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You're listening to the piano part, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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In the first half of this episode, we spoke to Dr. Marilyn Nunken about her career as
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a concert pianist, recording artist, and her love and passion for piano music by living
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composers.
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Check out our YouTube or podcast channel if you missed it.
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And now, the conclusion.
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You mentioned about bridges.
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So you talk about that in a research article, Performance Practices, which was written in
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pretty recent, right?
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And that article, I'm going to post it on the description section for the audience,
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but it was very inspiring.
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So you're comparing two artists, and then one of them is your teacher, David Burge.
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So first of all, I'm curious to know about him.
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And it sounds like he has such a great impact on your career as a pianist and musicologist,
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of course, but as an educator as well.
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And one of the things, like I'm an educator as well, I ask myself, what does it mean to
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be an educated musician, trained musician in this new era, especially after this very
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difficult two years we had?
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What does it mean?
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What sort of skills, what sort of training, what sort of knowledge we have to have, what
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sort of function we need to be involved in, right?
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Then I think you mentioned that in one of the videos I saw that David Burge mentioned
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that the reason that contemporary music did not reach listeners was not because of the
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composer but the fault of the performer.
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So he has this strong opinion about being a performer.
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So could you just tell us a little bit about Mr. Burge?
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He is a wonderful teacher for me.
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I worked with him for only two years, which always makes me feel that if you come in contact
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with a great teacher, it can be for, doesn't need to be for.
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When I see people who want to stay with their teacher for four or five, six, seven, eight
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years, we love our teachers, but often the gifts they give us, they give us fairly quickly
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and it can last a lifetime.
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An excellent lesson.
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I think always with teachers, it's about the quality of the time that you spend with them
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and not the quantity of time you spend with them.
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David was an extraordinarily provocative person.
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He really, really believed that the function of the performer is to serve the living composer.
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He didn't like being called a new music pianist.
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He thought that's what all pianists should do.
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I mean, he was trained with classical music.
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He studied with, you know, Berks was a Belgian pianist who very much came from the lineage
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of Liszt and the virtuoso playing.
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And David, I think, really saw his role wherever he went as promoting the composers of his
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own time.
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And this could be a great colleague of his, like George Crum, who was his colleague in
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an early job at Colorado College, or it could be just anyone that he met.
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He played, he was not about who is the greatest composer to play, but felt that with his traditional
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repertoire, always to be performing new works by people he met.
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They could be very important people.
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They could be student composers.
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He felt that was necessary in that if performers did not do that, they were late.
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And he just had this perspective that he thought it was great laziness only to play pieces
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for which there was already established performance practice, but that performers needed to be
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out there creating new performance practices and making connections with composers.
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I think that counters what might have been a very typical view a few years ago, which
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was that contemporary composers don't know how to write for piano.
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And that this is, you know, and it's true, there's many composers who don't write well
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for piano.
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But there are many composers, like as I found with Tristan Murai or somebody who writes
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for piano.
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And that's probably, I guess David would say it would be lazy to hear, to have a couple
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bad experiences with contemporary pieces and say, well, there's just nothing here for me.
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He always felt there was something for every pianist in the contemporary repertoire.
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He was a tremendous, a tremendous influence that way.
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He also very much believed as I do that technique is natural and that most performers, pianists
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do not play well because of things which are, let's say, based on too much tension or extraneous
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motion, extraneous gesture, negative things that they have acquired.
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And if you can excise those things, the natural technique is a healthy technique, which is
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more about uncovering the natural technique within a person, not imposing another kind
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of thing on top of them.
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He was an extraordinarily powerful player, but also just a terrifically relaxed player.
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And I guess one of the great images I have of him is him walking on stage for a concert
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and he was like six foot four, an incredibly skinny guy.
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And just sort of would just stride on stage, sit down, start playing.
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Just like, there was this energy, just this complete, he didn't sit down and get set and
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get ready.
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And he used to laugh at what he said at the pianist who would sit down on stage and look
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for God, when they started to play.
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Looking up and getting in the, because I remember mentioning it to him and he said, if you're
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standing backstage and you're not ready to play, he said, you should have been ready
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two weeks ago.
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You should not be getting into the mood as you sit down.
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You should have been there two weeks ago and be ready to sit down and show it.
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And that lack of attention.
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He was an awe-inspiring figure, but certainly there was that sense that what we do is very
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direct.
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What we do is very natural.
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You don't need a big show to play passively.
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You really write about his story comparing to his, I guess, contemporary pianist, Mr.
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Miller.
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Those two have completely different paths, yet there's a common interest in music or
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how.
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So the article I read, there are three words, three things just popped out of in my head.
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It's the access and self-preservation and audience engagement.
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So those are very, I mean, never ending discussions as musicians since the beginning of this music,
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music, I guess, creation.
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But as an educator, what do you think about all these three very important topics, especially
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let's focus on self-preservation?
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I'm not sure.
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To me, my interpretation of that word was how we can sustain ourselves as musicians.
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That's a topic really that we need to discuss, especially we went through some really horrendous
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two years.
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And so that and self-preservation as in maybe preserving the tradition of classical music.
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So if you could just briefly tell us what you think.
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Sure.
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I think you're so right.
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And I appreciate you reading the article so carefully about David Burge and Robert Miller,
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who I didn't know they were contemporaries.
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They were both great interpreters and living composers.
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And David Burge was someone who was sort of almost a musical populist.
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He was always traveling small towns, large towns, different communities, different styles
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of music, really reaching as many people as he could.
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And Robert Miller, just as a contrast, was a New York based, very successful lawyer actually
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for his job, who in his sort of spare time, of course he was brilliant, was a great pianist
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concertizing at Carnegie Hall, at Rickenhall, basically New York, Boston and Princeton,
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working with an extremely select group of composers and playing for very elite audiences
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and making wonderful recordings.
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They both made incredible recordings and were terrific, in some ways terrific models.
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Well, there aren't a whole lot of models sometimes we look for, but models for myself of pianists
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who played the music of living composers.
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But yeah, so different, right?
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So how does that play into the idea of self-preservation?
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I think one of the ideas, how do we sustain ourselves, that I think is in common to these
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two different types of performers, it's important about finding your community, finding your
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people.
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To create a career where you sustain yourself as a musician, you have to have that sense
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of purpose of what is the music you play and who are you playing it for?
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And I think sometimes when I see young grad students here at NYU or in the field, that's
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a hard thing to decide because when we're educated, we're told, oh, you play everything,
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you play Bach, you play romantic, Baroque, classical, maybe 20th century, maybe new music.
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And who do you want to play?
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Well, I want to play for anyone.
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You have this idea we want to play for everybody.
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But it's a crazy kind of career path.
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We can't play all music.
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We can't play all music for everyone all the time.
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It's hard to find anyone to listen to us sometimes.
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So the idea, I think my thoughts on the self-preservation, to sustain a career, you have to have this
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idea of what are you in it for?
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What is the music that you care most deeply about?
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And what are the strategies you can develop to bring that to people who either already
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appreciate it or people that you want to bring that to music to who do not have access to
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it already?
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And so again, it's about connecting with the community.
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So someone like Robert Miller, maybe people might say, well, it's very elitist, but he
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connected with composers, with listeners, with funders, with presenters.
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He was able to sustain a very limited kind of career in a way because maybe it was a
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narrow group of people, but it was a very deep group of people.
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It was a little seam of gold that he had there.
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And I think actually in classical, we call it that music, a lot of classical music is
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like that.
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It's a very small listenership.
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It's a very devoted listenership.
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And how many people will go see the complete Beethoven sonatas?
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It's a group of people who want to hear those pieces again and again and again, played by
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different performers, different ways, the niche, but it's a very rich kind of niche.
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Or you might have a player who says, well, I want to play that music, but I want to play
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it if people have never heard it before.
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I want to go out to places where it's not played every season, you know, at a big hall.
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I want to go and play it in a venue where nobody hears piano music a lot.
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And I want to introduce people to these pieces.
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So sometimes it's about repertoire, sometimes it's about audiences, but about finding a
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community of listeners that aligns with the repertoire that you love and the role you
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see for yourself as an interpreter of the music.
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So I suppose in order to talk about self-preservation, we really have to have these specific goals,
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you know, about what our role is.
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I don't think there's one role of a pianist, but it's about finding the particular role
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for you.
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Do you think we should be more equipped as a pianist?
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This is the really difficult question, right?
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Because to be honest, school tuition is not really something that, you know, we really
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have to talk about it.
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You know, we have the student loan that we owe after we graduate and we have to be very
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creative in terms of how we sustain ourselves, literally.
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So I've been asking some guests about should the school teach students about different
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ways, like maybe different software that they need to know or in a more practical way?
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So what do you think of that?
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I know it's a little difficult question, but I think absolutely.
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I mean, I think just teaching, I don't want to say just teaching music, but the ideas
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of how to create a career and how to create an interesting individual career, it's not
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ethical not to teach these things.
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I really feel an ethical obligation.
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It's not that there are too many musicians, but I feel sometimes there are too many pianists
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graduating who all are playing the same music and have the same general idea about what
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their function is.
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I'm going to teach, I'm going to do some chamber music, I'll do some solo music, I'll do this.
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I teach a class, a professional development course here in piano studies.
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And a lot of times people all seem to have the same basic career goals.
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And there's just not room for so many people with such general ideas.
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So I often try to work with the students.
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What kind of audiences do you want to play for?
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What type of music do you really want to play?
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What are ways you could reach people that are not just the typical ways of reaching
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listeners?
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And I think it's important to consider that for schools to teach these different skills.
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And it's not just marketing so much as helping students realize it's important to be obviously
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a good well-rounded musician, but the most unique career opportunities are not going
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to go to the most well-rounded person.
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They're going to go to the person whose work captures people's attention and interests.
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And often that is, it's not fair, but it doesn't always go to the person who has the largest
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repertoire.
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Maybe the most compelling way of putting it out there and communicating with listeners.
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So that's, I think, really important.
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I will say when we talked about my recording of Tristan Murey and that was, when I made
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it people didn't really know who I was, which is fine.
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I wanted to make the recording.
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But after that came out I was the only pianist, and I still am in some ways playing that music
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in this country.
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So it resulted in a tremendous amount of opportunities because if people wanted to hear that music,
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they had to ask me to play it.
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So it's a way of saying that if you have something that you do which is special, the opportunities
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will have to come to you because there's no one else who does that.
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And so I think it's that idea of specificity does not need to be about contemporary music,
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but there's this wonderful story.
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The American pianist Richard Bullig was a pianist in the 1930s, a wonderful, wonderful
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American who went and studied in Europe and came back to America and played his first
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performances of Debussy and Scriabin and Schoenberg.
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Richard Bullig, a fabulous legacy.
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But there's a story of John Cage as a student, like 19 years old, camping out on Richard
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Bullig's driveway in California, wanting to hear him play Schoenberg's Opus 11, the
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three pieces, which were written in 1909.
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Richard Bullig was the only person who played them in the country and they hadn't really
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been recorded or anything.
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And John Cage literally camping out and waiting for him to come home and asking him to play
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these pieces for him.
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And it's that sense that that's the greatest tribute to any player is that someone wants
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to hear what you have to play.
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And so I think especially in this day and age when there's so much recorded music, we
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want to encourage our students and for ourselves to find something that we do which has that
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uniqueness that we believe is that special, people will need to come to us for.
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You are really training these musicians that come to grad school at NYU or even undergraduate
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and they are playing these new music.
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First of all, I'm curious of the audition process.
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It's a different school, right?
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I also actually, 2005, I was going to study at NYU with Mr. Bernstein.
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But at the time I was very young and my teacher in Kansas was so worried that I decided to
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go to UMass Amherst.
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But then I met you I think a couple years later and then talking about the PhD program.
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And I think this as a young musician, sometimes it's difficult for us to really know ourselves
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as can I do this?
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Or is this the right decision?
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Or is this even a responsible decision?
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So how is the audition process like for you as a mentor or faculty member, how do you
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choose these musicians?
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I'm curious.
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Well, I'm fortunate to have wonderful colleagues as well.
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So we're not looking, I think maybe one thing we share, we come from different backgrounds,
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different traditions, different ideas.
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I think we are not looking for one kind of pianist, but we're looking for I think more
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and more that the ideas, again, looking for people who are interesting personalities,
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have a singular voice, who have a unique way of playing.
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That's just becomes live performance, getting back to this idea, when there's so many recorded
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versions, so many things online to see, wanting to develop artists who are worth seeing live,
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where it's a different kind of voice is very important.
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It's funny because we're not a new music department.
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And I say that because actually I'm so dedicated to what we consider your traditional discipline
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technique.
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I find programs which focus on only contemporary or put a big emphasis on only contemporary
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music often, they lack some of the traditional technique or the emphasis, which I think is
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so important to actually playing the instrument.
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So we don't have, when we audition at NYU, I changed the audition requirements that we
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require obviously a Baroque, classical, romantic, and a piece written before 1945 and then just
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simply a piece written after 1945, which had not been the case before.
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And it seems like a very small change to ask for something written in the last 65 years
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or something, but it's actually quite true that many pianists still, they play a piece
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of Debussy or Scrabbin, that's their 20th century piece.
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And so to say, a lot has happened.
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So what becomes very interesting at the audition process is there's plenty of total pieces
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written after 1945 as well.
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And so what I find actually, when people audition here, that their choice of the work written
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after 1945 really shows a lot.
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And we see a little bit, maybe a student say, oh, I'm going to play Bach, Prelude and Fugue
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or Chopin-Ballade.
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The pieces we love from the earlier historical repertoire, which show a great deal, but then
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sometimes the piece they pick that's more contemporary, it's a little bit more of a
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question mark.
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What are they going to choose?
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Composed you've never heard of.
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Is it going to be a little piece?
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Is it going to be a big piece?
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Is it going to be a tonal piece, a minimalist piece, a spectral piece?
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Is it going to be, there's just so many different ways of, is it going to be a neoclassical
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work?
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There's even like Poulenc lived to 1969 or something.
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I mean, it's funny.
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So we get it.
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I find that the choice of the work written after 1945 is really revealing.
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And it does often show something a little different about what that player likes to
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do.
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It's funny because I've sometimes said if somebody really didn't want to play a piece
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written after 1945, they could play John Cage's 433 and just half a minute to not do anything.
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And that would also be such a wonderful statement.
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I think, I'm not going to do anything for this.
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And that would take such courage.
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And I think I would have, it would be a different kind of respect for a player.
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So I feel that asking people to make that kind of personal choice is part of the audition.
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And I know that we often look forward to what is that mystery piece going to be?
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The piece where there isn't such a prescriptive attitude about what might, you know, a lot
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of pianists, they'll play Ligeti etude or maybe they'll play Lennard Bernstein.
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There might be more traditional choices.
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There might be something really quite unusual.
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There might be a piece written by a student composer.
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Sometimes the student will bring a piece.
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It will be like, what is this?
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Who is this person?
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Tell us who this person is.
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And then we learn something at that audition too.
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I think for a long time, maybe in previous generations, there was an idea that we cannot
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evaluate students playing new music because we don't know what it is.
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But you can tell, always, you can tell how a person plays the piano.
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You can tell technique and color and sensitivity and expression and all of those things we
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pick up on.
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Even when we don't know the piece, we can overwhelmingly tell if it's a good performance,
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right?
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Because it's not like a new music sounds the same.
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Of course it doesn't.
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And so even when we don't know the piece, we can still learn a lot about the performer.
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I think in a way, it also shows, really, as a classical musician, sometimes I feel like
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we work so hard, but it's hard to step outside the box.
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I remember when we were younger, your teacher would say, well, you can enter a competition
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with this piece or that piece, but this piece, you definitely will feel more comfortable.
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That one, it's new, but it's different.
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Are you able to handle it?
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So I think it really shows the character of each musician.
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And that is really beautiful.
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So now, and I also mentioned this earlier, being it's Women's History Month, and we've
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seen some beautiful posts.
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And I'm someone who's very interested in music history.
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And I changed my name to Clara.
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When I came to this country, there's a certain idea.
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And I used to post on Instagram.
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Every single day, I find a composer's birthday, and I find some true facts.
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And I saw all these.
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So tell us a little bit of this project you've been doing with Women's History and what influence
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have you brought?
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It's funny because social media is always what do we do with social media?
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What do we do with visibility?
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And I try to, when I post you, I try to put up things that I think are thought-provoking.
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Last year during the pandemic, I just like many other people not sleeping well.
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And when we had Women's History Month, I think I had the idea, I'm just going to try to find
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a woman pianist or composer musician that I respect and put them up every day, one every
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day for the month.
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And last year, my real goal was not to pick the usual suspects because I think, of course,
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everyone, we always do Martha Argerich or Alicia del Rocha or Myra Hess or Annie Fisher.
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I mean, there's some people that we teach more than others.
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And Oryklar Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn, those people that we say, oh, well, those
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are our sort of go-to women composers or pianists, people we think of.
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And I wanted last year, I thought, I'm going to just hunt around being up in the middle
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of the night and whatnot.
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Find some examples of maybe not the pianists that we know about and maybe the ones we have
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recordings of, but these women who have stories that are compelling stories to learn about.
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And I learned so much.
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And this month, putting up people, you know, pianists who were emigres, people who are
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immigrants, people who were displaced during the war, women whose careers were cut short
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because of family concerns and because of the place of women.
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But these fantastic stories of performers who really toured Europe, who worked with
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important people, who works were dedicated to.
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And a lot of them are simply just lost to history because they didn't record or they
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didn't teach enough to create a lineage of students who would sort of venerate them and
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talk about them the way we talk about some other pedagogical traditions.
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So not to say that these are the most important people, but to look at their stories.
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Everyone has a story.
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And maybe part of this is my questioning.
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We always want to question the stories we're taught and to question who our maros are and
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why are we taught what, you know, our field of piano performance and pedagogy is very
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dominated by certain kinds of traditions and stories.
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And they are untrue at all, but they're one version of history.
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And so I suppose my musicologist sense, music historian sense is always asking, well, what
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are the other stories that coexist and what are the other kinds of narratives that we
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can think of, which especially for women pianists, we don't have models like that.
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We don't have so many of those stories.
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And maybe this is getting into dangerous territory, but certainly a lot of young women pianists
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damage their hands and suffer injuries trying to sound like a male pianist and play the
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piano in a way that is maybe not the way physically.
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So that's the idea of searching for different kinds of models that might be more appropriate
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to which we might be more sympathetic to, I guess, in Women's History Month.
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That's true.
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Wow.
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I'm learning so much really.
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You know, I am definitely one of those people.
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Sometimes I look at your posts and I'm Googling more and learning more.
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And that's actually true.
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I didn't even think of this being like, you know, when I was younger, I did have very
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skinny arms.
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And so that was always kind of a thing.
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I felt like I couldn't really find the music that I felt.
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And that was also very picky with the song.
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I didn't really...
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This is all making so much sense.
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And I tend to try to inspire my own students as well.
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I think sometimes as educators or even musicians ourselves, you know, we all have to be...
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Inspiration really is the most important thing.
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It doesn't matter how good we are.
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If we're not inspired, it's hard to keep on going forward.
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So what you're doing is really tremendous.
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I was going to mention one other thing with this, the deal of female women as role models.
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But I say early on when I first became serious about playing, one of the first things I did
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of course was get tendonitis as a young teenager.
400
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I was doing a lot, suddenly exploring a lot of technique, having male teachers, suddenly
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lots of playing.
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And you see this a lot.
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And the idea about finding the repertoire that is right physically and expressively
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and developing technique and approach to the piano that is individual is something that
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I think is important.
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You know, artistically we talk about, but also just in terms of physical and mental
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health, that's a very big issue.
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And certainly with young people, we see a lot of issues as musicians with psychological
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stress and physical.
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We need to pay a lot of attention to that.
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Let's talk about your latest future project.
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One is you just released a CD album called Syncopated Musings, which music of mainly
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Scott Joplin.
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So which is a really big shift from all the other pieces, but come to find out.
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I guess Joplin, Mr. Joplin and then Schoenenberg and Charles Ives, they're the contemporary
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composers right there.
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They share the same era.
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So can you tell us a little bit more?
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Absolutely.
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Well, the early 20th century is such a rich, right, a rich, rich time period.
421
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And I came to Joplin's music a strange, strange way.
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00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:50,400
Obviously the closest thing I really played before doing this was Charles Ives' Concord
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Sonata, which, you know, refers to ragtime and American popular music in it.
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But during the pandemic, I really became very serious about Joplin and his composers he
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worked with, his contemporaries.
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When we had the lockdown, so many people found changed their plans and I had to stop
427
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performing.
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And I suddenly was at home with my upright piano, which is not my instrument of choice.
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I wasn't able to come to my studio to work.
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And I found I was not able to keep playing the same repertoire.
431
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I found a different instrument.
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I wanted to have a different music for that piano.
433
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:32,000
I didn't feel right just playing the same repertoire on this different instrument for
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no reason without any chance to perform it.
435
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,080
And we've always had this book of Joplin's piano music.
436
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:39,920
In fact, that's right.
437
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Maybe people had it's a very, it's a very, it's a very traditional.
438
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How sweet.
439
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,840
I had this in our house.
440
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:52,800
My husband is actually a very big fan of early American music.
441
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,920
And I thought, oh, to start looking through this, you know, just to play every night,
442
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just to keep playing.
443
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And I'd never really spent time with the scores.
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And I just sort of fell in love with the notation.
445
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:09,520
Was really impressed in odd way with the music that I'd never spent time really listening
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to or looking at.
447
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,560
Those are kind of elegance.
448
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:17,920
And I don't use it we're disciplined, but the scores are very particular.
449
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,200
It wasn't my image of what ragtime music was.
450
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:26,520
My idea of ragtime was kind of bar room piano and people in funny hats and you know, this
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00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,120
more the idea of a popular music.
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00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:35,840
Whereas when I looked at the scores, I thought this looks music written by a very intelligent,
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serious, thoughtful composer.
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And so I was playing a lot of the pieces and I actually was playing a lot of the pieces
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written by Joplin with a collaborator.
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00:31:46,260 --> 00:31:51,600
And this was something Scott Joplin I learned was part of a community of very well trained
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00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:52,600
performers.
458
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:53,600
He was a singer.
459
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:55,600
He was a violinist, a quartet player.
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He was not only a composer, but a teacher.
461
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:05,640
And Joplin moved in a circle of other very well educated black composer, performer who
462
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,760
toured, who wrote, who taught.
463
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:14,240
And in many cases when these other composers like Scott Hayden, like Arthur Marshall, Joseph
464
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,760
Lamb, well Joseph Lamb was not part of that community, but when these composers wanted
465
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,840
to get published, Joplin would say, well, let me, I'll work with you.
466
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,560
We can put both of our names on it and it'll get published faster, make more money because
467
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:26,560
my name is on it.
468
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,600
Because Scott Joplin was so well known and these other composers were.
469
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:33,760
There's all these pieces written by Joplin and someone else.
470
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,480
And it's very interesting as a performer to try to figure out how much is really Joplin
471
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,520
because Joplin has such a distinctive style.
472
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:41,640
And then like Scott Hayden, it's quite different.
473
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,360
And sometimes you can really tell who wrote what or sometimes it's really clear that Joplin
474
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:51,000
didn't really write much of it at all, but his name is just on it to attract more players.
475
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:56,560
So I'm really interested in playing this music, which is musically challenging.
476
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:57,560
It's interesting.
477
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:58,880
It's virtuosic.
478
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,500
It was a challenge for me because it was entirely different than what I'd been doing.
479
00:33:02,500 --> 00:33:09,040
And my husband who is very musically savvy, but not a professional musician, and not a
480
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:11,240
musician really, but very good listener.
481
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:15,720
He said, well, why don't you present this to your record company and see if they'd like
482
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:17,920
a recording of Joplin?
483
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,520
And I thought, well, I don't know, does the world really need this from me right now?
484
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:26,320
But then the more I listened to other existing recordings of Joplin, I thought, you know,
485
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,000
I feel like I have a different take on this.
486
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,320
I feel I have something I want to say, which is always what we're after.
487
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,120
Is there something that we can provide to the musical universe that's not already out
488
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:37,120
there?
489
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,080
And the more I listened to other recordings, I thought, you know, I really, I don't really
490
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:42,560
like some of these recordings so much.
491
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,480
I would like to have my own say on how maybe this music goes.
492
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,680
So I contacted the same record company that did musicals just down the road.
493
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:56,400
You go back into my music and the producer there is like, I love Joplin.
494
00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:00,960
It's just so funny because suddenly I find people come out of the woodwork that quite
495
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:05,080
a lot of people like Joplin, but it's also one of these things that in a conservatory
496
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,920
environment is not quite accepted, right?
497
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:13,160
Has this idea of being more of a popular, not a classical, what does that mean?
498
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:19,440
You know, there was actually a student here at NYU who said, I didn't think we were allowed
499
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:20,960
to play Joplin.
500
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,280
And I thought that's very strange.
501
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,880
I mean, why would we say that?
502
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:32,520
You know, so part of me started thinking, why is it that we are not allowed or encouraged
503
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,680
to play this music or to take the music seriously?
504
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,520
So that became sort of a little mission of mine.
505
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:46,520
And so we put together this recording during the pandemic under, wow, actually recorded
506
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,520
it at NYU.
507
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,000
Wonderful but so much of this was done.
508
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,120
We didn't record it remotely, but editing, doing notes and communicating without really
509
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:58,120
seeing people.
510
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,320
But I'm very, very proud of the project.
511
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:05,920
It came out last month, so it's the music of Scott Joplin and his collaborators.
512
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:12,160
It also includes a few of Joplin's solo compositions that he wrote.
513
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:17,200
And this is available on all music streaming services and also Amazon.
514
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:18,920
You can purchase a CD.
515
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:19,920
That's right.
516
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:20,920
Go to the diviner.
517
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,520
We're definitely going to promote this.
518
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:30,280
Joplin, I remember a few years ago, a friend asked me to help promote Joplin on WQXR.
519
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,280
He actually shared the same birthday as me.
520
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:36,480
So I was very interested in his story.
521
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,920
And he's also on the Lower East Side, I believe, when he was in New York for a while.
522
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,880
He did come to New York.
523
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:44,880
Exactly.
524
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:50,560
What's very exciting for me is that I'm going to be playing this summer at the Joplin International
525
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:52,640
Festival in Sedalia, Missouri.
526
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,640
So wow, that's awesome.
527
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:02,400
Very exciting to, again, like New York, which we think of as this great cultural center,
528
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:06,840
but actually to go to Joplin, where Joplin settled, where these people lived, and to
529
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,320
reach a different audience.
530
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:15,440
It's an audience that venerates this music, that loves this music, that is not coming
531
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,040
to it from the same direction that I'm coming from.
532
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:20,040
For me, it's a different kind.
533
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:26,600
So I'm actually really excited to meet these new audiences and to talk about what I do
534
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:27,800
in a different way.
535
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:34,720
So I think in a sense, it's very, always important to be trying, trying new things.
536
00:36:34,720 --> 00:36:36,680
So definitely, I'm looking forward to that.
537
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:42,280
I would love to hear what are the advices you could give to young people, especially
538
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:47,280
after this crazy pandemic, you know, there's so many different ways of living, you know,
539
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:51,840
as musicians, we have to, what is your advice?
540
00:36:51,840 --> 00:37:01,320
My advice would be for people, for young pianists and teachers to think about those unique narratives,
541
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:08,320
because we all will go into music and piano because we love what we do, because we love
542
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,600
the repertoire.
543
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:13,800
And in that sense, we're all the same.
544
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:18,880
In that sense, and even the idea of playing piano in technique, there's a sameness to
545
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:19,880
that.
546
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,640
You know, the instrument is unique, but there are good things and bad things.
547
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:24,520
There are ways to play the piano that are effective.
548
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,640
There are ways to play the piano that are technically not effective.
549
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:33,040
So there's a sense when we're all at a high level working well, that we're very much a
550
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:38,000
community of people who have a lot of the same loves and abilities and talents.
551
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:45,040
So the question becomes how to distinguish yourself, what makes you unique, whether it's
552
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:50,920
the repertoire, whether it's the people you play for, whether it's how you talk about
553
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,080
the music, whether it's how you put programs together.
554
00:37:54,080 --> 00:38:00,200
It's so important for, in order for a self-sustaining career as either a teacher or a performer,
555
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:07,040
I think even as a lifelong music lover, to recognize what makes you different.
556
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:14,160
When I was small, I remember watching the Van Cliburn television and when they used to
557
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:15,600
show that on TV.
558
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:21,880
And I remember very clearly a segment in which the competitors in the Van Cliburn were playing
559
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:28,840
Chopin's first etude and they were playing away and the camera would zoom in on one set
560
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,680
of hands and then zoom out and it would be a different player.
561
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,960
And then it would zoom in on the hands and it would zoom out and be a different player.
562
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,400
And I know it was meant to show how everyone was playing so flawlessly, but the impression
563
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:44,320
it gave was that you could not tell one player from the other because everybody was playing
564
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:50,600
so fantastically well that they sort of all were uniformly excellent.
565
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:57,960
And for me, that was just sort of inspiring and also just entirely sickening because you
566
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,400
always want someone to remember what is unique about you.
567
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,960
And certainly when we love performances and remember good performers, it's for what is
568
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,320
special about them and not for what is the same.
569
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:13,960
Whereas we're aspiring to a high standard and a kind of uniformity of excellence, it's
570
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:20,400
so important for us to find and capitalize on what makes us different.
571
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:21,400
That's beautiful.
572
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:22,400
Absolutely.
573
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,880
Well, Marilyn, thank you so much.
574
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:34,400
I know we kind of gave you this bullet of questions, but we learned a lot and we appreciate
575
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:35,400
your time.
576
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:42,840
So now we want to move into this fun segment and it's called the PianoPod rapid fire questions.
577
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:48,160
We would like for you to answer them in the shortest answers as possible.
578
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:49,160
Okay.
579
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:50,160
All right.
580
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:51,160
It's really fun.
581
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:52,160
All right.
582
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:54,960
So the first question is, what is your comfort food?
583
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:55,960
My comfort food?
584
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:56,960
Comfort food.
585
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:57,960
My span.
586
00:39:57,960 --> 00:39:58,960
Great.
587
00:39:58,960 --> 00:39:59,960
All right.
588
00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:00,960
Cats or dogs?
589
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:01,960
Cats.
590
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:02,960
Yay.
591
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:08,840
What is your word or words to live by?
592
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,200
The more I practice, the luckier I get.
593
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:13,200
Beautiful.
594
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,640
What is the most important quality you look for in other people?
595
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,520
Compassion.
596
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:25,320
What is the worst quality you want to stay away from?
597
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:26,320
Incompetence.
598
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:31,680
Name three people who inspire you, living or dead.
599
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:41,000
The writer, Michel Welbeck, a French writer, a very controversial Julia Child.
600
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,000
Okay.
601
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:43,000
Great chef.
602
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:51,280
And I'm trying not to pick pianists.
603
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,880
I know.
604
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:54,920
It's difficult.
605
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:56,840
Buckle of Havill, the playwright.
606
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:59,240
Name one piece in your current playlist.
607
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:02,880
That would have to be Carmina Burana.
608
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:03,880
Great.
609
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:04,880
Yes.
610
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:05,880
You're performing very soon.
611
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:06,880
Yes.
612
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,320
Name one book title in your library.
613
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:16,600
Currently reading Coming to My Senses, which is a memoir of Alice Waters.
614
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:21,760
You get only one song or piece to listen to for the rest of your life.
615
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:22,760
What is it?
616
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:30,960
Olivier Mercier's 20 gazes on the infant Jesus by Olivier Mercier.
617
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,840
And last question, last not least, music is?
618
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:36,560
Fill in the blank.
619
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,360
Music is what the sound becomes.
620
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,760
What the sound becomes.
621
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:41,760
Wonderful.
622
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:47,720
Last quote, it's actually not mine originally, that is the quote of the French spectralists
623
00:41:47,720 --> 00:41:55,600
when they started their, became the spectral movement, the music is what sound becomes.
624
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,000
That is very, very deep.
625
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,000
Okay.
626
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:01,600
So thank you.
627
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:05,080
So this concludes this episode of the Piano Pod.
628
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:09,760
Thank you, Marilyn, for joining us today and sharing your wonderful stories and insights
629
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:11,080
and expertise.
630
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:16,960
And you can find more information about her on her website at Marylandnoncon.com.
631
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:22,880
I also want to encourage our audience to listen to her latest album, Syncopated Musings, available
632
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,460
on all music streaming services.
633
00:42:25,460 --> 00:42:31,000
And also we didn't get to mention, but you have another CD album coming up, Morton Feldman's
634
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:37,080
Complete Music for Piano and Cello, which will be released in June with the cellist
635
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:44,720
Steven Marotta, so all the links are listed in the description.
636
00:42:44,720 --> 00:42:48,000
Thank you to our wonderful audience and the fans for tuning in today.
637
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,520
If you enjoyed today's episode, please read and review on whatever podcasting platform
638
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:54,520
you use.
639
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:59,720
If you're watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and be sure to
640
00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:01,680
subscribe to our channel.
641
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,920
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
642
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:08,760
The links are in the description below.
643
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:14,240
If you're interested in to be the guest or want to recommend someone to be on our show,
644
00:43:14,240 --> 00:43:22,000
or if you'd like to sponsor us or collaborate with us, shoot us an email at the pianopodnyc.gmail.com
645
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,600
or send us a DM via social media.
646
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,360
We will see you for the next episode of the PianoPod.
647
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:29,360
Bye everyone.
648
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:30,360
Thank you, Marilyn.
649
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:31,360
Thank you so much.
650
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:32,360
Thank you for having me.
651
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:51,000
Thank you.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,080
You're listening to the piano part, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
2
00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:14,800
about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.
3
00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:19,640
In the first half of this episode, we spoke to Dr. Marilyn Nunken about her career as
4
00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:25,040
a concert pianist, recording artist, and her love and passion for piano music by living
5
00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:26,400
composers.
6
00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:30,880
Check out our YouTube or podcast channel if you missed it.
7
00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:35,400
And now, the conclusion.
8
00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:37,360
You mentioned about bridges.
9
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:43,320
So you talk about that in a research article, Performance Practices, which was written in
10
00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:46,840
pretty recent, right?
11
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:51,840
And that article, I'm going to post it on the description section for the audience,
12
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:53,280
but it was very inspiring.
13
00:00:53,280 --> 00:01:00,280
So you're comparing two artists, and then one of them is your teacher, David Burge.
14
00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:04,040
So first of all, I'm curious to know about him.
15
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:10,560
And it sounds like he has such a great impact on your career as a pianist and musicologist,
16
00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:13,960
of course, but as an educator as well.
17
00:01:13,960 --> 00:01:19,280
And one of the things, like I'm an educator as well, I ask myself, what does it mean to
18
00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:27,640
be an educated musician, trained musician in this new era, especially after this very
19
00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:29,560
difficult two years we had?
20
00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:30,560
What does it mean?
21
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:34,080
What sort of skills, what sort of training, what sort of knowledge we have to have, what
22
00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:39,480
sort of function we need to be involved in, right?
23
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:45,040
Then I think you mentioned that in one of the videos I saw that David Burge mentioned
24
00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:50,640
that the reason that contemporary music did not reach listeners was not because of the
25
00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:53,000
composer but the fault of the performer.
26
00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,360
So he has this strong opinion about being a performer.
27
00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:00,360
So could you just tell us a little bit about Mr. Burge?
28
00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:03,640
He is a wonderful teacher for me.
29
00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:12,520
I worked with him for only two years, which always makes me feel that if you come in contact
30
00:02:12,520 --> 00:02:16,200
with a great teacher, it can be for, doesn't need to be for.
31
00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:20,360
When I see people who want to stay with their teacher for four or five, six, seven, eight
32
00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:25,440
years, we love our teachers, but often the gifts they give us, they give us fairly quickly
33
00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:27,560
and it can last a lifetime.
34
00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,600
An excellent lesson.
35
00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:35,360
I think always with teachers, it's about the quality of the time that you spend with them
36
00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:39,240
and not the quantity of time you spend with them.
37
00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:43,160
David was an extraordinarily provocative person.
38
00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:50,480
He really, really believed that the function of the performer is to serve the living composer.
39
00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:53,440
He didn't like being called a new music pianist.
40
00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:55,920
He thought that's what all pianists should do.
41
00:02:55,920 --> 00:03:01,280
I mean, he was trained with classical music.
42
00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:09,360
He studied with, you know, Berks was a Belgian pianist who very much came from the lineage
43
00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,720
of Liszt and the virtuoso playing.
44
00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:21,560
And David, I think, really saw his role wherever he went as promoting the composers of his
45
00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:22,560
own time.
46
00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:27,040
And this could be a great colleague of his, like George Crum, who was his colleague in
47
00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:32,480
an early job at Colorado College, or it could be just anyone that he met.
48
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He played, he was not about who is the greatest composer to play, but felt that with his traditional
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repertoire, always to be performing new works by people he met.
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They could be very important people.
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They could be student composers.
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He felt that was necessary in that if performers did not do that, they were late.
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And he just had this perspective that he thought it was great laziness only to play pieces
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for which there was already established performance practice, but that performers needed to be
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out there creating new performance practices and making connections with composers.
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I think that counters what might have been a very typical view a few years ago, which
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was that contemporary composers don't know how to write for piano.
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And that this is, you know, and it's true, there's many composers who don't write well
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for piano.
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But there are many composers, like as I found with Tristan Murai or somebody who writes
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for piano.
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And that's probably, I guess David would say it would be lazy to hear, to have a couple
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bad experiences with contemporary pieces and say, well, there's just nothing here for me.
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He always felt there was something for every pianist in the contemporary repertoire.
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He was a tremendous, a tremendous influence that way.
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He also very much believed as I do that technique is natural and that most performers, pianists
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do not play well because of things which are, let's say, based on too much tension or extraneous
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motion, extraneous gesture, negative things that they have acquired.
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And if you can excise those things, the natural technique is a healthy technique, which is
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more about uncovering the natural technique within a person, not imposing another kind
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of thing on top of them.
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He was an extraordinarily powerful player, but also just a terrifically relaxed player.
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And I guess one of the great images I have of him is him walking on stage for a concert
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and he was like six foot four, an incredibly skinny guy.
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And just sort of would just stride on stage, sit down, start playing.
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Just like, there was this energy, just this complete, he didn't sit down and get set and
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get ready.
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And he used to laugh at what he said at the pianist who would sit down on stage and look
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for God, when they started to play.
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Looking up and getting in the, because I remember mentioning it to him and he said, if you're
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standing backstage and you're not ready to play, he said, you should have been ready
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two weeks ago.
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You should not be getting into the mood as you sit down.
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You should have been there two weeks ago and be ready to sit down and show it.
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And that lack of attention.
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He was an awe-inspiring figure, but certainly there was that sense that what we do is very
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direct.
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What we do is very natural.
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You don't need a big show to play passively.
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You really write about his story comparing to his, I guess, contemporary pianist, Mr.
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Miller.
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Those two have completely different paths, yet there's a common interest in music or
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how.
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So the article I read, there are three words, three things just popped out of in my head.
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It's the access and self-preservation and audience engagement.
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So those are very, I mean, never ending discussions as musicians since the beginning of this music,
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music, I guess, creation.
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But as an educator, what do you think about all these three very important topics, especially
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let's focus on self-preservation?
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I'm not sure.
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To me, my interpretation of that word was how we can sustain ourselves as musicians.
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That's a topic really that we need to discuss, especially we went through some really horrendous
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two years.
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And so that and self-preservation as in maybe preserving the tradition of classical music.
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So if you could just briefly tell us what you think.
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Sure.
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I think you're so right.
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And I appreciate you reading the article so carefully about David Burge and Robert Miller,
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who I didn't know they were contemporaries.
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They were both great interpreters and living composers.
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And David Burge was someone who was sort of almost a musical populist.
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He was always traveling small towns, large towns, different communities, different styles
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of music, really reaching as many people as he could.
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And Robert Miller, just as a contrast, was a New York based, very successful lawyer actually
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for his job, who in his sort of spare time, of course he was brilliant, was a great pianist
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concertizing at Carnegie Hall, at Rickenhall, basically New York, Boston and Princeton,
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working with an extremely select group of composers and playing for very elite audiences
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and making wonderful recordings.
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They both made incredible recordings and were terrific, in some ways terrific models.
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Well, there aren't a whole lot of models sometimes we look for, but models for myself of pianists
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who played the music of living composers.
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But yeah, so different, right?
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So how does that play into the idea of self-preservation?
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I think one of the ideas, how do we sustain ourselves, that I think is in common to these
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two different types of performers, it's important about finding your community, finding your
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people.
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To create a career where you sustain yourself as a musician, you have to have that sense
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of purpose of what is the music you play and who are you playing it for?
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And I think sometimes when I see young grad students here at NYU or in the field, that's
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a hard thing to decide because when we're educated, we're told, oh, you play everything,
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you play Bach, you play romantic, Baroque, classical, maybe 20th century, maybe new music.
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And who do you want to play?
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Well, I want to play for anyone.
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You have this idea we want to play for everybody.
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But it's a crazy kind of career path.
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We can't play all music.
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We can't play all music for everyone all the time.
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It's hard to find anyone to listen to us sometimes.
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So the idea, I think my thoughts on the self-preservation, to sustain a career, you have to have this
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idea of what are you in it for?
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What is the music that you care most deeply about?
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And what are the strategies you can develop to bring that to people who either already
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appreciate it or people that you want to bring that to music to who do not have access to
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it already?
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And so again, it's about connecting with the community.
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So someone like Robert Miller, maybe people might say, well, it's very elitist, but he
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connected with composers, with listeners, with funders, with presenters.
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He was able to sustain a very limited kind of career in a way because maybe it was a
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narrow group of people, but it was a very deep group of people.
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It was a little seam of gold that he had there.
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And I think actually in classical, we call it that music, a lot of classical music is
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like that.
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It's a very small listenership.
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It's a very devoted listenership.
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And how many people will go see the complete Beethoven sonatas?
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It's a group of people who want to hear those pieces again and again and again, played by
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different performers, different ways, the niche, but it's a very rich kind of niche.
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Or you might have a player who says, well, I want to play that music, but I want to play
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it if people have never heard it before.
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I want to go out to places where it's not played every season, you know, at a big hall.
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I want to go and play it in a venue where nobody hears piano music a lot.
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And I want to introduce people to these pieces.
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So sometimes it's about repertoire, sometimes it's about audiences, but about finding a
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community of listeners that aligns with the repertoire that you love and the role you
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see for yourself as an interpreter of the music.
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So I suppose in order to talk about self-preservation, we really have to have these specific goals,
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you know, about what our role is.
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I don't think there's one role of a pianist, but it's about finding the particular role
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for you.
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Do you think we should be more equipped as a pianist?
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This is the really difficult question, right?
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Because to be honest, school tuition is not really something that, you know, we really
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have to talk about it.
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You know, we have the student loan that we owe after we graduate and we have to be very
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creative in terms of how we sustain ourselves, literally.
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So I've been asking some guests about should the school teach students about different
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ways, like maybe different software that they need to know or in a more practical way?
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So what do you think of that?
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I know it's a little difficult question, but I think absolutely.
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I mean, I think just teaching, I don't want to say just teaching music, but the ideas
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of how to create a career and how to create an interesting individual career, it's not
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ethical not to teach these things.
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I really feel an ethical obligation.
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It's not that there are too many musicians, but I feel sometimes there are too many pianists
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graduating who all are playing the same music and have the same general idea about what
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their function is.
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I'm going to teach, I'm going to do some chamber music, I'll do some solo music, I'll do this.
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I teach a class, a professional development course here in piano studies.
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And a lot of times people all seem to have the same basic career goals.
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And there's just not room for so many people with such general ideas.
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So I often try to work with the students.
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What kind of audiences do you want to play for?
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What type of music do you really want to play?
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What are ways you could reach people that are not just the typical ways of reaching
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listeners?
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And I think it's important to consider that for schools to teach these different skills.
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And it's not just marketing so much as helping students realize it's important to be obviously
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a good well-rounded musician, but the most unique career opportunities are not going
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to go to the most well-rounded person.
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They're going to go to the person whose work captures people's attention and interests.
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And often that is, it's not fair, but it doesn't always go to the person who has the largest
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repertoire.
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Maybe the most compelling way of putting it out there and communicating with listeners.
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So that's, I think, really important.
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I will say when we talked about my recording of Tristan Murey and that was, when I made
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it people didn't really know who I was, which is fine.
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I wanted to make the recording.
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But after that came out I was the only pianist, and I still am in some ways playing that music
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in this country.
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So it resulted in a tremendous amount of opportunities because if people wanted to hear that music,
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they had to ask me to play it.
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So it's a way of saying that if you have something that you do which is special, the opportunities
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will have to come to you because there's no one else who does that.
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And so I think it's that idea of specificity does not need to be about contemporary music,
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but there's this wonderful story.
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The American pianist Richard Bullig was a pianist in the 1930s, a wonderful, wonderful
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American who went and studied in Europe and came back to America and played his first
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performances of Debussy and Scriabin and Schoenberg.
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Richard Bullig, a fabulous legacy.
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But there's a story of John Cage as a student, like 19 years old, camping out on Richard
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Bullig's driveway in California, wanting to hear him play Schoenberg's Opus 11, the
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three pieces, which were written in 1909.
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Richard Bullig was the only person who played them in the country and they hadn't really
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been recorded or anything.
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And John Cage literally camping out and waiting for him to come home and asking him to play
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these pieces for him.
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And it's that sense that that's the greatest tribute to any player is that someone wants
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to hear what you have to play.
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And so I think especially in this day and age when there's so much recorded music, we
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want to encourage our students and for ourselves to find something that we do which has that
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uniqueness that we believe is that special, people will need to come to us for.
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You are really training these musicians that come to grad school at NYU or even undergraduate
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and they are playing these new music.
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First of all, I'm curious of the audition process.
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It's a different school, right?
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I also actually, 2005, I was going to study at NYU with Mr. Bernstein.
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But at the time I was very young and my teacher in Kansas was so worried that I decided to
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go to UMass Amherst.
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But then I met you I think a couple years later and then talking about the PhD program.
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And I think this as a young musician, sometimes it's difficult for us to really know ourselves
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as can I do this?
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Or is this the right decision?
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Or is this even a responsible decision?
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So how is the audition process like for you as a mentor or faculty member, how do you
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choose these musicians?
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I'm curious.
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Well, I'm fortunate to have wonderful colleagues as well.
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So we're not looking, I think maybe one thing we share, we come from different backgrounds,
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different traditions, different ideas.
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I think we are not looking for one kind of pianist, but we're looking for I think more
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and more that the ideas, again, looking for people who are interesting personalities,
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have a singular voice, who have a unique way of playing.
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That's just becomes live performance, getting back to this idea, when there's so many recorded
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versions, so many things online to see, wanting to develop artists who are worth seeing live,
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where it's a different kind of voice is very important.
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It's funny because we're not a new music department.
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And I say that because actually I'm so dedicated to what we consider your traditional discipline
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technique.
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I find programs which focus on only contemporary or put a big emphasis on only contemporary
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music often, they lack some of the traditional technique or the emphasis, which I think is
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so important to actually playing the instrument.
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So we don't have, when we audition at NYU, I changed the audition requirements that we
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require obviously a Baroque, classical, romantic, and a piece written before 1945 and then just
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simply a piece written after 1945, which had not been the case before.
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And it seems like a very small change to ask for something written in the last 65 years
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or something, but it's actually quite true that many pianists still, they play a piece
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of Debussy or Scrabbin, that's their 20th century piece.
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And so to say, a lot has happened.
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So what becomes very interesting at the audition process is there's plenty of total pieces
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written after 1945 as well.
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And so what I find actually, when people audition here, that their choice of the work written
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after 1945 really shows a lot.
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And we see a little bit, maybe a student say, oh, I'm going to play Bach, Prelude and Fugue
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or Chopin-Ballade.
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The pieces we love from the earlier historical repertoire, which show a great deal, but then
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sometimes the piece they pick that's more contemporary, it's a little bit more of a
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question mark.
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What are they going to choose?
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Composed you've never heard of.
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Is it going to be a little piece?
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Is it going to be a big piece?
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Is it going to be a tonal piece, a minimalist piece, a spectral piece?
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Is it going to be, there's just so many different ways of, is it going to be a neoclassical
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work?
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There's even like Poulenc lived to 1969 or something.
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I mean, it's funny.
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So we get it.
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I find that the choice of the work written after 1945 is really revealing.
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And it does often show something a little different about what that player likes to
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do.
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It's funny because I've sometimes said if somebody really didn't want to play a piece
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written after 1945, they could play John Cage's 433 and just half a minute to not do anything.
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And that would also be such a wonderful statement.
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I think, I'm not going to do anything for this.
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And that would take such courage.
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And I think I would have, it would be a different kind of respect for a player.
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00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:22,540
So I feel that asking people to make that kind of personal choice is part of the audition.
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And I know that we often look forward to what is that mystery piece going to be?
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The piece where there isn't such a prescriptive attitude about what might, you know, a lot
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00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:37,760
of pianists, they'll play Ligeti etude or maybe they'll play Lennard Bernstein.
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There might be more traditional choices.
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There might be something really quite unusual.
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There might be a piece written by a student composer.
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Sometimes the student will bring a piece.
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It will be like, what is this?
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Who is this person?
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Tell us who this person is.
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And then we learn something at that audition too.
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00:21:56,840 --> 00:22:02,040
I think for a long time, maybe in previous generations, there was an idea that we cannot
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evaluate students playing new music because we don't know what it is.
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But you can tell, always, you can tell how a person plays the piano.
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00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:19,600
You can tell technique and color and sensitivity and expression and all of those things we
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00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:20,600
pick up on.
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Even when we don't know the piece, we can overwhelmingly tell if it's a good performance,
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00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:27,160
right?
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00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,520
Because it's not like a new music sounds the same.
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Of course it doesn't.
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00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:37,000
And so even when we don't know the piece, we can still learn a lot about the performer.
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I think in a way, it also shows, really, as a classical musician, sometimes I feel like
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we work so hard, but it's hard to step outside the box.
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00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:55,360
I remember when we were younger, your teacher would say, well, you can enter a competition
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00:22:55,360 --> 00:22:59,360
with this piece or that piece, but this piece, you definitely will feel more comfortable.
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That one, it's new, but it's different.
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Are you able to handle it?
325
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:08,240
So I think it really shows the character of each musician.
326
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And that is really beautiful.
327
00:23:10,340 --> 00:23:17,000
So now, and I also mentioned this earlier, being it's Women's History Month, and we've
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seen some beautiful posts.
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00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:23,200
And I'm someone who's very interested in music history.
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And I changed my name to Clara.
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00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,440
When I came to this country, there's a certain idea.
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00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,200
And I used to post on Instagram.
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00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:36,480
Every single day, I find a composer's birthday, and I find some true facts.
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00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:37,660
And I saw all these.
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00:23:37,660 --> 00:23:44,480
So tell us a little bit of this project you've been doing with Women's History and what influence
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have you brought?
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00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:50,920
It's funny because social media is always what do we do with social media?
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What do we do with visibility?
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00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:59,880
And I try to, when I post you, I try to put up things that I think are thought-provoking.
340
00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:05,320
Last year during the pandemic, I just like many other people not sleeping well.
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00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,760
And when we had Women's History Month, I think I had the idea, I'm just going to try to find
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00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:17,020
a woman pianist or composer musician that I respect and put them up every day, one every
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00:24:17,020 --> 00:24:18,520
day for the month.
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00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:24,760
And last year, my real goal was not to pick the usual suspects because I think, of course,
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00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:30,240
everyone, we always do Martha Argerich or Alicia del Rocha or Myra Hess or Annie Fisher.
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00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:34,120
I mean, there's some people that we teach more than others.
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00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:37,880
And Oryklar Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn, those people that we say, oh, well, those
348
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:44,560
are our sort of go-to women composers or pianists, people we think of.
349
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,880
And I wanted last year, I thought, I'm going to just hunt around being up in the middle
350
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:49,440
of the night and whatnot.
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00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:55,320
Find some examples of maybe not the pianists that we know about and maybe the ones we have
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00:24:55,320 --> 00:25:01,400
recordings of, but these women who have stories that are compelling stories to learn about.
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00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,080
And I learned so much.
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00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:11,000
And this month, putting up people, you know, pianists who were emigres, people who are
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00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:16,720
immigrants, people who were displaced during the war, women whose careers were cut short
356
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:21,520
because of family concerns and because of the place of women.
357
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:26,280
But these fantastic stories of performers who really toured Europe, who worked with
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00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:28,880
important people, who works were dedicated to.
359
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:34,040
And a lot of them are simply just lost to history because they didn't record or they
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00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:40,520
didn't teach enough to create a lineage of students who would sort of venerate them and
361
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,280
talk about them the way we talk about some other pedagogical traditions.
362
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:51,360
So not to say that these are the most important people, but to look at their stories.
363
00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:54,680
Everyone has a story.
364
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,440
And maybe part of this is my questioning.
365
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:03,840
We always want to question the stories we're taught and to question who our maros are and
366
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:12,740
why are we taught what, you know, our field of piano performance and pedagogy is very
367
00:26:12,740 --> 00:26:17,440
dominated by certain kinds of traditions and stories.
368
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:23,880
And they are untrue at all, but they're one version of history.
369
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:29,680
And so I suppose my musicologist sense, music historian sense is always asking, well, what
370
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:34,160
are the other stories that coexist and what are the other kinds of narratives that we
371
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:41,480
can think of, which especially for women pianists, we don't have models like that.
372
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,640
We don't have so many of those stories.
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00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:50,400
And maybe this is getting into dangerous territory, but certainly a lot of young women pianists
374
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:57,360
damage their hands and suffer injuries trying to sound like a male pianist and play the
375
00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:02,040
piano in a way that is maybe not the way physically.
376
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:09,680
So that's the idea of searching for different kinds of models that might be more appropriate
377
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,560
to which we might be more sympathetic to, I guess, in Women's History Month.
378
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:14,560
That's true.
379
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:15,560
Wow.
380
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:16,560
I'm learning so much really.
381
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:18,920
You know, I am definitely one of those people.
382
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:25,000
Sometimes I look at your posts and I'm Googling more and learning more.
383
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:26,560
And that's actually true.
384
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:31,720
I didn't even think of this being like, you know, when I was younger, I did have very
385
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:32,720
skinny arms.
386
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,680
And so that was always kind of a thing.
387
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,520
I felt like I couldn't really find the music that I felt.
388
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:40,680
And that was also very picky with the song.
389
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,680
I didn't really...
390
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:44,560
This is all making so much sense.
391
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:48,760
And I tend to try to inspire my own students as well.
392
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:56,040
I think sometimes as educators or even musicians ourselves, you know, we all have to be...
393
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:57,560
Inspiration really is the most important thing.
394
00:27:57,560 --> 00:27:59,560
It doesn't matter how good we are.
395
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,800
If we're not inspired, it's hard to keep on going forward.
396
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,360
So what you're doing is really tremendous.
397
00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:12,880
I was going to mention one other thing with this, the deal of female women as role models.
398
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:18,120
But I say early on when I first became serious about playing, one of the first things I did
399
00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:21,720
of course was get tendonitis as a young teenager.
400
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:28,360
I was doing a lot, suddenly exploring a lot of technique, having male teachers, suddenly
401
00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:29,360
lots of playing.
402
00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:31,120
And you see this a lot.
403
00:28:31,120 --> 00:28:37,760
And the idea about finding the repertoire that is right physically and expressively
404
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:43,400
and developing technique and approach to the piano that is individual is something that
405
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:44,400
I think is important.
406
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,200
You know, artistically we talk about, but also just in terms of physical and mental
407
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:50,880
health, that's a very big issue.
408
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:58,000
And certainly with young people, we see a lot of issues as musicians with psychological
409
00:28:58,000 --> 00:28:59,440
stress and physical.
410
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:03,520
We need to pay a lot of attention to that.
411
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,760
Let's talk about your latest future project.
412
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:13,000
One is you just released a CD album called Syncopated Musings, which music of mainly
413
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:14,360
Scott Joplin.
414
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:21,400
So which is a really big shift from all the other pieces, but come to find out.
415
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:29,080
I guess Joplin, Mr. Joplin and then Schoenenberg and Charles Ives, they're the contemporary
416
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:30,280
composers right there.
417
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:31,960
They share the same era.
418
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,360
So can you tell us a little bit more?
419
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:35,360
Absolutely.
420
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:40,840
Well, the early 20th century is such a rich, right, a rich, rich time period.
421
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:44,760
And I came to Joplin's music a strange, strange way.
422
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:50,400
Obviously the closest thing I really played before doing this was Charles Ives' Concord
423
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:55,080
Sonata, which, you know, refers to ragtime and American popular music in it.
424
00:29:55,080 --> 00:30:01,440
But during the pandemic, I really became very serious about Joplin and his composers he
425
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,000
worked with, his contemporaries.
426
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:09,080
When we had the lockdown, so many people found changed their plans and I had to stop
427
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:10,080
performing.
428
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:15,080
And I suddenly was at home with my upright piano, which is not my instrument of choice.
429
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,200
I wasn't able to come to my studio to work.
430
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:22,560
And I found I was not able to keep playing the same repertoire.
431
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:24,900
I found a different instrument.
432
00:30:24,900 --> 00:30:28,240
I wanted to have a different music for that piano.
433
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:32,000
I didn't feel right just playing the same repertoire on this different instrument for
434
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:34,400
no reason without any chance to perform it.
435
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,080
And we've always had this book of Joplin's piano music.
436
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:39,920
In fact, that's right.
437
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,480
Maybe people had it's a very, it's a very, it's a very traditional.
438
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:44,480
How sweet.
439
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,840
I had this in our house.
440
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:52,800
My husband is actually a very big fan of early American music.
441
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,920
And I thought, oh, to start looking through this, you know, just to play every night,
442
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:56,920
just to keep playing.
443
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,640
And I'd never really spent time with the scores.
444
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:04,280
And I just sort of fell in love with the notation.
445
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:09,520
Was really impressed in odd way with the music that I'd never spent time really listening
446
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:10,720
to or looking at.
447
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,560
Those are kind of elegance.
448
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:17,920
And I don't use it we're disciplined, but the scores are very particular.
449
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,200
It wasn't my image of what ragtime music was.
450
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:26,520
My idea of ragtime was kind of bar room piano and people in funny hats and you know, this
451
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,120
more the idea of a popular music.
452
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:35,840
Whereas when I looked at the scores, I thought this looks music written by a very intelligent,
453
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,480
serious, thoughtful composer.
454
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:43,480
And so I was playing a lot of the pieces and I actually was playing a lot of the pieces
455
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,260
written by Joplin with a collaborator.
456
00:31:46,260 --> 00:31:51,600
And this was something Scott Joplin I learned was part of a community of very well trained
457
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:52,600
performers.
458
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:53,600
He was a singer.
459
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:55,600
He was a violinist, a quartet player.
460
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,640
He was not only a composer, but a teacher.
461
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:05,640
And Joplin moved in a circle of other very well educated black composer, performer who
462
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,760
toured, who wrote, who taught.
463
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:14,240
And in many cases when these other composers like Scott Hayden, like Arthur Marshall, Joseph
464
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,760
Lamb, well Joseph Lamb was not part of that community, but when these composers wanted
465
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,840
to get published, Joplin would say, well, let me, I'll work with you.
466
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,560
We can put both of our names on it and it'll get published faster, make more money because
467
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:26,560
my name is on it.
468
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,600
Because Scott Joplin was so well known and these other composers were.
469
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:33,760
There's all these pieces written by Joplin and someone else.
470
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,480
And it's very interesting as a performer to try to figure out how much is really Joplin
471
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,520
because Joplin has such a distinctive style.
472
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:41,640
And then like Scott Hayden, it's quite different.
473
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,360
And sometimes you can really tell who wrote what or sometimes it's really clear that Joplin
474
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:51,000
didn't really write much of it at all, but his name is just on it to attract more players.
475
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:56,560
So I'm really interested in playing this music, which is musically challenging.
476
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:57,560
It's interesting.
477
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:58,880
It's virtuosic.
478
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,500
It was a challenge for me because it was entirely different than what I'd been doing.
479
00:33:02,500 --> 00:33:09,040
And my husband who is very musically savvy, but not a professional musician, and not a
480
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:11,240
musician really, but very good listener.
481
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:15,720
He said, well, why don't you present this to your record company and see if they'd like
482
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:17,920
a recording of Joplin?
483
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,520
And I thought, well, I don't know, does the world really need this from me right now?
484
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:26,320
But then the more I listened to other existing recordings of Joplin, I thought, you know,
485
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,000
I feel like I have a different take on this.
486
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,320
I feel I have something I want to say, which is always what we're after.
487
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,120
Is there something that we can provide to the musical universe that's not already out
488
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:37,120
there?
489
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,080
And the more I listened to other recordings, I thought, you know, I really, I don't really
490
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:42,560
like some of these recordings so much.
491
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,480
I would like to have my own say on how maybe this music goes.
492
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,680
So I contacted the same record company that did musicals just down the road.
493
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:56,400
You go back into my music and the producer there is like, I love Joplin.
494
00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:00,960
It's just so funny because suddenly I find people come out of the woodwork that quite
495
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:05,080
a lot of people like Joplin, but it's also one of these things that in a conservatory
496
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,920
environment is not quite accepted, right?
497
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:13,160
Has this idea of being more of a popular, not a classical, what does that mean?
498
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:19,440
You know, there was actually a student here at NYU who said, I didn't think we were allowed
499
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:20,960
to play Joplin.
500
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,280
And I thought that's very strange.
501
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,880
I mean, why would we say that?
502
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:32,520
You know, so part of me started thinking, why is it that we are not allowed or encouraged
503
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,680
to play this music or to take the music seriously?
504
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,520
So that became sort of a little mission of mine.
505
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:46,520
And so we put together this recording during the pandemic under, wow, actually recorded
506
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,520
it at NYU.
507
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,000
Wonderful but so much of this was done.
508
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:57,120
We didn't record it remotely, but editing, doing notes and communicating without really
509
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:58,120
seeing people.
510
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,320
But I'm very, very proud of the project.
511
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:05,920
It came out last month, so it's the music of Scott Joplin and his collaborators.
512
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:12,160
It also includes a few of Joplin's solo compositions that he wrote.
513
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:17,200
And this is available on all music streaming services and also Amazon.
514
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:18,920
You can purchase a CD.
515
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:19,920
That's right.
516
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:20,920
Go to the diviner.
517
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,520
We're definitely going to promote this.
518
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:30,280
Joplin, I remember a few years ago, a friend asked me to help promote Joplin on WQXR.
519
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,280
He actually shared the same birthday as me.
520
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:36,480
So I was very interested in his story.
521
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,920
And he's also on the Lower East Side, I believe, when he was in New York for a while.
522
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,880
He did come to New York.
523
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:44,880
Exactly.
524
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:50,560
What's very exciting for me is that I'm going to be playing this summer at the Joplin International
525
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:52,640
Festival in Sedalia, Missouri.
526
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,640
So wow, that's awesome.
527
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:02,400
Very exciting to, again, like New York, which we think of as this great cultural center,
528
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:06,840
but actually to go to Joplin, where Joplin settled, where these people lived, and to
529
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,320
reach a different audience.
530
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:15,440
It's an audience that venerates this music, that loves this music, that is not coming
531
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,040
to it from the same direction that I'm coming from.
532
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:20,040
For me, it's a different kind.
533
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:26,600
So I'm actually really excited to meet these new audiences and to talk about what I do
534
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:27,800
in a different way.
535
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:34,720
So I think in a sense, it's very, always important to be trying, trying new things.
536
00:36:34,720 --> 00:36:36,680
So definitely, I'm looking forward to that.
537
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:42,280
I would love to hear what are the advices you could give to young people, especially
538
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:47,280
after this crazy pandemic, you know, there's so many different ways of living, you know,
539
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:51,840
as musicians, we have to, what is your advice?
540
00:36:51,840 --> 00:37:01,320
My advice would be for people, for young pianists and teachers to think about those unique narratives,
541
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:08,320
because we all will go into music and piano because we love what we do, because we love
542
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,600
the repertoire.
543
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:13,800
And in that sense, we're all the same.
544
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:18,880
In that sense, and even the idea of playing piano in technique, there's a sameness to
545
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:19,880
that.
546
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,640
You know, the instrument is unique, but there are good things and bad things.
547
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:24,520
There are ways to play the piano that are effective.
548
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,640
There are ways to play the piano that are technically not effective.
549
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:33,040
So there's a sense when we're all at a high level working well, that we're very much a
550
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:38,000
community of people who have a lot of the same loves and abilities and talents.
551
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:45,040
So the question becomes how to distinguish yourself, what makes you unique, whether it's
552
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:50,920
the repertoire, whether it's the people you play for, whether it's how you talk about
553
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,080
the music, whether it's how you put programs together.
554
00:37:54,080 --> 00:38:00,200
It's so important for, in order for a self-sustaining career as either a teacher or a performer,
555
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:07,040
I think even as a lifelong music lover, to recognize what makes you different.
556
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:14,160
When I was small, I remember watching the Van Cliburn television and when they used to
557
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:15,600
show that on TV.
558
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:21,880
And I remember very clearly a segment in which the competitors in the Van Cliburn were playing
559
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:28,840
Chopin's first etude and they were playing away and the camera would zoom in on one set
560
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,680
of hands and then zoom out and it would be a different player.
561
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,960
And then it would zoom in on the hands and it would zoom out and be a different player.
562
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,400
And I know it was meant to show how everyone was playing so flawlessly, but the impression
563
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:44,320
it gave was that you could not tell one player from the other because everybody was playing
564
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:50,600
so fantastically well that they sort of all were uniformly excellent.
565
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:57,960
And for me, that was just sort of inspiring and also just entirely sickening because you
566
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,400
always want someone to remember what is unique about you.
567
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,960
And certainly when we love performances and remember good performers, it's for what is
568
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,320
special about them and not for what is the same.
569
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:13,960
Whereas we're aspiring to a high standard and a kind of uniformity of excellence, it's
570
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:20,400
so important for us to find and capitalize on what makes us different.
571
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:21,400
That's beautiful.
572
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:22,400
Absolutely.
573
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,880
Well, Marilyn, thank you so much.
574
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:34,400
I know we kind of gave you this bullet of questions, but we learned a lot and we appreciate
575
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:35,400
your time.
576
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:42,840
So now we want to move into this fun segment and it's called the PianoPod rapid fire questions.
577
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:48,160
We would like for you to answer them in the shortest answers as possible.
578
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:49,160
Okay.
579
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:50,160
All right.
580
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:51,160
It's really fun.
581
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:52,160
All right.
582
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:54,960
So the first question is, what is your comfort food?
583
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:55,960
My comfort food?
584
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:56,960
Comfort food.
585
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:57,960
My span.
586
00:39:57,960 --> 00:39:58,960
Great.
587
00:39:58,960 --> 00:39:59,960
All right.
588
00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:00,960
Cats or dogs?
589
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:01,960
Cats.
590
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:02,960
Yay.
591
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:08,840
What is your word or words to live by?
592
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,200
The more I practice, the luckier I get.
593
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:13,200
Beautiful.
594
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,640
What is the most important quality you look for in other people?
595
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,520
Compassion.
596
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:25,320
What is the worst quality you want to stay away from?
597
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:26,320
Incompetence.
598
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:31,680
Name three people who inspire you, living or dead.
599
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:41,000
The writer, Michel Welbeck, a French writer, a very controversial Julia Child.
600
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,000
Okay.
601
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:43,000
Great chef.
602
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:51,280
And I'm trying not to pick pianists.
603
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,880
I know.
604
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:54,920
It's difficult.
605
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:56,840
Buckle of Havill, the playwright.
606
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:59,240
Name one piece in your current playlist.
607
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:02,880
That would have to be Carmina Burana.
608
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:03,880
Great.
609
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:04,880
Yes.
610
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:05,880
You're performing very soon.
611
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:06,880
Yes.
612
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,320
Name one book title in your library.
613
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:16,600
Currently reading Coming to My Senses, which is a memoir of Alice Waters.
614
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:21,760
You get only one song or piece to listen to for the rest of your life.
615
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:22,760
What is it?
616
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:30,960
Olivier Mercier's 20 gazes on the infant Jesus by Olivier Mercier.
617
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,840
And last question, last not least, music is?
618
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:36,560
Fill in the blank.
619
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,360
Music is what the sound becomes.
620
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,760
What the sound becomes.
621
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:41,760
Wonderful.
622
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:47,720
Last quote, it's actually not mine originally, that is the quote of the French spectralists
623
00:41:47,720 --> 00:41:55,600
when they started their, became the spectral movement, the music is what sound becomes.
624
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,000
That is very, very deep.
625
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,000
Okay.
626
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:01,600
So thank you.
627
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:05,080
So this concludes this episode of the Piano Pod.
628
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:09,760
Thank you, Marilyn, for joining us today and sharing your wonderful stories and insights
629
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:11,080
and expertise.
630
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:16,960
And you can find more information about her on her website at Marylandnoncon.com.
631
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:22,880
I also want to encourage our audience to listen to her latest album, Syncopated Musings, available
632
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,460
on all music streaming services.
633
00:42:25,460 --> 00:42:31,000
And also we didn't get to mention, but you have another CD album coming up, Morton Feldman's
634
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:37,080
Complete Music for Piano and Cello, which will be released in June with the cellist
635
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:44,720
Steven Marotta, so all the links are listed in the description.
636
00:42:44,720 --> 00:42:48,000
Thank you to our wonderful audience and the fans for tuning in today.
637
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,520
If you enjoyed today's episode, please read and review on whatever podcasting platform
638
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:54,520
you use.
639
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:59,720
If you're watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and be sure to
640
00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:01,680
subscribe to our channel.
641
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,920
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
642
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:08,760
The links are in the description below.
643
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:14,240
If you're interested in to be the guest or want to recommend someone to be on our show,
644
00:43:14,240 --> 00:43:22,000
or if you'd like to sponsor us or collaborate with us, shoot us an email at the pianopodnyc.gmail.com
645
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,600
or send us a DM via social media.
646
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,360
We will see you for the next episode of the PianoPod.
647
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:29,360
Bye everyone.
648
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:30,360
Thank you, Marilyn.
649
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:31,360
Thank you so much.
650
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:32,360
Thank you for having me.
651
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:51,000
Thank you.
