Piano Lessons

I talked on the phone with Marc-André Hamelin on February 20. He is performing tomorrow(!) at Newmark Theatre at 4pm. You can read my preview here. Check out the upcoming review as well. In the meantime, enjoy reading a few thoughts from this hero of pianists. If this piques your interest, be sure to read this much more extensive and beautifully entertaining interview conducted by The Bad Plus’ Ethan Iverson.

You are performing this program quite a bit this season. How have your perceptions of these pieces developed over time?

Yes, I am doing this program a lot this season. Familiarity and repetition help quite a great deal because there is great satisfaction in building upon the previous concert experience. This satisfaction really fuels me and keeps me going.

I recorded Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Sonata in 1995 on a small Canadian label. I let it go for several years. The last time I remember playing it was in 2001, I think. I took it up this season because I like it a lot, and I thought it would be a shame not to revisit it. I’ve been discovering new ways to pace myself in this piece and thus present the music more convincingly. The Berg I fell in love with when I was 15, and around this same time I was also playing the Fauré Impromptu and Barcarolle that are also on this program. It’s a fascinating thing to play pieces after you haven’t played them in awhile because new musical discoveries just happen by themselves, almost as if someone else is playing them. This experience is quite staggeringly wonderful because you play the piece, and you find it sounds completely different. It’s certainly not because you’ve been practicing the piece in the meantime. The piece sounds new because you as a person and musician have evolved and therefore see things differently. I have some tape recordings of when I was around 15 and every so often I listen to them; they’re boring to me now. I mean, what do you know at 14 or 15 years of age? What have you been exposed to at that time? Not much. And this is a normal part of becoming a musician. Because my father introduced me to pianists of the Golden Age, I grew up primarily with the Romantic repertoire in my ear: Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann above all else.

What upcoming projects are you excited about?

I’ve rediscovered Schubert with a vengeance, and I am going to play him next season. I’m finding particular fulfillment in the past composers, and that’s the ultimate and best reason to pursue particular pieces. I wasn’t exposed to Schubert a great deal when I was younger, but when I discovered the last sonata, the B-flat Major, D.960, my god, the whole world opened up. I also played the A major, D.959 a couple of times, felt like I could be playing it better, but put it aside for a number of years and am picking it up this summer. I’m looking forward to discovering how my relationship with Schubert has developed. It is a privilege to be able to pay homage to these great composers of the past.

Which pieces on your program are most accessible to the audience?

It’s always most fascinating to see how people react to the repertoire I decide to play. I always agree to CD signings because this is a wonderful opportunity to talk to the public. I find that a lot of them are only too willing to listen to more unfamiliar music. It’s always beneficial for me to hear whether my experiment of playing certain pieces works or not.

Some people don’t take to the Berg sonata but others find it really absorbing and affecting. It can be hard to follow, but it’s not long enough for one to get lost in it. One could also argue that if one doesn’t know the poems by Bertrand on which Gaspard de la nuit is based, one won’t get a good idea of what’s happening in the piece. I’m very concerned with trying to translate the spirit of the poem and the mood of the poem in my playing. This is the most important thing to get across. There are of course romantic gestures, and Ravel himself says he got carried away, but that’s part of the piece: everything’s larger than life in there. So listeners should definitely read these poems or else the listeners’ appreciation and absorption of might not be as successful as it could be otherwise.

I think my piece is one of the more accessible pieces on the program. It’s not a clear, cut-and-dry set of variations, but at least it’s easy to follow. I’ve had people laugh at it, which is a great response. My sketches for this piece dating back to 1994, so I’ve been thinking about it for quite awhile. I didn’t mean to necessarily write a humorous piece in the beginning, but that’s the way it turned out.

Both as a composer and performer, how do you remain true to your own voice?

As I perform these composers’ works I try to follow the notation as closely as I can, but as both a composer and an interpreter I realize that notation is a very imperfect way of communicating musical intentions. While composing, and I speak from experience, one agonizes over how best to convey one’s intentions. And this is, of course, supposing that the interpreter is willing to follow your instructions instead of putting in their own thing. However precise you think your notation is, there’s no telling how it can be distorted. When you publish, you really relinquish control.

I listened to the pianists of the Golden Age from when I was a little boy, and so my mind became geared towards arrangements and transcriptions. When some tune starts to roll around in my head, sometimes it just acquires the ornamentation and all the stuff that’s associated with these Golden Age arrangements. There’s a historical fascination with Paganini’s theme; it sounds so simple, and yet because the theme is so inevitable, it’s easy to wrap your ears around whatever transformation the composer gives to it. I’m very familiar with all the other composers’ variations, and the theme seems to possess endless possibilities. My set proves that a lot of them haven’t been exploited yet. Without revealing specifics to the public, I really tried to push the envelope. There’s the eleventh variation where the music keeps being interrupted as if you’re flipping through radio stations. As I was composing it I thought, “I can’t do that! They’re gonna kill me!” I just thought it was so far off in left field that people wouldn’t accept it. Either they would think it was in bad taste or that the concept wouldn’t come off well. So I put a footnote in that variation saying that if one needs to make a cut, it could be omitted. It turns out that this eleventh variation is the one people like the most. So I put some white out over that footnote.

What’s one of your goals in performing this program?

Overall, I want the listener to know where they’re going. It helps to have some sort of narrative, but I don’t try to find a correspondence to any particular story. I try to carry the listener through the strength of the harmonies, and that is going to have the same effect as telling a story, if I do it well.

I talked with Mattie on February 7th at the intimate Kir Wine Bar. Because of Mattie’s own life-changing experiences with classical music, she is dedicated to bringing classical music into everybody’s daily life. Deemed “our fearless leader” by Portland’s chapter of Classical Revolution, Mattie not only founded CRPDX, but she developed it into the first chapter to attain 501(c)(3) status. Check out CRPDX’s upcoming First Sunday @ The Waypost event on March 3rd and their Composer Project Competition on March 10th.

photo by Dan Wheeler

What do you like to do for inspiration?

I’m a huge hiker. Literally I’ve hiked every trail out here, at least within a two-hour radius. Saddle Mountain’s a great one, and I love Eagle Creek. Silver Falls is super popular; it’s an 8 mile loop and you get 10 waterfalls. You have to do the full loop. I hate out-and-back hikes and much prefer a loop because I want to see everything there is to see. Probably explains a lot about me. It’s either the hike or the 2am shower where I’ll come up with the best ideas like CRPDX’s manifesto and Bachxing Day!

What’s in your near future and how did you get to this point?

I take off March 19th for New York City! Chris Corbell is taking over my position as executive director of CRPDX, and I’ll assume the position of artistic director, which is what I’ve wanted all along. I have all my life to go hiking, but to be this young and this dumb and this poor makes it the prime time for me to go to New York and strengthen artistic and professional connections. I came straight to Portland after dropping out of Carnegie Mellon, and I’ve been here six years. The clincher at Carnegie Mellon was that I was playing the Debussy trio, and all I wanted to do was share this beautiful music with the world, but the only performance opportunity we had was a twelve-minute jury. Are you fucking kidding me? Why even prepare these phenomenal pieces if there are no performance outlets? This experience made me realize the futility of just making it through the next lesson, the next chamber coaching.

Before Carnegie Mellon I was at San Francisco Conservatory with the life-changing Jodi Levitz. I only had two year’s worth of private viola lessons before getting into San Francisco Conservatory. I started playing in fifth grade in public school orchestra and continued into middle and high school. But I didn’t take privately until I was 17. Jodi Lovetz is a rock star on the viola, and she recruited me to be her student at SFCM.

She constantly drilled into us that performance is all about artistic conviction and being true to what you want to say. Ironically, Classical Revolution was founded by one of her viola students! Several of her students have continued opening up Classical Revolution chapters around the United States; I don’t know what she’s putting in us, but we’re all drinking the Kool-Aid that convinces us that we have strong voices that need to be heard.

I recently spoke at a conference with the theme Artist-As-Change-Agent I was there representing CRPDX, and I cited Jodi as an example. What happens when you’re a ‘change agent’ is that you recognize where there’s a need. You recognize what’s missing, not what needs to change, but what’s missing. Then you create a place to fill that need, and you go gung-ho with it. Jodi recognized two things: first, there’s no viola repertoire. And second, she recognized that composers have no idea how to work with actual human beings. Composers can work with their software, they can work in their head, or with their notebook, but the actual feel of the instrument, what’s technically capable for that instrument, or for a particular human performer, they usually don’t have a clue. So at the conservatory Jodi paired each viola student with a composer. They learned how to interact with human performers, and we acquired more viola compositions. After the first few project, we had 14 incredible new pieces! I took this initiative from her, and that’s why next month we’re having the first ever Composer’s Project week for CRPDX. You recognize a need for something and you fill in the gap. Done.

Unfortunately, when I went to grad school I didn’t get that energy. I graduated from SFC with this huge “I can change the world” mentality, but the structure of grad school didn’t help me. I didn’t want to spend two years in a practice room! I wanted to be out changing the world! Not so much as a performing musician, but as someone who understands music, community, and the authentic connection between the two. This powerful connection is missing in classical music 95% of the time.

What needs to happen to recharge classical music performances?

So here’s a transformation moment that completely opened my world to a broader understanding of classical music: in 2005 I went and heard The Books at a packed Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It was full of 20-30 somethings. The instrumentation was cello, guitar, voice, and viola. Clearly it was composed music. Clearly they structured every part of that music. I started looking around and thinking, “This is new chamber music!” and no one else had any clue! I felt like I had this secret that no one had let the audience in on but, oh my god, it was contemporary new music. The Books totally pulled one on this audience. This experience confirmed for me that people are totally open to receiving new classical music. But it’s about how you label it, how you market it, and where you play it; if you create ‘a band’ rather than a ‘new music ensemble’: AWESOME. But if you create a ‘contemporary classical music ensemble,’ you will have 12 people at your show, tops. As I was watching this show, the idea of an alt.classical genre began forming in my head. Bands like The Books, Tin Hat, and Sigur Rós: bands that incorporate an improvisatory element, but who thoroughly compose and structure their music using classical elements and classical instruments. How is this any different from contemporary classical music other than the marketing?

What do you appreciate specifically about Portland, and how do you see Classical Revolution and Portland benefitting from each other?

When I first got to Portland I found a few string players through craigslist and we formed a quartet. None of them were ‘professional’ musicians. But we got together to drink wine and play through Dvorak’s American quartet. We played the second movement, and afterwards we all sat back, went “ahhh!” and took a big slug of wine. I don’t care where you’re from or how well you play: you get the Dvorak American quartet if it’s orgasmic to you, and you need a glass of wine afterwards. And that’s what I immediately came across and appreciated about this community here: the deep love and understanding of classical music. Granted, classical music isn’t always performed at the highest technical ability. We need a good conservatory here, and we need a younger generation of musicians pushing the edge of technical ability. But there are people here who are deeply devoted to and understand classical music.

Portland is open to everything. Portland is a very changing scene right now. People want to be on the cutting edge of what’s new and somehow, through CRPDX, accessible classical music is become “what’s new.” CRPDX really built up a confidence in me to just go for it! Whatever you perform people will like it. It’s wonderfully supportive in contrast to the pretentious atmosphere of stuffy conservatories. Long term I’d love CRPDX to be the one that instigates the formation of a conservatory. But immediately I want to break the barriers of the classical establishment. Whoever loves chamber music, I want them in on this. Honestly, the more we’re cross-collaborating the better because everyone benefits.

As I formed CRPDX into a 501(c)3, I realized that a huge goal of ours needs to be educational outreach. Obviously, with the November vote the people have spoken: arts for their children is very important to them. A lot of work needs to be done in this regard. I was really lucky having orchestra in elementary, middle, and high school, and I got everywhere in life because of this privilege. Knowing that Portland’s kids don’t have that, especially orchestra, is really disheartening. Portland is such a musical town. Portland is such an artistic town. But for some reason it’s not in the schools, and this bothers me a great deal. I envision CRPDX doing more outreach concerts, more interactive concerts. We just gave a family concert at the community music center where we did a string quartet and pieces from medieval songs to 80’s pop hits. The whole program was very interactive; I did all sorts of dalcroze eurhthmics with the kids, so they were moving, drawing, thinking, and getting excited! Children love classical music; nothing has told them otherwise. Plug them into classical music at that age, and they’re passionate about it for life. Long-term I hope CRPDX can sponsor coachings and start up music camps.

Why did you pursue music?

I went into music because of Shostakovich’s 5th symphony. With the help of my first viola teacher, Barbara Hamilton, I attended the Eastern Music Festival after just a few months of lessons, and we played the Shosty 5 at the final concert. At the end of this piece is that repeated A. This A resonated from the top of my head all the way to my toes. I could just cry talking about it. It filled me in a way I’ve never experienced. I was a dancer for ten years, I’ve always loved art, but that symphony, and that moment, and that performance, transformed me forever. In that moment I said, “I have to do this.” That triumphant moment changed me forever. I hope CRPDX can catalyze similar experiences for the people of Portland.

On Saturday, February 16, Maria Choban and fellow cohorts of MC Hammered Klavier presented “cardiac arresting chamber music for the day we love to hate!”  Entitled “Break My Heart” the concert took place at the beautiful Community Music Center.

photo by Anamaria Campbell

While Maria’s unorthodox approach to classical music rightly earns her the title “gangster of classical music,” she was just as much the delightful Peter Pan throwing pixie dust indiscriminately over a 100+ audience and entrancing us all with the creation and performance of classical music.  Gone were the stuffy formalities: Maria came striding on stage with sexy bright red flashing under black lace.  Her flutist Dawn Weiss, also in a seductively-cut red dress, teasingly threw off her shoes and scarf before lifting her flute to her lips.  The titters from the crowd meant that they, too, were familiar with the usual formalities and weren’t sorry at all to see them flouted with a hint of dramatic playfulness.  Who would have guessed that this was Dawn’s return to the stage after a four-year hiatus?  She artfully bounced Paul Schoenfield’s Ufaratsta into the air like an athlete with so much surplus skill as to be able to play at playing and turn in a winning performance. Let’s hope they start working on the Four Souvenirs next!

In introducing Paul Dukas’ Piano Sonata in E-flat Minor, Maria informed the audience of Debussy’s surprisingly uncynical admiration of his classmate’s piano sonata.  The audience laughed when she said, “Debussy’s got great taste!”  But she was serious: everyone, even Debussy, is on a level playing field in Maria’s performance hall.  By treating her audience with the utmost respect she smashed down the performer-audience barrier: “I understand that not all the pieces I love will help people fall back in love with classical music.”  

The reason everyone fell back in love with classical music was that the musicians performed with the scintillating flair that occurs when passion matches skill.  Dukas throws you into a formidable field of tornadoes, whipping you up into dark purple clouds of jealous passion.  Maria deftly guided us through this weighty journey, and I very much appreciated her attention to the detailed counterpoint even in the thickest textures.  Her colors in the moments of forboding stillness evoked the heart-wrenching timbres associated with French horn and clarinet.  

The Mousai Trio cleared the brooding air with Seduction Dance by Miguel del Aguila.  The obvious communication between Janet Bebb (flutist), Ann van Bever (oboist), and Maria was echoed in the last piece Mebasi by Kevin H. Gray.  Inspired by a children’s musical game played by the Bibayak tribe of Gabon in Africa, this was by far the cheekiest piece of them all as the instruments cut in and out of the ‘game’ in playful counterpoint.  The piano needed some “gentle” preparation by the placing of bean bags over the keys to create the sounds of a thumb piano.   

The most beautiful aspect of this whole performance was that everyone became a part of Maria’s musical family: “Did you hear that, Jaron?”  she called to a teenage student learning a similar piece.  Whenever the audience clapped, Maria clapped right back, looked very much to be the gleeful child overcome with joy as if to say, “Oh, aren’t we all marvelous for enjoying this stuff?!”  

Yes indeed!  And Kenneth Beare, the able tenor who earlier sang Five Greek Songs by Maurice Ravel, led everyone in singing Maria’s slapstick choice of “Where, Oh Where Are You Tonight?” from the variety show HeeHaw.  Let’s hope next time you will be at Maria’s night of, yes, gangster-style classical performances. Yes!

When I first began reading about Portland’s classical scene, Brett Campbell’s two articles for OregonArtsWatch “Lessons and Observations” and “Less is More” were invaluable in gaining a quick but in-depth overview of the current classical scene.  This guy attends way too many concerts in and around Portland and is therefore probably the most informed on what’s working (or not).  I met with Brett Campbell at the Kask on January 28 to hear his ideas in person.

How did you end up in Portland?

I arrived in Portland 2006.  Two events helped push me to Portland: first, I received an NEA fellowship for classical music and opera journalism at Columbia University so I lived in New York for three weeks in this wild, nonstop lifestyle of attending high level performances and talks every night: Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Phil, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and numerous chamber groups.  And the other thing that happened was I covered the TBA Festival here in Portland for the Wall Street Journal.  The festival occurs in September, and over the course of 10 days you see a total of 30-40 performances.  So it was the same experience as in New York, going from show to show, but in this case I ended up falling in love with Portland.  During the festival I was using the streetcar and walking to and from all sorts of performances.  It was an ecosystem: a feeling that art was just a part of the fabric of the city.   

What keeps Portlanders from listening to classical music? 

Last spring I was a guest speaker at a class at PSU.  I asked the students, “How many people listen to classical music?”  Three people raised their hands and one was a music major.  So I asked, “Why don’t you?  What keeps you from listening to classical music?”  I always thought the first reason would be that it costs too much.  But they actually said, “Well, I just don’t know enough to really listen.”  And they acted embarrassed, like it was their fault.  This intimidation factor really infuriates me.  No one is asking “What do you have to know to listen to Talking Heads,” or “What do you have to know to go to the art museum?”  You shouldn’t have to know anything to go see art!  It’s an experience.  It drives me crazy that the classical scene is so often constructed in a way that intimidates people and destroys the very reason we go to hear or see any art, which is to move us!  Art is about emotion.  Yes, it’s about your head, too, but really it’s more about your heart.

Unfortunately, new music got a really bad name after World War II because all these modernists came in and composed music not for the general populace, but for each other.  Copland, Gershwin, Lou Harrison et al. wrote music that was accessible, but after WWII these composers went out of fashion within the classical realm.  When people attended classical music concerts, they’d hear the obligatory modernist piece, they’d hate it and think “I’m not going to a concert unless its Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.”  

Consequently, the classical music world scared away a whole generation of listeners at precisely the wrong time.  What was happening in the 50’s? Jazz!  I mean 1959 was the greatest year: Miles’ Kind of Blue, Mingas’ Ah Um, Brubeck’s Time Out.  And that’s not even touching on Rock and Roll.  So we had this incredible upsurge in popular music just as classical music began marginalizing itself.  I mean, what would you go see back then: Elvis, James Brown, or Elliott Carter?  I know what choice I’m going to make, and I’m a classical music critic!

I never drew a great distinction between the experience of listening to jazz versus classical versus rock music.  My favorite playlist will go from classical to rock, to jazz to weird electrical stuff, to whatever in an hour.  It’s in the presentation of these music genres that the experiences become completely different.  I’m a kinetic person, so when I’m listening to music that has real rhythm my body moves.  Portland Baroque Orchestra just down the street is a period instrument orchestra.  In authentic period style, rhythm is very important because the music was originally dance music.  When I attend their concerts my body begins to move, but I’m in this ‘classical’ environment where you’re supposed to sit very still in the wooden church pews and worship. Once an audience member sitting behind me asked me to stop moving because it was distracting him.  Imagine that happening at a rock show!  Bach certainly dedicated every piece “Soli Deo Gloria,” but he also held his concert series in a coffee house and was known to knock back a few beers.  All his music is very visceral, lending me to think that perhaps he didn’t separate religion from life.  His music is usually not played this way, but I feel it that way, and that’s why I enjoy the period instrument movement and the authentic style movement.  To me it feels just like rock and roll.  

Because I physically and emotionally respond the same way to classical music as I do to popular music, I don’t believe in music categories.  It just doesn’t matter to me; call it sound if you want.  Categories limit listeners’ ability to hear and composers’ abilities to write.  Edgard Varése didn’t even like the term “music” he preferred “organized sound.”  John Cage and Lou Harrison tried to use that term, and they wrote Varése for permission but he said, “Don’t use my term. I’ve patented that.”  He was kind of a jerk.  And Duke Ellington hated the terms “jazz music” and “folk music.”  I think he said,  “All music is by folks,” and he was right!   That’s the whole idea of any art: that the people who make it reflect our society and the time we live in.  Presumably someone from Oregon is going to write music that we can identify with.  

A few years ago the Oregon Bach Festival invited a lot of well-regarded critics to Oregon with the hopes of gaining national attention.  While here, John Rockwell, at the time a music critic and chief dance critic for the New York Times said, “There’s nothing wrong with new music that lower ticket prices wouldn’t solve.”  He’s right.  In New York, San Francisco, L.A., whenever new music concerts are coupled with five or ten buck ticket prices, the concert hall is often full.  People want to hear this music.  Orchestras put one “contemporary” piece on the program a year and think that ties them in to today’s culture somehow.  I’ve talked to Carlos Kalmar about changing this approach, and his general response is that people won’t show up if we play new music by local composers.  He’s right if you continue to charge between $50-100.  People argue, “Well how much did you pay for the Bruce Springsteen tickets?”  I’ve seen Bruce a couple times, and you’re getting a lot more for your money.  You’re hearing a lot of different music, you’re getting an experience that connects to you personally, and you’re hearing artists that work their asses off.  That’s not always the classical music experience.  The classical music experience is very routine, very expensive, and very stiff.  It’s everything you don’t want.

In your article “In the Indie Classical Lounge” for The San Francisco Classical Voice, you quote the composer Mason Bates as saying, “What separates classical music from most other music is its high-detail resolution. It’s so nuanced that if you’re playing in a club, you need a way to get people to quiet down and listen…I want to find a way to inhabit these spaces and not be inhibited by them.”  

Yes, a lot of classical music does require focused concentration, but you also can argue that a lot of popular music requires this same intense concentration, where you put the headphones on and listen very carefully to all the textures.  When I was in Austin one of the places I frequented was the Cactus Cafe on the University of Texas campus.  And during a performance there you won’t hear clinking glasses and conversation; people are leaning forward, really paying attention to the lyrics, and you better be quiet because it’s a singer with an acoustic guitar.  

The venue question is a much bigger problem than people appreciate.  I’ve never articulated this, but there’s such a different atmosphere going into The Waypost for Classical Revolution than going into Lincoln Hall or Keller Auditorium to hear chamber music.  And I don’t think any music can survive in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.  It’s a terrible venue and the Oregon Symphony knows it.  But this doesn’t mean we need to spend millions of dollars making a new hall with real nice acoustics for another temple of art.  

In 1982 Eugene built the Hult Center.  It’s got a big hall and a small hall and they have these resident companies: the Eugene symphony, the Eugene ballet, the Oregon Bach Festival and others.  It’s got 2800 seats and it probably costs a thousand dollars just to turn the lights on.  Basically you have to fill most of those seats just to pay the bills.  So what does this mean?  They have to cater to their core audience, which means playing the lowest common denominator classical music.  The acoustics are dreadful - far worse than Beall Hall at the University of Oregon, which is much smaller but has world class sound.  That was a terrible mistake Eugene made.  If only they had taken all that money and put it towards those resident groups instead!  They could have offered three shows in Beall Hall instead of just one.  Or for theater, they could have taken advantage of South Eugene High School which is actually a really good auditorium, and they’ve been doing famous theater there for years.  They should be bringing art out to people instead of constructing these sacred art temples.  You couldn’t do the big Broadway road shows, but is that more important than investing in our own composers, performers and musicians and hearing them in a good sounding environment?

I understand that musicians want to control the environment; they don’t want to hear clicking glasses, the cash register.  But I don’t care.  The music experience is not about them.  Classical musicians make a fetish of “We must play this music perfectly.”  So they spend thousands of hours learning to play every note just perfectly, but too often they just drain the life out of it.  And what good does it do to play it perfectly if no one is there to hear it?  Put it in a fucking bar where people can just listen to it.  Pay 5 or 10 bucks and drink a beer with it.  It brings it so much closer.  There’s a place for concert hall music, but it shouldn’t be the only way to experience classical music.  I will say that hearing the Baroque orchestra in the church instead of the auditorium does feel more intimate.  The musicians stand up when they play, they smile when they play, they move their bodies.  And audiences respond. 

I’ve also heard string quartets do demos in the downtown library; they go up into the atrium on the fourth flour.  People are sitting around on benches, it’s free, and you get a completely different audience: working class people, homeless people, rich and poor, and all the people are not only transfixed, but they ask great questions, too. Because the music is right there!  And the musicians loosen up.  When Friends of Chamber Music brought So Percussion to town last year, I saw young percussionists get up there and play Steve Reich and John Cage. People say Cage is too abstruse, but the musicians got the audience participating!  They were shaking their keys and making rhythmic noises with programs because it wasn’t in the concert hall; it was in the library! 

What Oregon composers should I be listening to?

Three Oregon composers you should get to know are Robert Kyr of the University of Oregon, Tomas Svoboda, and Bonnie Miksch.  She’s one of the best in Portland and is primarily an electronic musician.  Her husband is also a composer.  They built a program for the iPad that you can make music on.  It’s totally classically influenced but it often comes out in electronics.  Out of San Francisco I like the composer Mason Bates. He’s become the go-to hip guy in the classical world and is the composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony.  Then of course there’s the Bang on the Can guys and all the Brooklynites, some world music influenced composers in LA, Garrett Fisher up in Seattle, and really everywhere.  So it’s out there!  It may not be in the orchestra hall, but if we gave it a chance maybe so!  Lots of the musicians in Cascadia Composers would love to be given the chance to write an orchestra piece.  We have several music schools in this state full of composers.  None of them are going to write an orchestra piece without a commission.  I mean, who’s going to spend a year or two of their lives composing pieces that are never going to get performed?  Give them a shot to write an orchestra piece!  The same goes for chamber music - Oregon music institutions need to be commissioning and performing music by Oregon composers.  And they need to believe in it enough to tell their audiences why they need to hear it, too.  Find composers who will write accessible music.  They’re out there.  

Portland State’s Department of Music and the New Music Network presented “Experiments in Music and Theater” by Evergreen College and The School for Designing a Society on Tuesday evening in Lincoln Recital Hall.  

What this experimental performance didn’t lack was energetic vitality and precision.  Before the first piece, the students and teachers (distinctions weren’t officially made) gave the audience (small but young, hooray!) a few questions to consider: How do you know when a piece ends?  How does inflection in music compare with inflection in text?  What problem is the performance addressing?  What’s missing?  How is this performance in friction with daily commercial life?  and finally, a Proposition: Instead of looking for moments of beauty, practice finding relationships between the moments.  

Because the pieces and their performances are indeed experiments, a lot of things didn’t work.  But what did work provided moments of refreshing insights into sound and syntax.  The first half of the program (there was no intermission, thankfully, or else I would not have been able to maintain the overall coherency) was connected by one untitled poem by Keith Moore.  The first piece, composed by Arun Chandra, created a sound interpretation of this poem using six voices and a two-channel playback.  A conductor maintained a four beat pattern while the six voices rhythmically chattered, sung, yelled, chirruped, and whispered nonsensical phonics clusters, syllables, and words.  The two-channel playback presented a slow recitation of the poem along with electronic sounds of static, whistles, and blips.  What I enjoyed was the creativity of textures, theatrical expressions, and careful precision.  The performers obviously believed in what they were saying regardless of their method of communication.  

The second performance was a straight reading of this poem.  I couldn’t help but giggle at the dada-ness of it all, but this rereading provided a moment to reflect on the sound explosion that had just occurred.  The third performance was a hysterical dialogue between two actors entitled “The Poet Retracts.”  Here at last the audience felt included, appreciated, and cordially invited upon this Becket-like journey.  The Interviewer mocks the Poet: “This line, ‘the desk in its deskiness.’ What does it all mean??”  To which the Poet condescendingly responds, “You mean, ‘the desk in its lampiness.’” The Interviewer doesn’t back down: “Where is the Universal Feeling?  This doesn’t make sense!”  And she tries calling on her gods of Universal Meaning: Robert Frost, Beethoven, Gertrude Stein, Arnold Schoenberg, but every time the Poet asks the Interviewer if she has heard or read any of these artists, she admits, “No.”  Exasperated, the Poet points out that what the Interviewer really wants is for him to “guarantee sense,” not necessarily “make” any.  In a moment of concession, the Interviewer agrees to join the Poet’s word games.  

Suddenly the dialogue shifts from Interviewer vs. Poet to Chauvinist vs. Feminist.  The audience, plagued by the problem of music and syntax thus far is now forced to consider the issue through the lens of an even weightier social problem.  The short insertion of conception and humanness is another jarring lens thrust upon the audience, but because the whole theatrical dialogue is presented as a debate, the audience feels free to argue, retract, or concede.  True to absurdist style, the Poet’s self-assuredness wilts in the end, and he shruggingly retracts all his convictions.  The performance concludes with the audience still waiting for meaning, unsure if arguing for larger purposes is even worth it. 

With this mistrusting mentality the audience hears two percussionists and one speaker perform Ben Kapp’s piece “Three Poems by Gertrude Stein.”  Delightful textures and fanciful intonations are presented once again, but the fact that the absurdist Interviewer evoked Gertrude Stein as representing Universal Feeling merely deflates any attempt to see beyond the “how” of communication.  

The insertion of Herbert Brün’s “Dustiny” for two-channel playback can be explained by his mentorship of Susan Parenti, the obvious energy-force behind this evening’s experimentation.  The inclusion of this piece seemed more for the sake of historical importance than immediate relevancy; that no impassioned student was performing it on stage didn’t help either. One audience member responded quite favorably to this listening exercise, and I was glad to find this out in the post-concert discussion as my own ears were getting sore from the workout.   

The last performance set my skin tingling.  Mark Enslin composed Unentitled for the interesting designation of listener-keyboardist and voices.  The lone performer was Susan Parenti and she proved herself a force to be delighted in.  The voices she dramatized while simultaneously imitating them on the piano included a museum guide, Max Weber, a piano mover, a cop getting angry at the piano mover, and various news reporters (both sensical and non).  For the first five minutes I was genuinely entranced by what I perceived as humoristic empathy both for the modern musicians and for the audience attempting to understand them.  We musicians possess technical skills that can effectively imitate the conversations and the relationships around us, but when we reduce our musicianship to technical representations of the world, then the relationships around us also become meaningless caricatures.  Like the Poet cried out, “We have healthy systems but sick people!”  It seems, though, that perhaps the system isn’t healthy either.  After ten minutes I started feeling physically ill as I heard the witty sound bytes starting to crumble in on themselves.  The piano imitations remained static throughout and were not developed much further than their original presentation.  Like the theatrical dialogue, ideas I first thought were going somewhere actually went nowhere.  In fact, the cynical treatment of musical and social destruction became a weary burden.  

In the post concert discussion Susan stated, “We know that we practice these pieces, but we don’t really know what we’ve done.”  While this isn’t altogether reassuring, the genuine interest to understand how these came across to the audience did reassure me that cynical destruction wasn’t necessarily the goal of their syntax experimentation.  Since this concert I’ve been rolling around in my brain the words printed in the program outlining the first piece:

Words understandable, syntax not.  Syntax comprehensible, words not.

Inflection understood, message not.

When a language is familiar, it can’t help but be understood.

Even when it won’t say what you mean.

“You gotta problem with that?!?”

I left feeling grateful to the experimenters for exploring these problems and for inviting the audience to do the same.   

 

fEARnoMusic presented Penelope: A Song Cycle by Sarah Kirkland Snider on Saturday, February 2, 2013 at the Alberta Rose Theater.

When fEARnoMusic’s presentation of Penelope ended, hands turned raw from applause. We all returned to our seats to wait eagerly for the polite break to end and for the post-concert panel discussion to begin. The air swirled with music jargon. A twenty-something composer behind me was explaining, “Well, see, I’ve been composing in 4/4 but my rhythms have nothing to do with that time signature. I love my rhythms but communicating them to others has proven difficult.” Beside me a young lady whipped out her notebook and turned to me quizzically, “So what kind of music have you been listening to lately?” As we talked she indicated, “Practically everyone here tonite is involved in music somehow” and began pointing out people who contribute daily to Portland’s music scene: members of local bands, students from Reed college, young composers, directors of local choral groups, etc.

Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond was the real pull for my new friend, and her savvy ears told her something new had happened tonite: “As I was listening I realized that I don’t get out to hear much chamber ensemble, and I really need to.” We discussed the confluence of pop, rock and classical genres. In this regard Snider’s composition and its presentation is nothing short of miraculous. The (now) traditional Pierrot instrumentation is augmented with an electronic sound design that captures the psychological morass of The Odyssey. Snider replaces the keyboard with percussion and guitar, and adds a touch of brass that evokes the militaristic world of Odysseus and the call of unfulfilled desire. Mixed meter, contrapuntal lines, deliciously painful tone clusters, and punctuations of virtuosity pull your ear forward. The aural bed of rocking triads, thematically linked to the ocean and lullabies, illuminates the double trauma of escaping lonely places only to find fear in the familiar (“The Lotus Eaters” and “Home”). These ideas are brought into cold relief in “Dead Friend” and “Open Hands.” Foreshadowing of possible warmth in the lostness is felt midway with “Circe and the Hanged Man.” In this song musicians clap and stomp to a funeral march for a man not dead: “He gave himself to himself so he could see.” Shara’s frequent interplay with the brilliant flautist Alicia DiDonato Paulsen naturally brings to mind Lucia di Lammermoor, but thankfully melodrama is avoided by Snider’s and lyricist Ellen McLaughlin’s dedication to a more (gasp) postmodern solution. In the last song “As He Looks Out to Sea,” Odysseus is finally home and yet not home. His story “moves like a live thing in his hands…bloody and sacred, truth and lie…and it tells itself…backwards and forwards like the tide.” Like all cathartic (non)resolutions, the sounds climax, the contrapuntal strings swoon in the tide, the snare drum rolls evoke strength instead of fear, the metallophone points back to starry childhood, and the electronics tune in and out of this complicated universal journey.

This song cycle definitely requires the professional musicianship represented by fEARnoMusic. The conductor Katherine FitzGibbon wore a metronome ear piece in order keep the musicians in line with the electronic sound design. Unfortunately, the weakest aspect of this live performance was indeed the lack of fluidity; this was not the fault of the complicated rhythms, as the rhythms themselves provide fluidity. Mixed meter and complicated polyrhythms, while an element of modern classical music, are ultimately borrowed from nonwestern dance cultures. This musical language is often unfamiliar to us who are immersed in the classical world, and I couldn’t help thinking that I would sacrifice a bit of professional, I-must-read-the-score sound for a more grounded, dance-imbued performance. From my seat the two musicians who best executed this kind of playing were Paulsen (flute) and Inés Voglar (violin). Overall the pieces were performed with sparkling musicianship and I reveled in hearing the musical lines cohesively passed between trumpet, bass clarinet, flute, strings, and percussion.

On the panel were all the important people (sans lyricist): Paloma Griffin, Walter Englert, Sara Kirkland Snider, Shara Worden, Katherine FitzGibbon, and the musicians. The two musicians who spoke (the drummer Sergio Carreño and clarinetist Mark Dubac) discussed the complicated rhythms and the difficulty of crossing genres. This difficulty was most endearingly portrayed by Dubac who, in his eloquent attempt to describe the music couldn’t come up with a name of a current female pop singer (bless him, as he entranced everyone with the sounds from his bass clarinet). The questions from the audience were spot on. Two young women asked for ideas on inspiration. When Shara mentioned that Górecki’s death and his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs was a huge influencer on her creative process, my fellow audience member dutifully scratched away at her notepad. Then a fifty-something woman expressed enthusiasm over the projected still image of Maine’s coastline and the movement of the waves on the last song. The final word was given to a woman with long gray hair. From a distance her face seemed old and wise: “I hear you talking of the influence of classical, of rock music. But there is a feminine tribal aspect to this music that I can very much relate to. The drum calls and the hypnotic, trance-like pulsations speak to me from this deeper tradition.”

Thanks, fEARnoMusic!! And let’s hope that more genre-crossing works are received with such joyful recognition.

“If high art is bracketed off from life by its absolutism and autonomy, it can by definition administer no shocks, issue no threat, convey no message.” Richard Taruskin, from The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays

A native Oregonian raised by Greek parents, Maria Choban is an Amazon musician powerfully wielding a double-edged passion: promote classical music and kill traditional classical concerts. Her own piano concerts galvanize the classically entrenched and turn on classical music virgins to high art. You can read all about Maria at her own blog and listen to samples from her CD’s. Don’t miss her FREE concert at CMC on Saturday, February 16th at 8pm! Below is my conversation with her at the Backspace on January 17th:

What music did you grow up with?

I was really lucky to grow up listening to both classical and rock genres (and a LOT of Greek music). When I was a kid, a family with four boys moved in down the rural lane, and the second-to-youngest one turned me on to Steely Dan. When their first album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, came out in 1972, he came running over with it, and we both discovered it at the same time.

I also remember hearing the Kinks for the first time. I was only eight or nine, and as I was walking to a Bluebird meeting, I heard “Lola” coming through the window; it just turned me on. I love the Kinks.

Also around this same age I heard Tomas Svoboda. Chamber Music Northwest was just in their second season, I think, when I went and heard Svoboda’s two-piano sonatas. He was playing one of the pianos and Lawrence Smith, then the conductor of the Oregon Symphony, was playing the other. It blew me away. I had never heard anything so barbaric in my life, and I instantly resolved to play it.

Honesty, I’m more piece-driven than composer-driven; this is why I created the MC Hammered Klavier project because now I can bring all the pieces together that I love and therefore can sell with a great performance. Vaudeville shows also inspire the format of these concerts, so it’s not your normal, straight-laced piano recital.

You can get tired of a pop song pretty fast, but the rich complexity of classical music provides for longer and deeper enjoyment. There are times, though, when I don’t want to listen to classical music. Like today I had a Concrete Blonde moment. And I also love Filter. These are both musically intelligent groups, but even so, they do not write with anything close to the complexity found in classical music. This type of depth is really what I’m looking for.

It seems like there’s a line to be walked. You’re defining classical music as being more complex, more multilayered; yet one can certainly stray too far and become obsessed by the complexity.

Certainly!

What makes classical music so brilliant is that composers are constantly trying to find that balance. It’s not like composing pop music where you’re looking for the addictive push or the instant resolve. But at the same time, a prime example of complexity-obsession is the modernists. I’m convinced the modernists hated music; they just liked playing with structures and chance. They built an algorithm for music! Lou Harrison had this great line: “I’d rather chance a choice then choose a chance.” That wisdom is aimed right at Cage and the aleatoric composers.

What “turns you on” in music?

I usually parse people into some combination of three categories: sexually based, self-preservation based (you like to nest), or socially based. I have no nesting instincts, NONE. Not at ALL. And no social instincts. I mean, these instincts have been developed, thank god my dad did that, but ultimately my creativity is sexually based. So if it’s music like Led Zeppelin, I LOVE Zeppelin, all those bass lines! John Paul Jones is brilliant. So is the drum bludgeoning John Bonham! So anything that, well let me just tell you my litmus test: if I want to fuck it on stage, it’s a good concert. That’s when the music’s good. And if I don’t…well that’s why I don’t usually go to classical concerts. There is nothing redeeming about a piano recital. Nothing. NOTHING.

Then why are you a classical musician??

Because I can HEAR! Somebody had this great line: “Does it astound you or does it move you?” If someone says, “That was a great concert! His technique was incredible!” Well, maybe that concert astounded you, but it didn’t move you. Art moves us. Art shifts something inside of us. In the moment that art shakes our inner being we’re not thinking, “Look at that digital dexterity!” Classical music has forgotten that there’s no “correct” way to play except to move people!!

All of us have different reasons for returning again and again to classical music, but for me it’s both an intellectual and a sexual pull. Classical music just turns me on. Well, Mozart doesn’t turn me on. But Bach does, oh my god. If only the classical world didn’t insist on completely neutering its composers and their compositions. How many people know that Bach had anger issues? He landed himself in the slammer for punching his employer in the mouth! The guy was a maniac, and I totally love him!

What was your experience listening to and learning classical music as a child?

I used to love the pianist Michelangeli. As a young piano student I thought he was really emotive, but then listening to his recordings as an adult, I realized how dryly he played! Growing up I was hearing what I wanted to hear, what I was already hearing inside my head, despite the fact that it was Michelangeli on the recording. As I grew older, I learned to differentiate between the outside world and my own inside world.

This differentiation took place partly as I realized that the classical genre is really screwed up. I remember playing a Chopin nocturne to my teacher. She said, “No.” So I went home and put on an Arthur Rubenstein recording and played it over and over again with the record. I took it back to her and she said, “Excellent!” This experience was a huge hint that something wasn’t right.

Because of my experiences, I NEVER tell my students to sound a certain way. I let them do whatever they need to do to find their voice. Learning to play is like learning to cook. At first you throw in all the spices you got and of course it tastes terrible for two or three years. But then you learn which spices to use, how to mix and match flavors, and the meal turns out great. That’s what it’s like learning how to play piano. Beginning students are going to be all over the place and their pieces will sound awful! But all I say is, “YAAAAAY! That’s great!! Keep going!!!” And in about three years they find their own style and sound completely different from other students, from me, whomever. But I don’t force a voice on them, and this is very important.

Is classical music relevant to Portland?

Yes! And just as importantly, Portland is relevant for classical music. There are two organizations that I champion here in Portland: Cascadia Composers and Classical RevolutionPDX. Cascadia is a very healthy organization for composers, and it creates a much needed pool of local talent. I just went to another Cascadia Composers presentation. These lectures need to be better publicized. They are open to the public and simply fabulous! The presenter at the last lecture, Mike Hsu, is a doctor, but he practices a gazillion hours and composes. He bases his music on late 1980’s dance music and computer gaming. While he talked, it dawned on me that we have all these kids who are getting immersed in new classical modern music in video games. It’s BRILLIANT! Why aren’t we bringing THAT onto stage??

Classical Revolution PDX [CRPDX] unites high quality musicians with those who are just now dragging their clarinets out of the closet. I really hate elitists and neither organizations are elitist. They’re firmly planted and down to earth. This is the main reason Portland is ahead of the game. New York is still kinda snotty. You feel intimidated if you’re an amateur. Portland has a different feel; it’s very inclusive. This town is in the most interesting phase of being highly collaborative, and it’s the newer organizations like Cascadia and CRPDX who very much foster this nurturing environment.

What does a Portland audience want?

They want shorter programs. They can’t sit through a 2 1/2 hour concert with an intermission. I can’t even do that! We need shorter shows, where the audience knows they’ll be in and out in an hour. That includes an encore and starting 5 minutes late. Keep pieces short! I have no idea how Mahler will survive the future. We also have to be thinking in terms of arc. Shows need to have a storyline. You can’t just throw something up there because you can play it well; the pieces need to fit within a larger framework. Also, classical concerts are way too expensive. I give concerts for free so that classical music virgins will want to take a chance on it.

How is a classical musician supposed to make a living?

This is a complicated situation we’ve created for ourselves. We’ve been churning out a gazillion graduates from conservatories without having any jobs to offer them. Why is the NEA funding classical music concerts?? WHY? Do rock & roll musicians just starting out have access to NEA grants when they’re schlepping their band from bar to bar, hoping for a big break? Why does the Oregon Symphony get as much money as it does when it isn’t even playing compositions from Oregon composers? We need to keep hounding the Oregon Symphony and the opera and all the groups in town: “Why aren’t we using our local resources? Why aren’t we hearing more Oregon composers? Where are our tax dollars going?” Give me a good reason to support our classical radio station! I would have a reason if they devoted two hours of prime listening time each day to playing local musicians and composers. I mean, c’mon, we already have Counterstream Radio et al. You know, at one point our classical radio station worked with the Benson High School students, allowing live performances and interviews from their studio (THAT was exciting!!), and giving them a choice in programming music.

This is a nitty gritty question, but how do you practice?

I practice intricately and with great concentration. I have the best focus and concentration of anybody I know in the field. I will take musical cells and repeat them perfectly 20 to 100 times. Then I’ll nest that into something bigger and do the same thing. I’ll build the whole piece like that. I love practicing! I love that private time with the score. I love bludgeoning the mass of score (through these focused reps) into some organic interpretation that moves me to my core.

It took me 51 years to find the musicians I currently perform with, and I am as happy as a clam at high tide. In one of my groups our mission is to play classical music written in the last five or ten years that’s accessible, well-written, and not esoteric. We just say no to esoterica. I used to say I’m one of the five happiest people in the world. I don’t actually say that to a lot of people because people tend to resent happy people if they’re not happy, too. But now I’m convinced I’m one of the top three happiest people in the world.

I met with Harold Gray on January 12 at the ever-comforting Barista in the Alberta Arts District.  As a newbie to Portland, my first inquiries into the realm of Portland’s classical music scene led me straight to Harold.  He arrived in Portland in 1976 as part of the Florestan Trio, the first artists-in-residence at Portland State University.  Soon after his arrival, Harold began Portland Piano International and is responsible for bringing more than 150 pianists to our city.  But these ventures in of themselves do not explain why Harold represents the bedrock of Portland’s classical music scene.  His eagerness to connect with anyone (e.g. me…) who is passionate about classical music speaks to a conviction that music (the creation of, performance of, enjoyment of, blood sweat and tears of) is a team effort and that this “team” consists of amateurs and professionals alike.  As we talked about music he addressed common misconceptions concerning movement, practicing, improvisation, and performing that prevent classical musicians from flourishing.    

On György Sebők:

My most important teacher was György Sebők.  I studied with him at Indiana during the summers of 1971-75. He was a life philosopher who connected how we think with how we play.  My other teachers, who knew the repertoire well and taught well, didn’t make you think about music.  

On Movement: 

I basically needed to learn how to physically play the piano by myself, and this was a long process.  I just didn’t have anybody to help me with it.  Now is a wonderful time to be a musician because there are so many different injury prevention systems.  But i don’t like the term “injury prevention.”  If you have a good teacher, when you are seven or eight years old, there’s no question of getting injured because you grow up understanding the principles.  

We all start off with wonderful gifts in terms of how we move.  When I teach I usually show pictures of babies moving around.  Babies are so perfectly balanced and can do things we could never possibly do as adults.  At school we unfortunately unlearn all of that and are told to sit hunched in a desk for hours at a time.  An important component in my teaching is making sure people understand anatomy and how the brain is connected to our physical movement.  Once we learn to physically play with ease then we can focus on listening to the music.  As I teach young people how to move at their instrument, they find that these movements make beautiful sounds, beautiful phrase shapes.  Movement creates music.  That’s what we musicians do for a living: move. 

On Practicing: 

My job as a teacher is to teach people how to practice: how to look at things, how to take things apart, how to identify problems and then how to think about those problems.

I don’t think anybody should be playing more than two hours a day.  That goes for amateurs and professionals alike.  We all, at some point in our lives, make the assumption that in order to develop tactile responses we need to repeat them over and over again; tactile habits have more to do with the mind than the fingers because it is the mind which creates the movements needed to play a note.  While the brain is wonderful at picking up habits, it is unfortunately horrible at getting rid of bad habits.  Establishing bad habits is normally what one does for five of those six hours of practicing.  

I’m always faced by those students who say, “I practiced this piece an hour a day.  Why isn’t it any better?”  It turns out that 90% of the time they were playing instead of practicing.  There’s a huge difference between playing and practicing.  Playing is wonderful.  That’s why we love music, but it’s not what a professional has to do to learn music.  They have to practice.  Practicing is a very distinct activity, and you cannot both play and practice at the same time.  

Can somebody be as good practicing only three hours a day as they can if they practice eight hours?  When I hear those pianists of the eight hour mentality, they all sound the same. For example, I heard an excellent pianist recently.  Everything worked;  he rarely missed a note, had marvelous phrasing, etc.  He really played beautiful in all these senses, but the fact is that I can also name another thirty pianists who play just like he does.  What I look for first in a pianist, whether it’s one of my intermediate students or a great artist, is some sort of individuality. 

On Performing:

One of our biggest mistakes is to think that there is a finished product.  This does not reflect how life works: Ok, I have to be perfect by the time I die.  That’s just not the way life is!  So this mindset is a real hangup for people preparing for a performance.  They start this piece and think that on such-and-such a date they’re going to play it “perfectly” and that a process exists to get to that finished product.  But that’s not the way life or music works.  Some people play the piece worse on June 20th than the day they started the piece.  And that’s life, too.  Don’t think about music as a linear process that goes from “just starting” to “perfect.”  That’s not what we’re looking for.  We’re looking for music, and to think that all of this technical achievement creates music is incorrect.  

On Improvisation:

I wish connecting classical music with jazz was standard practice among musicians.  It is becoming so more and more, and I hope the next generation of musicians is taught jazz principles when they are young.  More importantly (probably most importantly), I hope that they’re taught to improvise.  Improvisation was standard practice through the history of music until 1890 when suddenly people decided they didn’t need to improvise, that they wanted to just read the score.  Between 1890 and 1970 we began the culture of practicing ten hours a day so we could become perfect at something else besides creating music. In the 1970’s people started saying, “Wait a minute!  This is not the way it’s been done.  Except for our era now, true musicians have been composing or improvising for hundreds of years!”   You can’t play anything you can’t hear, and unless you are improvising and composing, you are not musically developing your hearing abilities.   

Today in Portland:

What I find disturbing is that we’re not educating kids well enough in the public schools.  From my point of view, here’s what happens: kids are exposed to the arts, music, dance, whatever, in their early years.  When they start raising their own families, most experience a period away from the arts. Gradually, as they get into their early 40s, they discover stability of income and begin realizing they need to give back to the community.  So they say, “I loved my music! I think I’ll start giving to the symphony or I think I’ll contribute as a board member.”  But if community members are not taught the arts in the early stages of life, then the community will not benefit from those people at age forty who return to the arts. So educating children in the arts is what I would be concerned about for classical music’s survival. 

I am very much concerned with the state of classical music, especially as I leave this organization.  I left it under a very healthy condition, fiscally, but the fact is people say classical piano is dying.  I don’t like to think that because I think classical piano has some wonderful possibilities, but not if we keep getting stuck in the past with the same kind of repertoire repeated endlessly.  I want Portland to be discovering new repertoire.  It’s hard for musicians to do this, just like it was in Beethoven’s time.  Nobody wanted to read through his pieces because they were so difficult, so complex, and so modern.  They couldn’t understand them.  It’s the same thing now.  But the audience is amazingly open to it.  

I am a 27-year old Earthling and a 4-month old Portlander.  But my Musical self is nearer to that of a crusty old woman.  Cynicism is the culprit;  after a mere six years of college education I was burnt out, rubbed raw, unsure if I was flying straight or nosediving it.  I took a break from the skies and set my sights on Portland as my next launching pad.  My 4-month old self is eager to explore the city and learn its particular relationship to classical music. 

So here I am and here are my goals:

1. Interview classical musicians who live and/or perform in Portland.  Ask questions that target the why and how of classical music.
2. Attend as many concerts as my budget and schedule allows.  This means I’m thinking FREE.  When it comes to the professional realm of classical music, free mostly gets you nowhere.  Therefore each month I’ll be attending at least one costly concert and three “uncostly” concerts.
3. Learn pieces that I love.  My degree is in collaborative piano, and I find wonderful satisfaction in forming musical relationships.  

I have a 9-5 job unrelated to these pursuits, so while these goals may sound easily achievable, to me they sound challenging.  But I’m ready.  Cheers to the first steps!