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pianistterenceyung · 1 year

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Pianist Terence Yung has been hailed as "a brilliant young artist" with "powerhouse virtuosity," "felt musicianship" and "a real gift for communication in performance." Mr. Yung has appeared throughout the United States as a recitalist, in chamber music concerts, as soloist with orchestras, including performances in New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle and Houston, as well as abroad in Spain and France. His international honors include top prizes at the Puigcerdà International Music Competition in Spain and the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition in New York City.

Notable venues include Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center of Performing Arts (Philadelphia), Benaroya Hall (Seattle), the Teatro d Puigcerdá, the Grand Opera House (Delaware), the Juilliard School (New York City), Steinway Hall, Yamaha Salon, the Kosciuszko Foundation, the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In the United States and abroad, Mr. Yung has performed at music festivals including the International Keyboard Institute and Festival (New York City), the Puigcerdà International Music Festival (Spain), the International Piano Festival (Houston), and the Adirondack International Music Festival in upstate New York.

Terence, who grew up in the United States, studied privately with Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute of Music before entering the Juilliard School's pre-college program in New York City at the age of thirteen, where he was a pupil of Frank Lévy and Martin Canin (the teaching assistant of Rosina Lhévinne).He continued his studies with Abbey Simon at the Moores School of Music in Houston, where he holds a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. He also holds a prestigious Diplôme from the Académie Internationale d'Eté de Nice, where he studied with Michel Béroff and Philippe Entremont, and he took lessons informally with Susan Starr, Lang Lang, Garrick Ohlsson, and Horacio Gutierrez.

Mr. Yung has been highly committed to the education and outreach of classical music. His work with outreach organizations has made a difference for the underprivileged children of inner-city Houston through the gift of music. He has served on the piano faculties of the Yellowstone Academy and the University of Houston Moores School of Music Preparatory and Continuing Studies. His involvements with community organizations include frequent collaborations with the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia. Terence Yung has been a subject of interviews by Ming Pao Daily News, the Global Chinese Times, and French public news as an outstanding young pianist from Hong Kong.

#Terence Yung #Juilliard #University of Houston #Abbey Simon #Garrick Ohlsson #Susan Starr #Rosina Lhevinne #Martin Canin #Philippe Entremont #Lang Lang #Horacio Gutierrez #Michel Beroff #Summer Academy in Nice #Moores School of Music

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myrecordcollections · 4 years

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Virgil Thomson has distinguished him-self over the years as one of the United States' most Influential and lucid musical fig-ures. A pupil of Nadia Boulanger during the early 1920's, Thomson both studied and taught at Harvard, built a considerable repu-tation as an organist In Boston and served for fourteen years (1940-54) as Music Critic of the New York Herald Tribune. His composi-tional style has been consistently witty and diverting, leading many musicians to com-pare him to Erik Satie, the famous French musical parodist of an earlier generation. The Etudes as a whole represent Thomson's wish to provide twentieth-century pianism with an array of exercises exploiting contemporary technical problems much the way the sets of Chopin and Liszt served an earlier repertoire. The Ten Etudes consist of diverse character pieces each set within a specific, often popular, musical idiom. Although not composed in their published order, the etudes as a set display a remarkable unity, owing in large part to judi-cious contrasts in pacing and tonality. Thomson's sense of humor is omnipresent, noticeably in his initially disguised quotation of "Drink to me only with thine eyes" in Tenor Lead, his generous use of Double (even triple and quadruple!) Glissandos, and his sug-gestion (through repeated open fifths) of "cowboys & indians" midway through the circle of fifths tour in Ragtime Bass. Thomson elicits special sonorities through manipula-tion of the sostenuto pedal in the middle of Repeating Tremolo and manages to tantalize both theorist and pianist alike by his exploi-tation of "forbidden" parallelism in Fingered Fifths. Although technical problems abound throughout the Ten Etudes, nowhere are the difficulties more intense than in Fingered Glis-sando where each measure-long pattern involves alternating the hands in different five-finger positions. In coaching this author through the Etudes and Portraits Mr. Thomson likened Tenor Lead to "a down-home Missouri choir: don't play it like a — — Viennese!" In addition, he noted that the polytonal Parallel Chords was, in essence, "a broken-down, out-of-tune New Orleans player piano—bang the hell out of it!" Although the Nine Etudes do not dis-close as apparent a tonal unity as the preced-ing set, they nevertheless evidence as wry a humor and as imaginative a demonic sense of technical invention as the Ten Etudes. In The Harp the piano cleverly simulates such famil-iar harp effects as arpeggio, glissando, bisbi-gliando, harmonics, and "pres de la table" sonorities. In addition to the superimposi-tion of groups of four beats over three in Pivoting on the Thumb and the ultra-dissonance of the impassioned Chromatic Double Harmonies, certain etudes pose as severe aural as digital hurdles for the pianist. In Alternating Octaves a bitonal inverted canon (in G-flat and G major) is reversed tonally midway through the etude; in the canonic Double Sevenths the pianist must resist the temptation to Interpret the disso-nances as "sloppy octaves" and "correct" the "mistakes," In Chromatic Major Seconds, per-haps the most difficult of all nineteen etudes, the pianist must learn to accept both the unusual sound and feel of the thumb playing precisely in the middle of the cracks between the white keys. Such pieces may justifiably be considered "etudes for the ear" as "etudes for the fingers." In the arch-form (ABCBA) Broken Arpeggios Thomson Inten-tionally "overpedals" the C section to reflect the implications of the etude's programmatic subtitle while in the last measure of the final etude the pianist must "reach into the piano and strike with flat of hand, pedal down:' thereby emulating the resonant slapping of the guitarist's hand across the strings of his instrument, Throughout both sets of etudes the composer gravitates from works requir-ing strict "mechanical" execution (Repeating Tremolo, For the Weaker Fingers, Oscillating Arm, Parallel Chords, With Trumpet & Horn) to those of a more expressive nature. Since 1927 Virgil Thomson has written over one hundred instrumental "Portraits" of friends and acquaintances: such personali-ties as Carrie Stettheimer, who spent twenty years building a doll house which is now in the Museum of the City of New York; Maurice Grosser, who in turn painted a por-trait of Virgil Thomson (reproduced on the cover of this album) and also devised the sce-narios of the Virgil Thomson-Gertrude Stein operas, Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All; Ramon Senabre, a Catalo-nian painter; Lise Deharme, a French poetess; Nicolas de Chatelain, a Russian painter; and as etudes Briggs Buchanan, an archeologist and Thomson's constant corre-spondent since their college days, and Sylvia Marlowe, the well-known harpsichordist. Each portrait was composed in front of its subject and at one sitting. The cross-section of Portraits featured in this album is drawn from his published volumes for piano solo. Picasso's presence seems well reflected in the juxtaposition of greatly contrasting motifs in Bugles & Birds while An Old Song discloses a lyric side of Thomson not always encountered in his music. Cantabile maintains this lyricism in an elegant one-to-three-voice linear construction while Alternations features quickly changing moods and pat-terns. The programmatic qualities of In a Bird Cage are easily identifiable while the hilar-ious succession of apparent non sequiturs in Catalan Waltz reminds one not only of Satie but of Poulenc, and perhaps also of Mozart's "musical jokes". ARTHUR TOLLEFSON Although still in his thirties Arthur Tol-lefson has recently celebrated the silver anniversary of his American concerto and solo recital debuts. Holder of the first Doc-tor of Music Arts degree In Piano ever awarded by Stanford University, he has already earned an enviable International rep-utation both as a performer and teacher. After early studies with Rosina Lhevinne, Egon Petri, Paul Badura-Skoda and Adolph Bailer, Mr. Tollefson, In 1975, was chosen from a stellar field of candidates to become one of the youngest departmental chairmen in the long and illustrious history of North-western University's School of Music, During the past decade, he has combined significant concerto solo engagements with critically acclaimed recital debuts in London,

#Arthur Tollefson #Classical Piano #Virgil Thomson #1978 #Classical #Neo Classical #Piano

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shirley-kirsten7777 · 7 years

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Favorites, On an Off the You Tube screen

This week reaped a set of Internet-channeled treasures along with an off screen, chance meeting with a Rosina Lhevinne student at a Berkeley bus stop.

The first On Air stop-off was Seymour Bernstein’s riveting hour-and-44 minute long interview that covered his Korean war service: a rekindled journey of interspersed infantry training, piano recitals and chamber music.

Seymour’s recorded account…

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oconnormusicstudio · 3 years

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March 28: Today’s Music History

. 1880 ~ Rosina Lhevinne, piano teacher . 1881 ~ Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer, died from alcoholism. Best known for his “Pictures from an Exhibition” and the opera “Boris Godunov.” . 1890 ~ Paul Whiteman, Bandleader, Washboard Blues, Ol’ Man River, Felix the Cat, Heartache and Ain’t Misbehavin’ . 1903 ~ Rudolph Serkin, Austrian concert pianist: “An artist of unusual and impressive talents…

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#Alec Templeton #composer #conductor #Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky #music educator #piano concerto #piano teacher #Rachmaninoff #Radio City Music Hall #Sergei Rachmaninov #Today in Music History #video

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todayclassical · 7 years

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March 29 in Music History

1484 Birth of composer Johann Spangenberg.

1616 Birth of composer Johann Erasmus Kindermann.

1697 Death of German composer and organist Nicolaus Bruhns.

1716 Antonio Vivaldi loses his job temporarily at Pieta because he spends too much time on operas.

1719 Birth of English music author Sir John Hawkins who wrote the first history of music. 1725 Birth of composer Joseph Franz Xaver Dominik Stalder.

1751 Birth of American singer and composer Supply Belcher. 1752 Birth of composer Edward Jones.

1795 Beethoven's first public performance in Vienna, where he premieres either his First or Second Piano Concerto. 1806 FP of Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, second version, of the opera Fidelio at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

1827 Beethoven's funeral in Vienna attended by Schubert, Hummel, Czerny and Kreutzer and other more than 10,000 people. 1836 FP of Richard Wagner's opera Das Liebesverbot at the Stadttheater in Magdeburg.

1859 Birth of French opera composer Herman Bemberg in Paris.

1862 Birth of American composer Carl Busch.

1871 Inauguration of The Royal Albert Hall in London. Queen Victoria in attendance. 1874 FP of Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 3 in Eb, in Prague.

1878 Birth of American composer Albert Von Tilzer.

1879 FP of Tchaikovsky's opera Eugen Onegin at the Malïy Theater in Moscow.

1879 FP of Bedrich Smetana's String Quartet in e minor.

1880 Birth of Russian pianist Rosina Lhevinne, in Kiev.

1882 FP of the first symphony of 16-year-old composer Alexander Glazunov in St. Petersburg. Mili Balakirev conducting.

1886 Birth of composer Gustaf Adolf Tiburtius Bengtsson.

1888 Death of French composer Charles-Henri Alkan, age 75, in Paris.

1890 Birth of Polish bass Robert Burg in Prague.

1897 Birth of German tenor Fritz Göllnitz.

1900 Birth of French bass-baritone Bernard-Henri Etcheverry in Bordeaux.

1900 In Philadelphia, at the Academy of Music, Fritz Scheel conducts a concert with musicians who were to become The Fabulous Philadelphians of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

1901 FP of Alexander Scriabin's complete First Symphony in Moscow.

1902 Birth of English composer Sir William Turner Walton in Lancashire.

1902 Birth of Italian opera conductor Mario Rossi in Rome.

1906 Birth of English-born American organist E. Power Biggs in Westcliff. 1911 Death of French composer Félix-Alexandre Guilmant.

1911 FP of Chadwick's Suite Symphonique. Philadelphia Orchestra, with the composer conducting.

1912 Birth of German bass Fritz Ollendorf in Darmstadt.

1924 Death of Irish organist, conductor, composer Sir Charles Villers Stanford. 1928 Birth of composer Vaclav Felix.

1931 Birth of American soprano Gloria Davy in New Rochelle, NY.

1932 Birth of American tenor William Brown is born in Jackson, Mississippi. 1934 Birth of composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler.

1935 Birth of Welsh bass Delme Bryn-Jones, Wales.

1936 Birth of English composer Richard Rodney Bennett in Broadstairs, Kent. 1937 Death of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski in Switzerland at age 55.

1940 FP of Britten's Violin Concerto, Op. 15. @nyphil with soloist Antonio Brosa. 1953 Birth of twin Turkish pianists Güher and Süher Pekinel. 1962 Birth of Swedish bass Urban Malberg in Stockholm.

1964 Birth of Greek guitarist and composer Apostolos Paraskevas in Volos, Greece.

1974 Birth of American composer Tom Schneller.

1982 Death of german composer Carl Orff.

2000 FP of Bright Sheng's String Quartet No. 4. Shanghai String Quartet, in Richmond VA.

2001 Death of American pianist and composer John Lewis in NYC at age 80.

2003 FP of Augusta Reed Thomas' Canticle Weaving for trombone and orchestra. Ralph Sauer, trombone. Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, cond. in LA, CA.

2011 Death of English tenor Robert Tear.

#classicalmusic #musichistory #todayclassical #today in music history #onthisday

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laibfekievva · 6 years

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ROSINA LHEVINNE/ MOZART Piano Concerto No 24 lp Columbia MS 6182 6-Eye Stereo NM: $4.99 (0… https://t.co/9q8zXPn8rM

— Laibfe.Kievva (@LKievva) November 9, 2018

via http://twitter.com/LKievva/status/1061031516325793792 from Twitter https://twitter.com/LKievva

#IFTTT #Twitter

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sonyclasica · 6 years

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JOHN WILLIAMS

JOHN WILLIAMS CONDUCTOR

John Williams Conductor es una caja de 20 CD que resume la brillante obra del compositor cinematográfico a lo largo de cinco décadas. A la venta el 19 de enero.

Consíguelo en amazon.es

Una caja con 20CDs reúne buena parte de la producción de John Williams, uno de los compositores estadounidenses más exitosos de la historia. A lo largo de cinco décadas, Williams ha compuesto la música y dirigido la banda sonora de más de cien películas, entre las que destacan especialmente las realizadas dentro de su asociación artística con Steven Spielberg con títulos como E.T: el Extraterrestre, Tiburón, La lista de Schindler, Encuentros en la Tercera Fase, Salvar al Soldado Ryan, Munich o Atrápame si puedes. Todas ellas son ya parte de la historia del cine y la caja incluye tres CDs dedicados a esta exitosa colaboración.

La lista de películas que incluyen la música de Williams es casi interminable pero a las ya citadas pueden sumarse hitos del cine como las siete películas de Star Wars, las tres primeras películas de Harry Potter, Superman: The Movie, JFK, Nacido el 4 de julio, Memorias de una Geisha, El turista accidental, Solo en casa, Nixon, El patriota, Las cenizas de Angela, Siete años en el Tíbet y Las brujas de Eastwick, entre muchas otras.

Ha actuado como director musical y director de una de las instituciones musicales más importantes del país, la Boston Pops Orchestra, y mantiene relaciones artísticas con muchas de las grandes orquestas del mundo, incluyendo la Orquesta Sinfónica de Boston, la Filarmónica de Nueva York, la Chicago Symphony y la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles. Williams ha recibido una gran variedad de prestigiosos premios, incluyendo la Medalla Nacional de las Artes, el Honor Kennedy Center, la Orden Olímpica, y numerosos Premios de la Academia, Premios Grammy, Premios Emmy y Globos de Oro.

Ha trabajado con muchos directores legendarios, entre ellos Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler y Robert Altman. Williams ha recibido cinco premios de la Academia y 50 nominaciones a los Oscar, lo que lo convierte en la persona viviente más nominada de la Academia y la segunda nominada en la historia de los Oscar. Su nominación más reciente fue para la película Star Wars: The Force Awakens. También ha recibido siete Premios de la Academia Británica (BAFTA), 22 Grammys, cuatro Globos de Oro, cinco Emmys y numerosos discos de oro y de platino.

Nacido y criado en Nueva York, Williams se trasladó a Los Ángeles con su familia en 1948, donde estudió composición con Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Después de servir en la Fuerza Aérea, regresó a Nueva York para asistir a la Juilliard School, donde estudió piano con Madame Rosina Lhevinne. Mientras estaba en Nueva York, también trabajó como pianista de jazz. Regresó a Los Ángeles y comenzó su carrera en la industria del cine, trabajando con varios compositores exitosos como Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman y Franz Waxman.

Además de su actividad en el cine y la televisión, Williams ha compuesto numerosas obras para la escena de conciertos, entre ellas dos sinfonías y conciertos para flauta, violín, clarinete, viola, oboe y tuba. Su concierto de violonchelo fue interpretado por la Orquesta Sinfónica de Boston y estrenado por Yo-Yo Ma en Tanglewood en 1994.

En enero de 1980, Williams fue nombrado decimonoveno director musical de la Boston Pops Orchestra, sucediendo al legendario Arthur Fiedler. Williams ha compuesto música para muchos importantes eventos culturales y conmemorativos. Liberty Fanfare fue compuesta para la Estatua de la Libertad en 1986. En el mundo del deporte ha contribuido con temas musicales para los Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1984, 1988 y 1996, los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno de 2002 y los Juegos Olímpicos Especiales de 1987. Tiene títulos honoríficos de 21 universidades americanas, incluyendo la Escuela Juilliard, Boston College, la Universidad Northeastern, la Universidad Tufts y la Universidad de Boston. En 2009 recibio la Medalla Nacional de las Artes, la concesión más alta dada a los artistas por el gobierno de Estados Unidos.

Año 1990 1 Music of the Night: Pops on Broadway 1990 2 John Williams Conducts John Williams: The Star Wars Trilogy 3 The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration Año 1991 4 I Love a Parade 5 The Green Album

Año 1992 6 Joy to the World 7 Night and Day: Celebrate Sinatra Año 1993 8 Unforgettable 9 Music for Stage and Screen Año 1994 10 It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing 11 Williams on Williams: The Classic Spielberg Scores Año 1995 12 Summon the Heroes Año 1996 13 Cinema Serenade Año 1997 14 The Five Sacred Trees 15 The Hollywood Sound 1997 16 Gershwin Fantasy Año 1998 17 Cinema Serenade 2 Año 1999 18 Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams Año 2002 19 American Journey Año 2017 20 Spielberg/Williams Collaboration, Part III

www.johnwilliams.org

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todayclassical · 7 years

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February 05 in Music History

1705 Death of French composer Jean-Gilles in Toulouse.

1710 FP Bononcini: G. "Muzio Scevola" Vienna.

1748 Birth of German composer Christian Gottlob Neefe in Chemnitz.

1755 Birth of mezzo-soprano Carolina Fredrika Mueller in Copenhagen.

1763 Birth of tenor Charles Incledon in Cornwall.

1791 Death of tenor John Beard.

1795 Death of tenor Antoine Trial.

1810 Birth of Norwegian composer and violinist Ole Bull, in Bergen.

1818 Birth of composer Samuel Jackson.

1825 Death of tenor Pierre Gaveaux.

1852 Marriage of soprano Jenny Lind to her pianist, Otto Goldschmidt. 1862 Birth of Mexican composer Felipe Villanueva in Tecamac, state, Mexico.

1865 Birth of American composer Harvey Worthington Loomis.

1866 Birth of American composer Rossetter Gleason Cole.

1868 Birth of Belgian composer Lodewijk Mortelmans in Antwerp.

1875 Birth of Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes.

1884 Birth of tenor Alfred Piccaver in Long Sutton Lincoln.

1887 FP of Verdi's opera Otello with Toscanini at the cello, at La Scala in Milan.

1894 Birth of tenor William Wernigk in Chemnitz.

1895 Pianist Rosina Lhevinne debuts with the Moscow Symphony. 1895 FP of Ippolitiv-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches, in Moscow. The composer conducting.

1896 Death of composer Henry David Leslie.

1897 FP in USA of Richard Strauss' Also Spracht Zarathustra in Chicago with Theodore Thomas conducting.

1902 Birth of Polish composer Bronislaw Kaper.

1904 Birth of soprano Erna Schluter in Oldenburg.

1907 Death of German composer Ludwig Thuille, age 45, in Munich.

1909 Birth of Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz in Lodz.

1911 Birth of Swedish tenor Jussi Bjorling.

1916 Death of tenor Francesco Marconi.

1917 Birth of Austrian bass-baritone Otto Edelmann in Vienna.

1921 Birth of English conductor Sir John Pritchard in London. 1926 Birth of French composer Andre Gedalge in Chessy.

1934 Birth of tenor Pietro Bottazzo in Padua.

1934 Birth of English conductor and organist John Poole. 1939 FP of Carl Orff's opera Der Mond 'The Moon' at the Nationaltheater, in Munich.

1942 Death of tenor Robert Hutt.

1943 Birth of French-American composer Ivan Tcherepnin, near Paris. 1945 Birth of Czech tenor Josef Protschka in Prague.

1945 Birth of American soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson.

1951 Birth of tenor Curtis Rayam in Belville, FL.

1951 Birth of American composer Elizabeth Swados.

1952 Birth of English soprano Marilyn Hill Smith.

1953 Death of soprano Suzanne Adams.

1958 FP of Sir Michael Tippett's Symphony No. 2. BBC Symphony, Sir Adrian Boult conducting, in London.

1954 FP at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Presenting Mozart's Don Giovanni.

1962 Death of bass Leon Bjorker.

1962 Death of French composer Jacques Ibert, at age 71, in Paris.

1967 Birth of Australian soprano and composer Sonia Jacobsen in Camden, New South Wales.

1969 FP of Thea Musgrave's Clarinet Concerto, in London.

1970 FP of Elliott Carter's Concerto for Orchestra. New York Philharmonic.

1991 Death of baritone John Hargreaves.

2000 Death of Canadian composer Barbara Pentland.

2000 Death of baritone Pablo Elvira.

2003 FP of Kaija Saariaho's Terestre. Camilia Hortenga, flute; Felix Fan, cello; Bridget Kibbey, harp; Steven Schick, percussion; Yonah Zur, violin. Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, NYC.

2004 FP of Stephen Paulus' Paean commissioned by Pat and Reidar Bjorhovde, symphony patrons. Tucson Symphony Orchestra, George Hanson conducting as part of the TSO´s Diamond Jubilee in Tucson, AZ.

2004 FP of Bright Sheng´s The Pheonix. Jane Eagland, soprano. Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwartz, conducting, in Seattle, WA.

2014 Death of conductor, arranger and composer Richard Hayman.

#classicalmusic #today in music history #musichistory #todayclassical #onthisday

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oconnormusicstudio · 4 years

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March 28: On This Day in Music

. 1880 ~ Rosina Lhevinne, piano teacher

. 1881 ~ Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer, died from alcoholism. Best known for his “Pictures from an Exhibition” and the opera “Boris Godunov.”

. 1890 ~ Paul Whiteman, Bandleader, Washboard Blues, Ol’ Man River, Felix the Cat, Heartache and Ain’t Misbehavin’

. 1903 ~ Rudolph Serkin,…

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henry33tan · 7 years

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Favorites, On AND Off the You Tube screen

This week reaped a set of Internet-channeled treasures along with an off screen, chance meeting with a Rosina Lhevinne student at a Berkeley bus stop.

Seymour’s recorded account is part of an Oral History project that’s been conceived to educate and enlighten Korean youth about a faint and distant war era. In this regard, Bernstein describes a particular outdoor concert that he and violinist, Kenneth Gordon had presented together in the heat of war where bullets were flying overhead while two musicians were thinly protected by a hill that barricaded them in.

Bernstein’s nostalgic, drama-filled memoir pours forth effortlessly in his conversation with a historian tied to the Korean War Legacy Foundation. The focus is Seymour’s four separate touchdowns that included three post-war visits, eliciting his recall of turbulent political changes in the small Asian country. Naturally, he peppers his reminiscences with colorful musical anecdotes.

Most of the pianist’s followers celebrate his time-honored book With Your Own Two Hands along with his Big Screen appearance in Ethan Hawke’s documentary, Seymour: An Introduction. In the 90 or so minute film, a piano teacher is lifted out of the ordinary cycle of giving lessons, to iconic status. Playing himself, Bernstein, a once promising concert performer, retreats to mentoring in the face of crippling performance anxiety and resurrects himself as a doting, thoughtful teacher in a singularly carved journey.

Throughout his Korean Legacy Foundation appearance, Bernstein is on location in his thoughts, revisiting a war-torn Korea, determined to include a tender scene from his early days in uniform. As he tells it, a fawn appears in the fog on the countryside, making Seymour believe that he has died and gone to heaven. The flashback, also a moving segment in Hawke’s documentary, is worth a revisit with additional memories colorfully packed into the recorded Legacy interview.

http://www.kwvdm.org/detail_oral.php?no=751

***

On the You Tube Playlist, I was fortunate to have spotted two hot releases by pianist, Irina Morozova:

The following performances are beyond words to describe and speak audibly for themselves. I must admit, in all honesty, that the more I’m exposed to Morozova’s artistry, the more my heart aches that this pianist’s name is not a household word. The sheer poetry of her expression coupled with an effortlessly fluid technique, should invite the adulation of local and international audiences, if only the commercial packaging of musicians, and the social/political demands of making a career did not intercede.

youtube

Finally, to cap off my week, OFFLINE, I found myself waiting for the 25A A.C. Transit bus on an overcast weekday afternoon, anticipating an easy, uneventful route to gym. Little did I foresee an encounter with a perfect stranger, a petite senior, who had a pervasive connection to the music world–one that had its alliance to my own life as it unfolded during my New York City teenage years.

The woman had arrived ten minutes after me, thinking she might have missed the bus, but was reassured by my careful scrutiny of the bus schedule that we were both “on time.” I had added that we were clear to board within minutes, if the bus had not experienced delays.

Meanwhile, I kept checking 511# on my cell phone for updates once I realized that we’d passed the posted arrival time. And it occurred to me that delay after delay was the rule of the day, without any certainty of our common means of transport.

As it happened, we were given ample room to start up a conversation that was sparked by the woman’s allusion to an upcoming “Symphony” outing. That was my immediate cue to introduce myself as a “pianist,” which was her CUE to respond, “I’m a pianist, too!”

At this point in our alternate exchanges, I had acquired my rightful turn to squeeze out a stream of details from her past which she was amenable to share.

“I studied with Madame Lhevinne at the Juilliard School,” she announced, proudly. “It was in the mid 1950’s, but I never really graduated. Well, because I didn’t like the whole environment, and then I decided to go to Europe and earn my Ph.D.”

She admitted that she had never completed her studies, coining herself, an “almost there” individual, exposing her whimsical side–the extemporaneous, coy, and self-deprecating dimension of an emerging, delightful persona.

At this juncture, I wasn’t sure if she was going to veer off from our music-centered talk or re-focus on her studies with Lhevinne. I gently nudged her back to her Juilliard days.

In the ensuing conversation, I learned that Rosina’s crop of students were part of a tight-knit musical family and one particular pupil was my would-be bus companion’s favorite: “John Browning.” She insisted he was far more gifted than Van Cliburn. In rebuttal, I maintained that Van’s Tchaikovsky’s Bb minor Concerto, No. 1, was lyrical, straightforward and without eccentricity. She insisted that Gilels had held the crucial key to Cliburn’s thawed out Cold War victory. (He’d supposedly threatened to resign from the panel of judges if Van was demoted to Silver or Bronze)

I interjected that Nikita Kruschev was the deal-maker, having to rubber stamp the Gold pick! (it was notwithstanding his shoe-banging escapades at the UN)

Obviously, I wanted to milk my newfound musical traveler for any juicy gossip that surrounded Lhevinne, in particular, although I’d viewed one or two lengthy documentaries (on You Tube) that were better than any tell all gossip column. And as it turned out, the only uniquely colorful anecdote that gushed out of my awaiting bus partner’s mouth, was one about Lhevinne interrupting a lesson to talk in Russian by phone with the famed, and often dreaded piano teacher, Isabelle Vengerova. This well-known mentor had been characterized as a tyrant in Seymour Bernstein’s tome, Monsters and Angels, Surviving a Career in Music.

(Yet, I dared not bring up, Seymour’s inclusion of the Russian icon in his list of “monsters,” aka emotional abusers.)

*** While the bus lingered somewhere OFF ROUTE, I had more space to impart my own Lhevinne-related memoir that rapidly shrank degrees of separation between two common bus riders.

As I recounted:

I had been present at Madame Lhevinne’s 80th Birthday celebration at the very Juilliard School that my newfound companion, who finally identified herself as “Francesca,” had attended. This was at a time when the homespun-looking building was located in the heart of Harlem on 125th Street. As a teenager enrolled at the High School of Performing Arts, I was bestowed a complimentary ticket to the event by my beloved mentor, Lillian Freundlich. The birthday fete featured soloist and honoree, Rosina Lhevinne playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467, under the able baton of Jean Morel.

While I didn’t have the yellowed PROGRAM tucked into my backpack as hard core evidence of my attendance, I did assure Francesca that it existed, and that it had been embedded in my blog posting about my having “been there,” right smack in the center of an adoring audience.

https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/an-ageless-pianist-and-her-historic-concert-i-was-there/

My story became expanded during our repartee when I described finding myself years later in the Oberlin Conservatory music library, listening with earphones to a turntable spun vinyl of Lhevinne’s very performance that day at Juilliard.

What memories were rekindled, stored safely in my repository of special musical moments, now shared with a common traveler.

Because the bus ended up being delayed by over an hour due to the driver’s apologetic admission of being lost in another city on HER FIRST DAY OF SERVICE, I had been serendipitously connected to a kindred “pianist” who tore off a snatch of her paper shopping bag with her scribbled name and phone number on it. She handed it to me as she disembarked.

“As fate would have it”… I uttered these words right after Francesca’s departure.

However faint they were, they carried over to the driver who glanced with a smile at the empty seat beside me. Without a shred of doubt, she had put two and two together.

from Arioso7's Blog (Shirley Kirsten) https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/favorites-on-an-off-the-you-tube-screen/

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