneously through megaphones their renditions of speeches by Hitler and Stalin.

The entire piece plods inexorably forward at a precise Quarter-note = 60, which I believe was as much a narrative device as a practical tool to keep the music with the tape. It is difficult for me to adequately describe the effect this pulse had on the overall performance. It served as the one solid mooring amidst a storm of noise and ideas. In our society, the pulse of the second is more than familiar; it is almost intrinsic, and to some degree it beats silently within all of us. Therefore, no matter how challenging and literally painful the piece was to hear, the virtually uninterrupted beat resonated organically with the listener, and cultivated a sort of suspended rapture in the audience, a concentration that was the only foil to the schizophrenic rancor on stage.
Partly due to this concentration, the piece was viscerally transportative. I doubt I was alone in feeling that the work inculcated the zeitgeist of 1968, doing so as powerfully as, for instance, the smell of pipe tobacco might bring one back to his grandfather’s house (although subsitute gemütlichkeit with gewaltigkeit). I really felt the urgency of the time, with regard both to the socio-political climate that inspired the piece, and to the very nature and purpose of the piece itself. It conveyed very clearly the sense of necessity, responsibility, and incumbency that must have compelled Zimmermann and his contemporaries. I believe that if a piece such as this were premiered today, it would be dismissed as overly grandiose, indulgent, and perhaps worse, even as our society faces problems no less grave as those confronted in 1968. During the piece, I found myself imagining what the effect might be if the voices and words of Hitler, Gandhi, and Ezra Pound were replaced by those of Bin Laden, Maya Angelou, or George W. Bush. It would be an interesting paradox if the Zimmermann were to owe its effectiveness and meaningfulness today mostly to its anachronism; it may be moving precisely because it so perfectly captures the spirit of its own time, and embodies the sense that it was then incumbent on art to produce something like it. For me, someone who did not actually live through this turbulent period, the effect was doubly powerful: my grandfather never smoked a pipe, and yet, the smell of this tobacco conjured memories of experiences I’d never had.

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the best part of playing the piano and travelling.... restaurants....!! :: 2.26.2009

So I've emerged from blog hibernation to write about the culinary adventures of the past few weeks of traveling, in which Katia and I have been in New York, New Jersey, New Haven, Barcelona, Mallorca and Berlin, and we've gotten a chance to eat a few amazingly delicious meals:

Ca'n Carlos in Mallorca
If the name throws you off, it’s because in Mallorca, the special brand of Catalan abbreviates casa to ca’. One of several iconic ways of cooking rice in the region's paella pan (a large flat skillet of caste iron), Arrozo negro features squid ink as a dominant flavoring instead of the traditional paella's saffron. Looking for a good lunch place, and wary of the tourist traps that infest Mallorca's major city, Palma, Katia and I accosted an older couple who looked like they knew the scene. They led us to where they themselves were eating, and it was a bit expensive, but it looked like the genuine article, so we couldn't resist trying it. For frugality's sake, we passed on croquetas, the bite sized fried balls of grain, chicken and cheese, but we noticed that they looked amazing at a more lavishly ordering table nearby. But the feature attraction for me, a dumb American, was to finally experience a genuine Catalan ai oli, which, contrary to popular belief, is actually just that: ai (garlic) and oli (oil). Imagine raw garlic minced so fine that when it is worked with olive oil, it produces a stiff white paste? Well the little bowl of it that arrived with the squid rice was packed with delicious garlic flavor, and hardly a spoon was needed to complement the entire rice serving with a garlic aroma. Being on an island, the langostinos, muscles, and other shell fish hiding inside the black rice still tasted just like the ocean they came from.
Miya’s Sushi in New Haven
This was one of Katia's and my favorite restaurants while living in New Haven, and while we lived next door to it, it became a second home, where we would go in to chat, eat, and drink as often as possible. And if Katia happened to be traveling, it would be a sort of refuge for me when I was too lazy or lonely to cook for myself. Bun Lai and his mom, Yoshi, run the place together... she's the practical sense and a dollop of warmth, and he's the idea and energy man, responsible for most of the innovative rolls that can shock (but inevitably delight and win over) sushi traditionalists. When Katia and I were there, we had two wonderful meals, sampling an eclectic mix from the menu, and drinking a bit too much perhaps of Bun's home-infused sakes. No way to sum it up here, so see it online: http://www.miyassushi.com/
Star Tavern Pizza in W. Orange, NJ
This is everything you love and hate about new jersey. The perfect thin crust pizza is cooked in a brick oven, which means it is done after about 5 minutes. And the local tavern atmosphere, with ESPN1-4 roaring silently behind the bar, and wooden booths packed with families, will make you feel like anything goes. But they don't take reservations, or even have a list: so you have to grapple with loud inebriated regulars in the line, who are only more agressive during rush hour on the Turnpike. Avoid anything fancy...skip the artichoke heart and portabello type offerings, and stick with peperoni, where the crispy slices of salty smoked deliciousness turn upward at the edges, and the crust is just taut and crispy enough to withstand the grease. regularly voted one of the best pizzas in New Jersey, it's worth a visit, although not on friday night, when the after-little-league-practice crowd is a tad overwhelming.
Serinäde in Chatham, NJ
I don’t know what an umlaut is doing in the name, but fine. This was blue blood dining at its finest. The menu is rich with different fish offerings, including chilean seabass. As I don't usually eat red meat at home though, I had to have their filet, which was divinely prepared. I sampled seared cow-liver, which was delicious despite the richness. Although it's expensive, they are offering their "economic stimulus menu," which is three courses for 35 bucks. Those going for the recession prix fix chose between deep sea scallops and a hangar steak, served nearly raw, in translucent slices.
Gennaro's on Amsterdam Ave. in New York City
I was really surprised by this one, as it doesn't really stand out (visually) from the other myriad restaurants and bars along Amsterdam avenue on Manhattan's upper west side. But the Italian food was rock solid, and far from stolid. I had a homemade ravioli with goat cheese and beet, served with a sage-butter sauce... at the table was were also chicken cutlets rolled with zucchini and provolone, and a chicken cutlet with prosciutto seared into it. The service took some getting used to for me, having not lived in NY for a while: it was a tad brusk, with the check on the table before I was done with an amazing flourless hazelnut chocolate torte, but the wait of 15 or so people out in the cold justified it I suppose.
Le Petit Bergerac in Barcelona
French food in Catelonia might not seem an obvious path to gourmand's heaven, but we found it nonetheless, with a charming lunch place offering a 24 euro prix fix, which is high for lunch, but a great deal for the quality we sampled. The Spanish love their business lunches, usually with three courses and a glass of wine or beer to be had for between 10 and 15 euro… so this place was obviously a little more, but definitely worth it. I had a duck breast served over potatoes and brie cheese, and to start, had a feuillete, which is a puffed up pastry filled with goat cheese, served with field greens.

Are you hungry yet?

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Ravinia :: 7.21.2008

So the past few weeks have been wonderful, as I've been at the Ravinia festival... doing lots of playing, thinking, relaxing, and playing. Did I mention playing? The level of playing from my colleagues, a collection of young artists (read: slaves), is astoundingly high. To say that playing with and listening to people here is inspiring would be an horrible understatement. It goes without saying that everyone plays their instruments with ease and aplomb... but what is truly unique is the overall commitment to music making shared among everyone.
If you're in Chicago during the summer time, I think it's a must to come and hear what's happening at the Ravinia festival.
Last night was a Lang Lang extravaganza, complete with giant video screens to ensure that all could see as much as possible of his dynamism. I'm not sure that there is any other pianist in the world who can play as reliably as often as Lang Lang does, and there is nobody who is introducing more people around the world to classical music. I have been eager to hear him play live, as he has created so much buzz both within the bizz and amidst the general public. It was great to finally be able to react to his playing first hand.
It was very exciting to see the big crowds there (he outsold the beachboys), and to hear people who might not otherwise be going to see a concert of the Chicago Symphony talking about the event weeks in advance. For instance, the 20something guy helping me at lenscrafters a few weeks before had talked about getting his tickets a month earlier.
Some people argue that Lang Lang is attracting people not to classical music, but to himself. This may be true... in any case, its hard to demonstrate one way or the other. From my perspective: if Lang Lang attracts 10 people to his concert who have never attended a classical concert before, it only takes 1 of those people to go to another concert, of another artist, for Lang Lang to have done a truly great thing.

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