Raggin’ the Classics
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet…”Shakespeare: King John Electronica artist Max Cooper and I launch a new project this spring, a collaboration called...
View ArticleDigging to France
When I tell a U.S. colleague about several concerts I’m playing in France he says: “You’re Jerry Lewis!” The French, it’s true, have a long tradition of appreciating U.S culture, and yes, that silly...
View ArticleConflict of Interest
The character of a piece of music is strongly influenced (or sometimes distorted) by the technique necessary to play it. The physical motions of fingers and arm will point music in a particular...
View ArticleThoughts while playing Knee Play 4
It can happen, in the laboratory of the concert — you notice things, discovery occurs. Suddenly, sometimes surprisingly, associations are made, even in music long-practiced. During the summer in...
View ArticleImmeasurable
If they throw stones upon the roof While you practice arpeggios, It is because they carry down the stairs A body in rags. Be seated at the piano. … Wallace Stevens: “Mozart, 1935″ I ask many young...
View ArticleWhat’s in a name?
“Richard told me.” Or, “Martha thinks so.” The inspeak of the classical music anointed? A mark of self-importance, of access, or just an acknowledgement of exactly how the celebrated wish to be...
View ArticlePiscatorial
It’s hard to remember musical life before the Poisson Rouge. Four years ago this summer, I started playing and hearing music at the club (the former Village Gate). It’s not overstatement to say that...
View ArticleOverheard
During some days in late summer, I practiced Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto. I’m sure the windows were open. My Juilliard piano teacher, Jacob Lateiner lived on 84th Street, just around the block. I...
View ArticleArts & Crafts
I’m printing slightly enlarged versions of the pages of a score by Philip Glass that I will play at the LPR Glass-birthday event later this month. The physical resizing, repaginating, and relineating...
View ArticleKlained
A recording I made of Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis One became the basis for a YouTube video. I never met the YouTuber who posted it, though he emailed me and asked permission. I could only tell him the...
View ArticleTriangle
I perform a piece with Butoh artist Maureen Fleming in which I play Philip Glass’s Etude No. 5. The performance includes a video of Maureen moving, projected larger-than-life-size on a scrim. Behind...
View ArticleFirst Glass
Tim Page suggested I play some music by Philip Glass. It was a solo piano arrangement of part of the opera Satyagraha — Gandhi’s final, Act 3 aria. Tim wanted this music for a solo piano CD we were...
View ArticleWithdrawn
Sometimes a piece of music is “withdrawn” from a composer’s catalog. Music that was composed, published, and available is taken back — rescinded. You can’t get it anymore. Usually, the composer has...
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