Miami

Miami, a city not synonymous with classical music, keeps luring me back to prove otherwise.  I've grown to love Miami through making music in Miami; the oppressive heat & humidity is daunting, but they eventually give way to majestic causeways and stunning ocean views.  The landscape provokes nostalgic feelings of New York City, a conglomerate of oceanic islands sewed together by bridges and tunnels.  In Miami I feel strangely at home.

Archipel I, an aleatory composition by the experimental composer Andre Boucourechliev scored for two pianos and percussion, was programmed on the Land, Sea, Sky: New World Symphony Percussion Consort concert at Miami Beach's Lincoln Theatre.  The score arrived in a neat tube by mail in August, and I unrolled a visually breathtaking piece of compositional artwork.  Fragments, or "islands" of music spread out across an immense piece of paper - and I was to create my own adventure (at my own choosing and leisure!) from one island to another:

Each fragment, so varied, transported me to a different mindset, location, emotion.  Meticulously working out each fragment at the piano uncovered sound bites of primal nature - massive tides, howling wind,  tremors, destructive thunder & lightning, echos, jolts of electricity through unstable thin air.  Sound images of crickets, birds, biting bugs, and statuesque sea creatures induced fear, anger, nervousness as well as ease and tranquility.  Rehearsing with the second piano amplified sound bites to surround sound levels and magnified sound images into 3D.  Extensive percussion added drama, glitter and colossal plateaus to multiple waves of sound:

The rehearsals were fun, almost too much fun, as a unified "itinerary" surfaced from our individual reactions and responses to our travels.  A few arbitrary decisions were made for the two separate performances solely for the purpose of insuring that they will yield different outcomes, but overall the music-making was absolutely spur of the moment.  This generated an incredible sense of freedom that  performers, devoted slaves to our scores, rarely get to experience.

Naturally, being in Miami, post-concert yields chic beachfront parties with beautiful people and ample intoxicating fluids.  Our destination was The Standard Hotel, and I celebrated quietly, enjoying the surrounding glitz and glamour while realizing that I'm far away from home.  It's 10:30pm, the temperature is a bizarre 80 degrees, skyscraper stiletto heels and millimeter length skirts everywhere:

The ladies looked fantastic, but would they still look fantastic running after a cab in NYC?

Hallelujah Junction

Living life in a brilliant, energetic, resonant way.  How could one not be affected by the intoxicating spirit of the journey to Hallelujah Junction?  This thrilling and audacious piece for two pianos, named after a 24 hr. truck stop on US 395 and CA 70 (close to the California-Nevada border, 96105), is my current life in the fast lane.  Strap on the seat belt, take a deep breath, and start the engine.  West coast journeys are long; we will have to drive fast, then very fast, over bumpy roads, past rolling hills, and hit breakneck speeds before eventually arriving at my final destination --- preferably accident-free.  The journey is tough and dangerous, but worth every second.  At Hallelujah Junction, I'm relieved, exhausted, but most importantly, thrilled from head to toe.

The downside to performing two-piano repertoire is that it is a COMPLICATED ordeal.  The 9-ft concert grand is an animal, a powerful living & breathing creature capable of sweet love as well as bitter betrayal.  Two concert grands on stage?  Complications:  1. The timbres of the instruments don't match, they clash.  2. The acoustics of the hall does not support two powerfully resonating instruments with clarity and focus.  3. If the performers use music, it is practically impossible to see & cue each other properly.  4.  The pianos are not of equal quality (typically the hall has one "concert" grand and one "house" grand), thus matching tuning jobs become an impossibility.  The list of technical complications continues, but by far the biggest obstacle is what happens when you have two strong-willed and bossy pianists each armed with a concert grand on stage...  

...or just perform a work that the pianists choose when to play at what time, a so-called "Choose Your Own Adventure" composition, to avoid arguments and disagreements...

The score to Archipel is visually so stunning that my major performance concern is translating this visual masterpiece into aural beauty.  Over 40 fragments recall shifting colors of the ocean, evoke haunting sounds of silence and transport mother earth back to its original primal state.

Running

Opus 1

My first entry.  September 29th, @ 5:56pm.  Not sure what prompted me to start right this minute, all I know is I've been thinking about blogging for quite some time.  Writing, like everything artistic and creative in my life, is a tremendously difficult process -- but a process that I enjoy immensely.  I want to be a good writer.  Perhaps it's another way to practice "Practice makes Perfect".  Not that I need more things to practice, but unfortunately I am addicted to the concept of practicing -- in order to get better at something.

Fall 2010 will be a crazy few months, with exciting concerts in awesome locations (Miami in late October!  It's destiny I will sport a summery tan while NYC transforms into a dark, cold & soggy town) but the price is learning and performing truckloads of music.  Performing is a gift, the perfect combination of discipline, creativity and excitement.  I am both powered and humbled by it.