Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climb Mount Everest, 1953 excerpts from my remarks as part of the webinar “ResiliArt: Classical Music’s New World” presented by the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts and UNESCO, June 22, 2020 “…Now, we need to be living music so that it matters, so that it’s useful. We are in an intense period of artistic interaction — technologically enabled. Music is a group activity. "Music and … [Read more...]
Forest
When I arrived to take a place as a judge for the Walter Naumburg International Violin Competition I was welcomed by several violinists who were judging the competition. My friend Jorja Fleezanis was there. Sylvia Rosenberg was very cordial, so was Anahid Ajemian, and later Kyung-Wha Chung (who joined the committee for the competition's final round). On my arrival, another venerable jury member, something of a violin guru, asked: "Who are … [Read more...]
Tail wind
My flight to Los Angeles took over six hours. Coming back to the east coast with a strong tail wind making the flight easier and faster, the flight lasted only four hours and twelve minutes. Rudolf Serkin is sometimes credited with having said: "Playing the piano is easy, if everything goes well." Raising the question, "What about when it doesn't go well?" Then it's harder, then it takes more fuel. Then, you need to be an "expert," a "master," a … [Read more...]
I don’t do Rachmaninoff
In preparation for one of our spring masterclasses, I received a memo from one masterclass-giver's management. Along with requests about using a smallish theater and making two pianos available on stage, there were stipulations about the music to be played in the masterclass by potential student performers: no music by Rachmaninoff, no music by Liszt. Certain pieces by J. S. Bach might be ok, with approval. Certain works by Schubert, Beethoven of … [Read more...]