Re"cat"itive, Purr-relude, and Aria

The real musical critics in our house are our two felines, Panda (age 4, male) and Lucia (age 5, female). Panda came to us through my sister Kelsey, and was our first “joint purchase” as a married couple. Lucia came to me from friends at Eastman, and was part of my marriage “dowry” (ha ha).

Both of our furry friends are obsessed with listening to us practice. If they are in a particular mood, they will pay a visit to our visiting students, my coaching clients, and friends and colleagues who grace our home with their beautiful sounds and spirits. This website has an interesting point of view about why, and how, cats purr.

They are also quite adamant and vocal about when they are fed their “wet food,” how often their box is cleaned, and if they would like to snuggle with us in the master bedroom or on the sofa.

In the past, I think I’ve measured too many things that don’t matter. Today, I had a great, long quality “kitty snuggle” with each cat, and that "has made all the difference" (with only slight apologies to Mr. Robert Frost). 

Here’s to 2018, with many kitty snuggles, moments savored slowly, more meals and quiet time with Zheng, mindful artistry, more fun, more books, prayer, and surprises. 

Timing

As musicians, we think about timing - so - often. 

How much time does it take to prepare _____________ for a concert? There are all sorts of factors with this, including difficulty, style, how much else is going on “in life” at that time, does it have to be memorized or staged ... 

Then within a project, we must obsess over timing in every aspect. How long does it take to move-tune a harpsichord, for a violinist to make a string crossing, for a continuo group to “figure out” the feel of a piece, for a pianist to time a huge leap across the keyboard? How does a singer time a shift through the passaggio, to a high note, or time the initial plosiveness of a double consonant? 

For a performance, how much time do we take between songs or movements? How much is too much, or not enough, for the audience?

A small shift in a metronome marking (or speed) of something can make an enormous difference for the performers and audience. 

Sometimes, we prepare so much for these minuscule shifts, over analyzing them, even.

And just like that, when something is perfectly timed, by surprise, it is remarkable. 

As if God Himself has orchestrated it. 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, ESV). 

(more) Chatter

It was funny to get a New Mexico-related work email about a month ago, actually as I was traveling back from Yellowstone (I was still in Montana). I was so pleased to be asked to play with two prominent string players in the ABQ area within about a month from the contact. 

The repertoire was: two sets of pieces by the Boulanger sisters, and the Dvořák "Dumky" trio. The "Dumky" had been on my "not that excited to play this piece" list for a long time, *but* the invitation was important because it involved not only terrific players, but also a concert series which I really enjoy in Albuquerque. (You can read about that series again in this post).

Part of the tricky, interpretative challenge with "Dumky" are the many tempo changes and transitions. I never realized this before, but my disdain for the work had probably come from a "bad" (read: uninspired, uninformed, unresearched) performance that I had heard at some point. I can't remember if the performance was live or a recording at this point, either. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I agreed to the performance, and once I say "yes," it's "yes" all the way.

Through a number of rehearsals, we worked out who led which transitions, what the audience was to listen for, which places to take (how much) time, and so forth. 

What was fun for me was to remember and imagine many wonderful experiences I've been lucky to have in Eastern Europe. Specifically, in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The experiences of combining parties, pálinka, and too much dancing and enough instruction to be dangerous. Those were, in some ways, "dumka" moments.

The idea of the "Dumka" is that it is a slow lament, which gradually works its way into a more festive, active dance. The "Trio," vaguely following a Sonata Allegro form, more accurately is in six "Dumky" - one leading into the next. 

I am so grateful to new colleagues James and Megan (you can read about them here) for the opportunity to collaborate, and for the transformative experience of making me love this work. 

PHOTO: From the concert. 

Impromptu

No one writes better 

neapolitan chords 

than Franz Schubert, 

and these days, 

between the delicious 

fantasy

in f minor 

for four hands 

on one piano,

or thinking

on lieder 

of

Goethe

and 

Mayrhofer 

(to take place in later summer),

I would rather have 

an

impromptu

meeting

with no one else. 

 

(June 16, 2015)

 

 

Trailhead, Trailend

I arrived back from Montana and found myself feeling in a great, renewed place.

I find myself missing the trailhead (there was a hiking trail essentially in our backyard). Several times, even through rain or even the threat of light snow, I went out and hiked. 

The morning of the final performance, I did a long hike (with some interval sprints). 

There was a sign which got me thinking.

At the end of every performance, we go through a process of "goodbye." For some things which are not ensconsed in the repertoire, this could mean that we don't see the piece again for a very long time, if ever. Other works come back with regularity. 

Whichever the case, as we approach the end of a project, we usually have to turn around and go in the other direction. Geographically. Musically. (Leontyne Price frequently asked her manager to book Mozart or Bach in between performances of Verdi). 

I'm lucky to have a little bit of a break before my summer projects begin.

I think the idea of the trail ending is that we don't forget anything that we've learned from a particular project. We don't forget a new piece (obviously) but also we don't forget who we are now as a result. I know that I will never travel anywhere that's not in the South without a heavier coat, even in spring or early summer. I remember that my body felt the reverse of a hike - regardless if "up" or "down" was first. 

But it's also nice to be home.

Top-Down, or Bottom-Up?

Yesterday was the first day of the CoOPERAtive program now in its ninth(!) year at Westminster Choir College. No matter how long I have been away from this iconic campus, it always feels like I've never left. I did my MM here from 03-05 and then worked here until '07, then left for work in San Francisco and Philadelphia. 

The things that this place has given me are astonishing - a true sense of purpose as a collaborative pianist, countless lessons in life and music (actually, in that order), and a sense of urgency that repertoire and languages must be learned and polished immediately.

The program is divided into two categories of students: Fellows and Young Artists. Fellows, in general, are graduate students or beyond (early professional or pre-professional). Young Artists tend to be finishing undergraduate or about to finish (or having just finished).

I feel so grateful that I get to work here again this summer.

I had terrific sessions yesterday with the students. In one of the sessions, the student and I were working on an excerpt from Barber's "Hermit Songs." We were working on how the verses start differently (sometimes Barber uses retrograde-inversion to differentiate the vocal line starts of each verse). Then I realized that the student maybe wasn't thinking about the overall structure of the piece ... 

So ...

We laid the piece of music on the floor and analyzed its sections. 

First, we just spent time picking the large sections. (I would say that no matter how large the piece is, anything from a Chopin Mazurka or a Sondheim tune to a Mahler symphony movement, divide the piece into two or three large sections. Not eighteen or nine or eleven).

Here is a photo of "top-down" - from Arkansas:

 



Next, we chose further subdivisions per section (so, within a section, we chose two or three divisions per that section). Every piece will be different. In this particular Barber piece, the sections and sub-sections are delineated clearly by piano interludes, verse changes, or key changes). 



We don't necessarily have to start practicing at the beginning of a (concerto, song, piece, movement). Much better to eat the frog, one bite at a time, and not necessarily start with the head. It's also easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed with any over-abundance of something in a piece: lots of text, tricky rhythms, or tons of black notes. 

Here is a "bottom-up" photo from New Mexico:

 

I had a major revelation about myself at Eastman while taking Theory 402 with Dr. Headlam. He introduced us to the big-picture concept of "top-down" or "bottom-up." He explained that learners had a default, but we could train the other side. I discovered that I was definitely a "bottom-up" learner, seeing details (but not necessarily getting them all). I would get so overwhelmed with the details that big-picture ideas, including big-picture scope of a piece, would be missing entirely (and some of the details would be missing too, so therefore, the audience wasn't getting much). 

Now, as a result of this teacher and his work with us, and the doctorate in general, I'm a "top-down" thinker. Understanding the largest confines of something allows you to break it down, and then break it down again (again, again) , until you can actually really get some work done. 

I was delighted to have this time with this student yesterday. I feel that it helped, and I learned something in the process about her, about how she looks at a score and will then go forth and prepare a performance.

Red for Music, Blue for Text

This is a post that I've been meaning to write for a while. I got this idea from a colleague with whom I worked in Italy (thank you, HH!) and have been working on how to implement it for quite some time. 

There are many schools of thought about how to mark a score. Mark everything. Mark nothing. Mark what you need. Mark what you think you will forget "next time." For an instrumentalist, fingerings and bowings are necessary. Singers - translation for sure (though many of them also write staging or technical suggestions - those scores look "interesting" and I've been privy to seeing a lot of them.)

But when I really starting using this method, everything became even more clear about intention, form, and expression. 

The other thing I've started doing (though I've been advising singers to do this for years) is to write out "all" of the text ..." then check for rhyme-scheme, structure, poetic form, assonance, alliteration, vocalic harmonization (a big fancy term for what kinds of vowels are adjacent to each other) ... then to re-implement what blueprint that has, against the text. 

I am attaching my text-anaylsis of the final trio from "Faust." This was part of Syracuse's recent "Nine Operas in Ninety Minutes" which I played and coached. 

Notice how Faust's lines rhyme with a lot of what Marguerite sings. They were in a love for a time, and he wants to be helpful to save her eternal soul. At another point, Faust and Memphisto have the same line, showing that they are / were in league together. 

Yet another level to notice is that Marguerite's vowels are bright and pure (she has a lot of [a] and [y] and [i] here). No coincidence, since she is enlisting leagues of angels to save her. 

I'm not going to pretend this isn't time-consuming, but what it shows cannot easily be discovered when the text is "on the page" amidst rhythms, an accompaniment, a vocal line, dynamics, and orchestra. In doing this, I have firmly adopted an adage of my own from my beloved colleague and mentor of sorts, Laura Brooks Rice (Westminster Choir College / CoOPERAtive program).

Zempleni Festival Debut

Dear readers, 

Though I am back in the United States, there are still many more stories and pictures to share from the summer. One of them is from a highlight of Hungary this year, which was my debut as a recitalist with Maria Pantyukhova, mezzo-soprano. Maria was a student at Crescendo in 2012, and she possesses a formidable vocal talent, tremendous spirit, and fabulous musicality. She presented a "greatest hits" of Russian romances from Rimsky-Korsakov, Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff. And thus I got to play a rewarding, challenging, and very inspiring program. 

We worked together once or twice a day before the recital. Upon getting the music, I practiced like a fiend. Some of the Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky were of particular challenge. There was one Tchaikovsky song that was more like a piano concerto than a song, including two pages of the "song" where the singer didn't sing at all! What rewarding, beautiful music. 

She was quite a wonderful partner on stage - such a beautiful sense of the spirit of the texts and music, and plus, her vocal ability is really the whole package - beautiful lower range, nice even middle, powerful top. She's a native Russian speaker, so her descriptive and storytelling abilities were fantastic.

The audience received the music enthusiastically. Their behavior included my favorite Hungarian audience mannerism - that instead of yelling, they all synchronize their clapping. This clapping makes an accelerando and crescendo.

The audience, after leaving, greeted us with praise and thanksgiving for a beautiful concert. They also complimented me on my Russian spirit. I owe that to several things - to the affinity that I've always had for Russian music, to my undergraduate piano teacher at Oberlin, who was Russian-Armenian, to my partial Eastern European heritage, and the sense of home that I have felt in places that used to be behind the "iron curtain" (Czech Republic, Hungary, China).

PHOTO: Our recital poster, and some wonderful spotted horses who were waiting outside our dress rehearsal. 

Perseverance, part 2

 Hello everyone,

I have realized over this beautiful, lazy winter day that perseverance still follows me (let's hope I still follow it!) in 2013.  One of the adventures which have been part of the Eastman experience is my time on the podium.  Here is a glimpse of what I did this past Tuesday. (You can click the link to see it.).

This week also brought a terrific realization about the limits of even the greatest perseverance.  Doing everything, everyday, at once, is not persistence.  It's insanity.  Trying to accomplish courses, assistant conducting an opera, doctoral comprehensive exams, and job auditions in the same semester is a little insane.  So - I am being more humane to myself and extending - humanly only - my time in Rochester.  I want to really finish the doctorate well, and take the next steps in a way that is reflective to who I am (and who I have become as a result of Eastman). 

Conducting used to really scare me.  Me against all those other people, who make a lot of noise, and I'm used to controlling everything with my hands.  Now, it is less scary.  It's been a good week for "process."  I've been keeping at it.  It's gradually gotten easier.

When I first looked at a conductor's score, I was in awe, but it also felt oddly natural.  As I'm studying, part of the process is like taking apart one of these amazing sculptures.  How are these Chihuly installations attached, anyway?  It's similar to gestures or counterpoint in a lot of music.   Figure out the thread, and you've got a work of art.

Perseverance, part 1

Talking to a good friend today made me realize (again) that persistence over time will overcome anything (or almost anything). So many things are reminders of this ... of course practicing, but also: watching trees grow, or being a part of enduring relationships or careers.  

I became acquainted with Tommy Emmanuel's talent, career, and guitar playing only this fall, during a conversation I had with one of my favorite professors at Eastman.  Emmanuel has had an enormous career, spanning decades and the globe.  When someone asked him about the "secret of his success," he responded, "I wake up, and I play a song.  And the next day I wake up, and I play that same song, and the next day, and the next day."  His interview is also a fun read.  I especially enjoy the part at the end when he says, "just play a good song - it's what people want to hear." 

(rooftop picture: Sárospatak, Hungary, August 2012) 

A lesson which traveling through Eastern Europe also teaches is perseverance, to a great degree.  Countries in that part of the world have had to endure economic hardships, changing governments, or changing borders or identities.  Yet, they still have such beauty - perhaps, even more so, from the strength of simply continuing on.