Dispatched from the Audition Room (mit Bolzano auch dabei) After the third day of piano auditions at New England Conservatory, I attended an evening recital given at the school by one of my piano faculty colleagues. Backstage, he said that while he was playing he imagined my stern voice from the audition room. Making a fairly unpleasant face, he told me, "You know when you say, 'Mmmmm, not really good...'" The cold fact is that from about … [Read more...]
Humble pie
In Cleveland, at the Ohio Theatre, they told me Philip Glass just recently played there on the piano I was using. The next pianist coming soon is Krystian Zimerman. This sort of thing makes you feel humble. And it occurred to me -- that might even be about where my playing is artistically (?), pianistically (!), or aesthetically, somewhere in between Glass and Zimerman... … [Read more...]