"Boundless Creativity" feat. Mada & Hugh Piano Duo on Love, Life, & Artistic Freedom

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Music is the universal language. Well, if it's
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a universal language, we have a syntax problem
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because most of the people just don't understand
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what we do. I would say our mission as a duo
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is to bridge worlds and to make the world we
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connect to more beautiful. We come from very
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different cultures. And the fact that we come
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together as a four -hand piano duo sharing one
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piano, and we have to make things work, and making
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music to share with people, I think sends out
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the message that music truly connects people,
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regardless of their background or cultures. I
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think the piano in particular is one of those
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unique instruments that has truly... been able
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to bridge so many cultural barriers. This remarkable
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machine, 300 years of development, pieces of
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physics and art and engineering has come to be
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so beloved by so many different cultures and
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peoples around the world and that it's truly
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a piece of art that helps us to find a common
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voice. Hello, friends, and welcome back to Season
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6 of The Piano Pod, our season of creativity
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and connection. I am so excited for today's episode
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because our guests really bring those two ideas
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to life. You may know them as Mada and Hugh Piano
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Duo, Romanian -born pianist Madalina Danila and
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Korean -American pianist Hugh Sung. But let me
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tell you, they are so much more than a four -hand
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ensemble. Their performances are electrifying,
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their arrangements imaginative, and their videos
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pull you right into a world where tradition and
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innovation meet. What makes this conversation
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especially meaningful is their story. These are
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two artists from very different backgrounds who
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dared to take risks, reinvent themselves, and
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build something entirely new together. From Madalina's
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deep dive into George Crumb and her Romanian
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roots, to Hugh's pioneering work in music technology
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like co -creating Airturn and entrepreneurship,
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they have created not just a duo, but a shared
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artistic vision built on resilience, creativity,
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and love, with their dog Zeus often by their
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side. In our conversation, you will hear about
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their artistry, their bold arrangements, the
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unique challenges and joys of four -hand piano
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playing, their entrepreneurial spirit, and what
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it really means to bridge cultures through music.
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Before we begin, I want to pause and thank you
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for being here. Every time you hit the thumbs
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up, leave a rating, subscribe on your favorite
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podcast platform, or share an episode with a
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friend, It helps this work continue. It truly
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means the world to me, and I am so grateful for
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your support. And I also want to remind you about
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something special. The Pianopod Live in Concert
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at the Stiefel Hall, presented in partnership
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with Mattis Prep at The New School, a pre -college
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music program offering comprehensive and nurturing
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pre -professional training. Please join us on
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October 4th. for an unforgettable evening of
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music, conversation, and community. So with that,
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here is Season 6, Episode 2 of The Piano Pod
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with the award -winning Mada and Hugh Piano Duo.
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Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The
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Piano Pod, where we talk to the brightest minds
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in the industry about how they are bringing the
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piano into the future and thriving in a complex,
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ever -evolving world. Maralina and Hugh, welcome
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to The Piano Pod. Thank you for being here today,
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and you are a truly captivating duo, and I'm
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so excited that you're here, not only for your
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artistry, but for the way you've... build your
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brand and life together and performances that
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bridge cultures and generations and the repertoire
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spanning classical masterpieces to your own well
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crafted arrangements of, you know, pop tunes
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and so on. And your videos and podcast, you know,
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we are fellow podcasters here and are super educational
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that really invite audiences with clarity. warmth
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and joy. I'm so looking forward to exploring
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your individual projects as well today and then
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entrepreneurship also. So as we begin, I'd like
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to start with this question. If you were to describe
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your mission or passion in a few words or in
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a sentence or two, how would you describe it?
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So for me is making music, living an artistic
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life and sharing my talents and my gifts. and
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what I believe in with people and making this
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place better as much as I can. Beautiful. Yeah,
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I think it's a wonderful statement. For me, I
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come from a place where I'm very conscious of
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the fact that what we do as pianists, as musicians,
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is very, how should we say, very disconnected
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with the modern world in some ways. And I remember
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very much as a child growing up, not understanding
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the musical language at all and um struggling
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with you know being forced into this world of
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playing and and playing all these wonderful masterpieces
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but having no idea what anything meant so for
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me my passion my personal passion has been to
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connect with audiences and really Help them to
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feel welcome, to learn about what we do, to share
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how beautiful music can be, and to understand
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that there can be a lot to absorb and to try
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to make what we do as presentable in a way so
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that our art is as welcoming as possible to as
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many people as possible, not just art for its
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own sake. Well said. Thank you. And would you
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like to say as the mission as to? as a duo i
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would say our mission as a duo is to bridge worlds
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and to make the world we connect to more beautiful
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yeah first of all we we come from very different
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cultures extremely different cultures and backgrounds
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they cannot emphasize different enough and the
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fact that we come together as a four -hand piano
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duo sharing one piano so it's not even you know
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two instruments so two pianos but one piano and
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we have to make things work we have to collaborate
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at all possible levels and making music to share
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with people i think sends out the message that
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music truly connects people regardless of their
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background or cultures or ways of thinking or
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political ideas you know etc and Yeah, I think
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our goal becomes their goal. So it becomes a
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unified. I think the piano in particular is one
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of those unique instruments that has truly been
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able to bridge so many cultural barriers. This
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remarkable machine, 300 years of development
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from Cristofori's first pianofortes to what we
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have today. it's just amazing to see how this
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this complex one of the most complex pieces of
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physics and art and engineering has come to be
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so beloved by so many different cultures and
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peoples around the world and that it's it's truly
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a machine from intents and purposes a piece of
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art that helps us to find a common voice so i
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would say if we were to make it a marketing speak
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maybe four hands one piano One world in one piano
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or something like that. Four hands, two hearts,
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and one world. Yeah, exactly. That's beautiful.
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That's beautiful. Now, the hardest question of
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the day is over. So well done. Yes. We really
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need to spend some time. That's a great, great
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mission statement question that I think we still
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need to work through. But thank you for getting
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us to at least think about it. That's a great
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question to think about. Exactly. No, thank you.
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But, you know, it's nice to have intentions to
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anything we do. And actually, you both are actually
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doing it. So that's why I thought this question
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to start out with would be really appropriate
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today. But I can't help but notice this little
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baby here. Can you introduce us? For those who
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are listening, we have this little puppy on the
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screen that Madalina is holding. So can you introduce
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us? So this is Zeus. He is a 10 -month -old cotton
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detulier. I know that for many people, this breed
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can be pretty unknown. And it was unknown to
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us before we found out about it. Well, yeah,
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I think he is the glue between us. So I would...
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One of the many glues. One of the many glues,
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yes. And I would say that he's also a very important
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part backstage in terms of our duo and in terms
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of our communication skills. And I would... I'd
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like to add that, you know, as an individual,
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that one of my life's goals is to have as many
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puppies as possible. I love puppies. Enjoy life.
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He was like, no, no, no. But we do have Zeus
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on stage with us as often as possible. You know,
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it's interesting, as young as he is. And this
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particular breed is very friendly and very sweet.
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Just got the most wonderful disposition. And
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folks are just amazed that he will sit on stage
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with us just quietly. He enjoys the music. We
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take bows together with him, travels on the plane
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with us. He's been a wonderful travel companion,
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stage companion. He loves it and he loves people,
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you know, and just the most remarkable. remarkable
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dog that we've I've ever met yeah so to have
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him in our life and he has a such a I don't know
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such a good look you know he may say so I think
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so too he's just got this he doesn't look real
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he's like yeah he doesn't look he looks like
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a doll yeah he's on batteries or something yeah
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that's true well welcome Zeus so now I want to
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continue our conversation from you choose as
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a duo together. So, you know, forehand duo playing
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is such a fascinating genre, you know, rooted
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in tradition. However, it's so innovative and
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creative at the same time, right? In your case,
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I've been taking the artistry really further,
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adding visual elements and choreography with
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cross the hands, you know, and then even percussion
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effects like catatorians, saber dance. Oh, so
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tell us about this four -hand duet thing, the
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artistry of four -hand duet. Why you were so
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attracted to do it? Well, you know, obviously
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it's more practical than two pianos. Two pianos,
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of course. Yeah, tell us. Well, I mean, I think
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there will be opportunities for us to, and we're
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actually looking into doing a two -piano program
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later on. Again, whenever the opportunity is
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there, we can certainly fill that in. But pragmatically,
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for most of the concerts that we are booking,
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one piano is just easier. to get concerts for,
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just pragmatically speaking. I think he wants
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you. Oh, okay. It's my turn. So certainly Anderson
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and Rowe have been very influential in terms
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of their physicality. And I think I just admire
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so much how they brought a lot of innovative
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ways to blend forehand technique. on just another
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level that I had never seen before. And it's
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interesting, we're in the process of doing a
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retrospective on the history of forehand piano
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playing music, you know, and it seems to have,
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there were some earlier works, but Mozart and
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his sister Nannerl were really the first to,
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you know, they wrote for themselves. They were
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the first to be the sensationalized duo as children.
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For so much of that time, there were zones, polite
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zones. The male secondo, the lower voice on the
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left hand, would be in his zone, and the female
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primo would be on the upper part of the piano.
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They would stay in their places for the most
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part, and then not until we get into more of
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the romantic era that we start to see. Noddy
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hand crossings. So, you know, just to summarize
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what Hugh described, basically the development
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of the four -hand piano duo had to do a lot with
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the social environment and cultural environment
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and the changes that... a lot of big changes
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that came after the classicism, right, when Mozart
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was at its peak. And then, like you said, when
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he was a child, he would play a lot of four -hand
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duos with his sister, who apparently, and I read
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something about it just the other day, was just
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as talented as he was. Mozart in many of his
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letters to his father praised her a lot for her
00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:51.539
abilities as a pianist, as a composer. Yeah,
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unfortunately, their duo didn't continue. But
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it also had to do with, I think, the physical
00:14:57.019 --> 00:14:59.279
development of the piano. Back in Bach's time,
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the piano was simply not wide enough. It wouldn't
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be practical for two people. Not to mention that
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women had all those garments, which is impossible
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to sit closely. So there were physical barriers
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to having... forehand duets i mean certainly
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there were multi -keyboard ensembles of two pianos
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there's the three three even four four harpsichords
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right yeah but you know in box time but in terms
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of two people playing on one instrument it was
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really due to just the physical limitations of
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having you know 60 some keys as opposed to the
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88 we have now you know and as the piano developed
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then the forehand developed really as a great
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marketing tool for Brahms, who recognized the
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power of it, to have people in their homes to
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preview his symphonies or to preview larger works.
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Even Liszt, you know, arranged for four hands.
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Also, you know, Beethoven's symphonies made a
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lot of arrangements. And then, you know, Grieg.
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as a great way of getting the word out of such
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and such an opera, such and such a symphony.
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People could try it out at home and then they
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could experience the orchestra version. So the
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forehand. repertoire uh was a great marketing
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technique and of course then list people like
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yeah and also you know if you think about it
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four hands playing so two people four hands um
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all of a sudden becomes more achievable right
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to to transcribe to arrange uh an opera or a
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symphony for keyboard rather than two hands right
00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:32.019
it's just right it's uh logistics here right
00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:35.000
so everything you can fit everything um more
00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:38.620
easily into four hands rather than in two So,
00:16:38.659 --> 00:16:42.779
yeah, people started to prefer that. Maybe you
00:16:42.779 --> 00:16:45.379
already have answered, but what is it about four
00:16:45.379 --> 00:16:48.960
-hand piano versus two pianos or solo that makes
00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:52.899
it so powerful and special to you? Well, I mean,
00:16:52.980 --> 00:16:56.820
I think for each category, there's special requirements.
00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:01.220
There are limits, of course. So, you know, pros
00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:05.119
and cons. I think when it comes to four hands.
00:17:07.109 --> 00:17:10.630
to one instrument, I think four hands can easily
00:17:10.630 --> 00:17:14.329
bring out the potential of the instrument. So
00:17:14.329 --> 00:17:17.329
it becomes much more powerful than in the situation
00:17:17.329 --> 00:17:21.970
of just one person playing. And then for two
00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:25.160
pianos, a Rachmaninoff. started to fancy the
00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:29.380
two piano formula, right? And also, you know,
00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:31.000
you have to think about that concert venues started
00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.980
to become bigger and bigger. So all of a sudden,
00:17:34.019 --> 00:17:36.599
like two pianos made more sense, right, to have
00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:40.680
on stage. And sonically, it was a completely
00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:42.960
different level than just having one piano, so
00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:47.359
four hands. I think for me personally, even though
00:17:47.359 --> 00:17:51.740
I was trained as a soloist at Curtis, I always
00:17:51.740 --> 00:17:54.759
had more fun playing with friends. All my friends
00:17:54.759 --> 00:17:56.880
would say, hey, can you help me with this lesson,
00:17:56.900 --> 00:18:02.619
that? I loved it. I was more comfortable being
00:18:02.619 --> 00:18:08.420
with other musicians. Maybe it was an insecurity,
00:18:08.660 --> 00:18:11.539
who knows, but I never felt comfortable just
00:18:11.539 --> 00:18:15.140
promoting myself. So I always felt like I would
00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:19.160
rather be part of a team. And I've always enjoyed
00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.220
that aspect of teamwork where if I could be around
00:18:22.220 --> 00:18:25.720
people that would inspire me, people that were
00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:27.539
different from me, that could challenge me, I
00:18:27.539 --> 00:18:29.839
felt like I could become a better person rather
00:18:29.839 --> 00:18:33.740
than living a soloist's life, which can be very,
00:18:33.819 --> 00:18:37.680
very lonely and very. very challenging. Be careful
00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:39.220
what you wish for in terms of, you know, people
00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:46.880
to challenge you. But that's, I think for me,
00:18:46.900 --> 00:18:51.500
it has been just the, the, what the ability to
00:18:51.500 --> 00:18:55.880
bounce ideas off of her, of somebody else. And
00:18:55.880 --> 00:19:00.519
to, I love that extra added creativity of somebody
00:19:00.519 --> 00:19:03.170
else. working together so for me it's just that
00:19:03.170 --> 00:19:08.150
that unique variety of teamwork and um and it's
00:19:08.150 --> 00:19:10.690
just the forehand rep press so interesting yeah
00:19:10.690 --> 00:19:13.509
so i think uh the core of it it's the idea of
00:19:13.509 --> 00:19:15.650
chamber music right collaborating with people
00:19:15.650 --> 00:19:19.829
forming uh micro this micro society right micro
00:19:19.829 --> 00:19:22.369
family right either two or three it only comes
00:19:22.369 --> 00:19:27.500
to trios or quartets um And as opposed to solo,
00:19:27.700 --> 00:19:30.200
right? This is very different. That's why I said
00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:32.519
before that there are different rules for each
00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:36.779
category. Of course, what I've learned from playing
00:19:36.779 --> 00:19:39.200
chamber music is very, very much transferable
00:19:39.200 --> 00:19:42.759
to solo playing. It helps a lot, at least, you
00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:44.519
know, I'm speaking from personal experience.
00:19:44.700 --> 00:19:46.920
It helps a lot in terms like how I hear music,
00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:50.480
how I approach music, how can I make my two hands
00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:54.579
sound not like two hands, but more, not like.
00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:58.119
this percussion instrument but like completely
00:19:58.119 --> 00:20:01.259
like a um a human voice or an elbow or a clarinet
00:20:01.259 --> 00:20:05.339
um so you know maybe one hand is playing a noble
00:20:05.339 --> 00:20:10.000
line yeah or and and the the other one is playing
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.529
um a bass, for example, like if you think of
00:20:13.529 --> 00:20:17.150
different textures and the way to orchestrate,
00:20:17.250 --> 00:20:20.349
right? Learning from a string quartet is very
00:20:20.349 --> 00:20:22.849
helpful for pianists, for example. So that's
00:20:22.849 --> 00:20:25.269
why I'm saying like chamber music can be so,
00:20:25.390 --> 00:20:28.670
so influential on solo playing and indeed is
00:20:28.670 --> 00:20:33.230
more fun to play with people as difficult and
00:20:33.230 --> 00:20:35.769
challenging it can be as it can be sometimes,
00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:40.839
right? On stage, it is that... back and forth
00:20:40.839 --> 00:20:44.019
game. It's like a tennis game, right? It doesn't
00:20:44.019 --> 00:20:46.039
make sense to play tennis by yourself. You can
00:20:46.039 --> 00:20:48.339
play, actually. I learned tennis with the wall,
00:20:48.420 --> 00:20:53.559
just bouncing the ball against the wall. But
00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:56.519
then, you know, it's no fun. It's very limited.
00:20:56.700 --> 00:21:01.920
But I see this successful duo as siblings. you
00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:06.039
know, twins. Yeah. Yeah. And a married couple.
00:21:06.539 --> 00:21:09.640
Yeah. So it's, it's really fascinating, but that's
00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:14.400
how much also it takes time to put, put the craft,
00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:18.960
you know, craft that our artistry. Right. And
00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:23.650
it just doesn't happen very, very quickly. to
00:21:23.650 --> 00:21:27.369
coordinate no it doesn't and the fact that you
00:21:27.369 --> 00:21:29.569
know you mentioned siblings playing together
00:21:29.569 --> 00:21:34.250
or a married couple um i think is similar because
00:21:34.250 --> 00:21:36.849
you you live with the person you live with that
00:21:36.849 --> 00:21:39.529
person that you you also share a professional
00:21:39.529 --> 00:21:43.970
life with and you i think you learn about their
00:21:43.970 --> 00:21:46.390
idiosyncrasies and you learn about their way
00:21:46.390 --> 00:21:50.809
of thinking, the way they approach life. And
00:21:50.809 --> 00:21:53.710
even if you don't consciously think about all
00:21:53.710 --> 00:21:59.890
these things, I think it's just they get somewhere,
00:22:00.230 --> 00:22:03.490
right? They accumulate somewhere. And I think
00:22:03.490 --> 00:22:08.029
it's easier in a way when we are, for example,
00:22:08.029 --> 00:22:09.630
in front of the instrument and start practicing,
00:22:09.769 --> 00:22:14.589
we know each other or we should know each other.
00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:20.039
And I think we can solve problems a little bit
00:22:20.039 --> 00:22:22.920
more efficiently, or at least we're trying to,
00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:27.619
right? After some time, if you really want to
00:22:27.619 --> 00:22:29.539
make things work, you have to find an efficient
00:22:29.539 --> 00:22:33.420
way to save time and energy and sometimes even
00:22:33.420 --> 00:22:37.920
the relationship, the partnership. One of the
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:39.140
things you were alluding to at the beginning
00:22:39.140 --> 00:22:41.900
of the podcast was how challenging it is to play
00:22:41.900 --> 00:22:46.059
four hands on one piano and just, again, You're
00:22:46.059 --> 00:22:49.980
absolutely right. I do a lot of work in my, I
00:22:49.980 --> 00:22:51.779
still do a lot of work with collaborative piano,
00:22:51.819 --> 00:22:54.119
which is what I've done for most of my professional
00:22:54.119 --> 00:22:57.259
career. You know, 19 years director of instrumental
00:22:57.259 --> 00:22:59.359
accompaniment, Curtis. So I played with every
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:01.420
instrument and helped a lot of the folks in the
00:23:01.420 --> 00:23:03.039
Philadelphia Orchestra get their jobs with the
00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:07.819
auditions. But somehow working in this capacity
00:23:07.819 --> 00:23:12.930
is the most difficult. that I've ever experienced.
00:23:13.109 --> 00:23:15.089
And I think a lot of it has to do with just the
00:23:15.089 --> 00:23:18.269
nature of two people on one instrument. Yeah,
00:23:18.289 --> 00:23:20.289
two different entities. When you have two different
00:23:20.289 --> 00:23:22.490
pianos, and I've accompanied other pianists.
00:23:22.650 --> 00:23:24.769
For some reason, that doesn't seem as difficult,
00:23:24.869 --> 00:23:29.009
but one piano, wow. I mean, just the precision
00:23:29.009 --> 00:23:32.869
of making sure we land together, that we start
00:23:32.869 --> 00:23:35.859
together. it's much more amplified when you're
00:23:35.859 --> 00:23:38.539
both sharing one instrument so this is exactly
00:23:38.539 --> 00:23:41.660
the the reaction that our dear uh professor orcas
00:23:41.660 --> 00:23:44.640
had i i remember when i when i told him oh you
00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:47.539
know you know we're trying to develop this forehand
00:23:47.539 --> 00:23:51.619
oh i i don't want to hear about it like this
00:23:51.619 --> 00:23:53.799
i find this the most difficult thing and he's
00:23:53.799 --> 00:23:57.339
he's been a collaborative pianist almost his
00:23:57.339 --> 00:23:59.500
whole life. I mean, he's known for this, a chamber
00:23:59.500 --> 00:24:01.480
musician, a phenomenal chamber musician. But
00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:03.799
when he heard about this combination, he's like,
00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:06.039
oh no, I've only done it like a few times and
00:24:06.039 --> 00:24:08.940
that's it. Because it requires a lot of energy
00:24:08.940 --> 00:24:12.299
and time. And it is difficult. Like I said, two
00:24:12.299 --> 00:24:16.160
different entities in front of the same instrument
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:21.740
to make it sound as one, right? To combine ideas.
00:24:22.910 --> 00:24:25.750
and music making and make it sound like one,
00:24:25.970 --> 00:24:29.910
it is, I think, the most difficult partnership
00:24:29.910 --> 00:24:33.329
and ensembleship, I think, when it comes to chamber
00:24:33.329 --> 00:24:36.630
music. Well, but when I see you perform and on
00:24:36.630 --> 00:24:40.690
the video, it just looks so easy. We're talking
00:24:40.690 --> 00:24:43.230
about what's going on backstage. I'm sorry. We're
00:24:43.230 --> 00:24:45.869
talking about backstage stuff that people don't
00:24:45.869 --> 00:24:49.369
know about. My final product is just so beautiful
00:24:49.369 --> 00:25:21.319
and so fun. Now tell me about your arrangements.
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:26.779
Wow. Moonlight with Schubert's Serenade. Moon
00:25:26.779 --> 00:25:30.480
River. Oh, my gosh. Those combinations just blew
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:34.099
my mind. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And then the iconic
00:25:34.099 --> 00:25:37.940
rock song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. We didn't
00:25:37.940 --> 00:25:42.980
do that one. We adjusted the arrangement a little
00:25:42.980 --> 00:25:48.660
bit. The others we did. John Williams, for example.
00:25:48.940 --> 00:25:54.380
We are particularly proud of that one. The very
00:25:54.380 --> 00:25:57.019
famous rock song, Guns N' Roses, Sweet Child
00:25:57.019 --> 00:26:03.640
of Mine. That's yours. I think that one was the
00:26:03.640 --> 00:26:08.019
first one where we... tried out some crazy choreography.
00:26:08.440 --> 00:26:13.019
That was the most... And actually, it started
00:26:13.019 --> 00:26:18.160
as an experiment. We did it in three days. We
00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:20.339
just threw something together really fast. Nothing
00:26:20.339 --> 00:26:25.740
to lose. And Billy Joel's lullaby is your arrangement
00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:30.380
as well. My favorite is, of course, Sweet Adin...
00:26:30.380 --> 00:26:37.049
Dobrze. Yeah, and that's an incredible arrangement.
00:26:37.289 --> 00:26:49.809
I really enjoyed it. So this is the compilation
00:26:49.809 --> 00:26:52.690
of folk tunes from Romania, right? Certain regions
00:26:52.690 --> 00:26:56.390
of Romania. And I know you, in the video, you
00:26:56.390 --> 00:27:01.609
also explain the region and also how complex
00:27:01.609 --> 00:27:04.940
Romanian culture is actually. can you tell us
00:27:04.940 --> 00:27:08.079
about the arrangements but also the historical
00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:12.640
background and how also you guys arranged this
00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:18.500
together well in terms of um um historical background
00:27:18.500 --> 00:27:21.980
you described it very well i mean it was um it
00:27:21.980 --> 00:27:26.019
was a region quite um conquered well this is
00:27:26.019 --> 00:27:28.779
a region specifically in the south southeastern
00:27:28.779 --> 00:27:31.319
part of romania romania is in the shape of a
00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:35.359
fish Right now. Right now, the Sabah fish. And
00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:37.740
what's interesting about that particular region
00:27:37.740 --> 00:27:40.759
is that this is actually where a lot of Madalina's
00:27:40.759 --> 00:27:44.220
family comes from, the southeastern part. And
00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:49.819
it's a close proximity to Turkey. And there are
00:27:49.819 --> 00:27:53.720
eastern and western influences that are commingled
00:27:53.720 --> 00:27:58.059
in that region, which lends to the spiciness.
00:27:58.559 --> 00:28:01.599
of this suite yeah predominantly eastern influences
00:28:01.599 --> 00:28:05.039
predominantly turkish because that region was
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:09.559
for three centuries even more um under turkish
00:28:09.559 --> 00:28:13.859
occupation so a lot of the architecture music
00:28:13.859 --> 00:28:18.839
cuisine just came right there of course and before
00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:23.380
um way way back before uh he was under um roman
00:28:23.380 --> 00:28:26.160
empire right there still we remember like two
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:31.059
years ago We visited some ruins that are still
00:28:31.059 --> 00:28:34.880
there from the Roman Empire time. Still there.
00:28:35.140 --> 00:28:39.259
It's really fascinating. I mean, learning history
00:28:39.259 --> 00:28:44.319
as a child just didn't strike me as fascinating
00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:48.099
as it does right now, finding out all these details
00:28:48.099 --> 00:28:53.200
that constitute my country. So, you know, of
00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:55.640
course, meeting Madalina and, you know, I'm from
00:28:55.640 --> 00:28:58.180
South Korean heritage. I was born in the States,
00:28:58.259 --> 00:29:01.259
but my family came from South Korea and I had
00:29:01.259 --> 00:29:06.000
never had never dated a Romanian before. I mean,
00:29:06.039 --> 00:29:08.660
instantly there was this instant mystique, everything
00:29:08.660 --> 00:29:12.859
from her accent to. And I, you know, want to
00:29:12.859 --> 00:29:16.549
know more about this. beautiful, mysterious woman
00:29:16.549 --> 00:29:18.809
and where she came from. What is this place called
00:29:18.809 --> 00:29:20.970
Romania? The only thing I had reference to was
00:29:20.970 --> 00:29:22.049
that. You had to look it up on the map, huh?
00:29:22.190 --> 00:29:24.230
Well, not just look it up on the map. All I knew
00:29:24.230 --> 00:29:26.130
was, you know, for her teacher would say, ah,
00:29:26.349 --> 00:29:29.529
Ceaușescu, Dracula. It is, you know, the home
00:29:29.529 --> 00:29:31.950
of Transylvania. I mean, all these are true,
00:29:32.029 --> 00:29:33.690
of course. Of course they're true. It's just
00:29:33.690 --> 00:29:35.730
stereotypes. Of course they're stereotypes. But,
00:29:35.750 --> 00:29:37.329
you know, I love the fact that, you know, they
00:29:37.329 --> 00:29:41.029
love it. They just laugh it off. Sorry, I have
00:29:41.029 --> 00:29:43.559
to interrupt. and you saw this the other day
00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:45.819
i was re -watching some episodes of seinfeld
00:29:45.819 --> 00:29:48.799
of seinfeld show and there is one episode where
00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:53.619
jerry dates a romanian gymnast this is a an allusion
00:29:53.619 --> 00:29:57.660
to nadia who won the perfect 10 right history
00:29:57.660 --> 00:30:00.700
of gymnastic and then he mentions the name of
00:30:00.700 --> 00:30:04.259
of uh what what am i going to talk to her about
00:30:04.259 --> 00:30:08.250
i love the accent by the way so I think the most
00:30:08.250 --> 00:30:10.869
interesting thing as getting to know her, I was
00:30:10.869 --> 00:30:14.130
interested also in her culture. And so we spent
00:30:14.130 --> 00:30:17.430
a lot of time. One of the things that I remember
00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:20.089
when I was first being exposed to South Korean.
00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:23.180
culture that i instantly wanted to understand
00:30:23.180 --> 00:30:26.680
the folk music so i got a lot of cds at the time
00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:29.940
of the traditional instruments things like the
00:30:29.940 --> 00:30:32.279
kayagum which is this equivalent to the koto
00:30:32.279 --> 00:30:35.059
the japanese koto string zither instrument or
00:30:35.059 --> 00:30:38.319
the tegum which is the the flute that has the
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:42.000
the membrane skin membrane gives it a soul those
00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:45.880
instruments really struck my heart and so i wanted
00:30:45.880 --> 00:30:47.740
to do the same kind of deep dive for romanian
00:30:47.740 --> 00:30:51.569
music so i just spent all in search online apple
00:30:51.569 --> 00:30:54.589
music is fantastic by the way just to look up
00:30:54.589 --> 00:30:58.970
as many authentic ethnic romanian albums as i
00:30:58.970 --> 00:31:01.710
could find and it just became this beautiful
00:31:01.710 --> 00:31:06.109
journey of of the folk music of the different
00:31:06.109 --> 00:31:08.789
dance styles and hearing different regions and
00:31:08.789 --> 00:31:15.130
how they all differed and then suddenly i found
00:31:15.130 --> 00:31:20.490
two recordings of the same suite One was recorded,
00:31:20.549 --> 00:31:24.390
I think, in the 1970s or so. He's getting tangled.
00:31:25.150 --> 00:31:28.549
First recordings in the 1970s, and I think the
00:31:28.549 --> 00:31:31.609
more recent one was done either the 90s or early
00:31:31.609 --> 00:31:35.630
2000s. And what was interesting was that it was
00:31:35.630 --> 00:31:39.529
thematically the same dances, but in a different
00:31:39.529 --> 00:31:46.890
order and improvised slightly different. I recognized
00:31:46.890 --> 00:31:48.390
the piece like, well, that's a completely different
00:31:48.390 --> 00:31:51.410
way of playing such and such a piece. And I shared
00:31:51.410 --> 00:31:53.789
this with Madalena. She got excited. And then
00:31:53.789 --> 00:31:57.630
we started, I think the first step was just the
00:31:57.630 --> 00:32:00.829
base transcription, just listening. And since
00:32:00.829 --> 00:32:02.569
there were two different sources, just trying
00:32:02.569 --> 00:32:04.450
to decide which one we liked of each of them,
00:32:04.529 --> 00:32:06.710
because there was no printed sheet music of this.
00:32:07.009 --> 00:32:09.289
So it was really just simply laying down the
00:32:09.289 --> 00:32:12.630
raw transcription. And then from that raw transcription.
00:32:14.039 --> 00:32:17.259
We would, so the way I like to work is I'd like
00:32:17.259 --> 00:32:20.900
to work in a kind of a three staff system. I
00:32:20.900 --> 00:32:23.700
do the raw transcription in the middle, and then
00:32:23.700 --> 00:32:26.019
I add a staff above, a staff below for her part,
00:32:26.119 --> 00:32:29.099
my part, or whoever's going to do it. And then
00:32:29.099 --> 00:32:31.960
deciding which elements are more predominantly
00:32:31.960 --> 00:32:33.799
going to go to the primo, which elements are
00:32:33.799 --> 00:32:35.519
going to go predominantly to the secondo, and
00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:38.180
then finding fun ways to mix them, you know,
00:32:38.180 --> 00:32:40.680
to say, okay, well. This is boring. Let's, and
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:42.380
then she would come in and say, well, let's,
00:32:42.380 --> 00:32:44.559
I want to improvise this. This sounds boring.
00:32:44.680 --> 00:32:47.160
Let's do that. So it was a very, maybe I would
00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:48.700
lay the framework and then she would come and
00:32:48.700 --> 00:32:51.680
lay all the Romanian sauce on top of it. You
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:53.920
know, when I do my arrangement and I've done
00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.799
some solo arrangements, I just, I don't know.
00:32:56.819 --> 00:33:00.079
My way of working is very different. First of
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:02.740
all, I have to be at the piano because I want
00:33:02.740 --> 00:33:05.859
to try out things and I don't work like beginning
00:33:05.859 --> 00:33:10.869
till end. based on whatever reason, I just, maybe
00:33:10.869 --> 00:33:12.329
I start in the middle or I start with the ending
00:33:12.329 --> 00:33:14.869
and I just sketch. First of all, I sketch something
00:33:14.869 --> 00:33:18.170
that sounds at the moment the most important.
00:33:18.509 --> 00:33:21.710
And then basically I fill out the rest. So we
00:33:21.710 --> 00:33:25.829
have different techniques of arranging things.
00:33:25.890 --> 00:33:28.930
Yeah, but it went through several, I mean, once
00:33:28.930 --> 00:33:31.390
the framework was out, it really took a lot of...
00:33:32.889 --> 00:33:35.230
playthroughs, experimentations. And then she
00:33:35.230 --> 00:33:37.329
has a very improvised, and that's the nature
00:33:37.329 --> 00:33:40.009
of Romanian music. It's very improvisatory. So
00:33:40.009 --> 00:33:42.130
getting her feedback in terms of, we really should
00:33:42.130 --> 00:33:44.650
do this or that. And, you know, maybe she changed
00:33:44.650 --> 00:33:47.130
her mind, but we would annotate as much of that
00:33:47.130 --> 00:33:51.130
as possible too. It's just a fun, fun process.
00:33:51.670 --> 00:33:53.869
Yeah. I mean, you know, speaking of improvisation,
00:33:53.950 --> 00:33:58.730
there are two types of people, right? Some write
00:33:58.730 --> 00:34:01.569
their improvisations down before. Every concert,
00:34:01.670 --> 00:34:03.869
even if they do something different each concert,
00:34:03.910 --> 00:34:06.049
they write it down. And now there's just, well,
00:34:06.130 --> 00:34:08.789
I'll see what I feel inspired to do on the spot.
00:34:09.510 --> 00:34:15.210
So, yeah, I mean, I like to come up with different
00:34:15.210 --> 00:34:18.210
things each time that we play this piece. And
00:34:18.210 --> 00:34:21.530
we've been playing this a lot. And I think it
00:34:21.530 --> 00:34:24.670
has been featured in every single concert that
00:34:24.670 --> 00:34:31.570
we've had. And last year we played it in Romania
00:34:31.570 --> 00:34:33.110
for the first time and we're going to play it
00:34:33.110 --> 00:34:36.349
again in September, coming back there. How was
00:34:36.349 --> 00:34:39.389
the reception? It was very well received. First
00:34:39.389 --> 00:34:44.309
of all, no one seemed to know that particular
00:34:44.309 --> 00:34:47.570
suite. So I don't think anyone had ever heard
00:34:47.570 --> 00:34:50.130
that because there's no score for it. This is
00:34:50.130 --> 00:34:51.670
a very important thing. There's no score for
00:34:51.670 --> 00:34:57.329
it. I think any folk music has been preserved.
00:34:58.139 --> 00:35:01.400
without any sheet music, right? Just the oral
00:35:01.400 --> 00:35:05.639
tradition, yes. And I think what's interesting
00:35:05.639 --> 00:35:10.460
too is that the Romanian classical community,
00:35:10.679 --> 00:35:14.219
they have a very strong contemporary component,
00:35:14.380 --> 00:35:18.349
very strong contemporary composers. But there
00:35:18.349 --> 00:35:20.369
seems to be a disconnect. And there's a very
00:35:20.369 --> 00:35:22.929
active folk music community. I mean, people,
00:35:23.030 --> 00:35:25.949
they play weddings, they play, you know, parties,
00:35:26.110 --> 00:35:29.110
community gigs, you know, all the time. There's
00:35:29.110 --> 00:35:33.929
not much overlap, which I found very opportunistic,
00:35:33.929 --> 00:35:36.010
you know, because, you know, again, one key thing
00:35:36.010 --> 00:35:39.670
about being a surviving musician in any age is
00:35:39.670 --> 00:35:42.289
finding what makes you unique, right? And I'm
00:35:42.289 --> 00:35:45.239
always trying to think of how can we... find
00:35:45.239 --> 00:35:47.500
interesting gaps to fill. And I thought, you
00:35:47.500 --> 00:35:50.179
know, Romanian folk music in the classical sphere,
00:35:50.239 --> 00:35:53.139
I think is a wonderful thing. The music is so
00:35:53.139 --> 00:35:56.940
good and not many people know it. So it's just
00:35:56.940 --> 00:35:59.199
a wonderful opportunity just to share that with
00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:01.159
the rest of the world and connect two different
00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:04.840
worlds together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, which
00:36:04.840 --> 00:36:07.519
you're doing an amazing job. I really enjoy the
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:11.639
video. Speaking of video, you know, you're venturing.
00:36:14.079 --> 00:36:17.340
into the virtual world where you know the podcast
00:36:17.340 --> 00:36:20.039
and vlog and you know all the videos that you
00:36:20.039 --> 00:36:22.579
make especially the one that i enjoyed watching
00:36:22.579 --> 00:36:25.360
was that sort of like a tutorial where you show
00:36:25.360 --> 00:36:29.599
us the squeegee thing uh that you used for what
00:36:29.599 --> 00:36:35.820
is it the winter morning But I really needed
00:36:35.820 --> 00:36:39.440
to see the video. I never knew you were using
00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:41.239
the squeegee. I thought you were just using the
00:36:41.239 --> 00:36:43.260
hands. And then obviously there was a reason.
00:36:43.460 --> 00:36:48.019
I have to say, I mean, it was not our idea. It
00:36:48.019 --> 00:36:53.179
was Professor Ork's idea. But it's also, you
00:36:53.179 --> 00:36:55.420
know, we do a lot of our shoots. So I'm actually
00:36:55.420 --> 00:36:58.280
vice president at Cunningham Piano, which is
00:36:58.280 --> 00:37:00.639
one of the oldest. piano stores in America. It's
00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:03.639
been around since 1891. And we have the tremendous
00:37:03.639 --> 00:37:05.980
privilege of being able to walk into the store
00:37:05.980 --> 00:37:09.820
after hours to shoot on Busender for pianos,
00:37:09.820 --> 00:37:12.800
Yamaha pianos, I mean, the top -end Yamahas,
00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:15.559
you know, rebuilt Steinways and Petrov pianos.
00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:18.059
We get our pick of the best pianos, you know,
00:37:18.059 --> 00:37:21.079
around in great condition, brand new. But one
00:37:21.079 --> 00:37:23.860
key thing is, you know, and I tell this to our
00:37:23.860 --> 00:37:27.010
customers, don't touch the strings. Because the
00:37:27.010 --> 00:37:29.230
oils in the palm of your hand can cause the strings
00:37:29.230 --> 00:37:32.250
to rust, which is why when she wanted to record
00:37:32.250 --> 00:37:35.250
this, I said, we can't touch the strings. We've
00:37:35.250 --> 00:37:38.070
got to find another way. Hence, the squeegee
00:37:38.070 --> 00:37:39.809
idea. Yeah, Professor came up with the idea.
00:37:39.829 --> 00:37:42.150
Well, you know, because he had played a lot of
00:37:42.150 --> 00:37:45.130
contemporary music, like a lot. And he knows,
00:37:45.250 --> 00:37:48.570
I think, every trick that's in the book for certain
00:37:48.570 --> 00:37:51.690
situations when you're not allowed. Because in
00:37:51.690 --> 00:37:54.550
a lot of venues, presenters might be a little
00:37:54.550 --> 00:37:57.400
bit reluctant. When you touch their pianos inside
00:37:57.400 --> 00:38:02.599
strings or put different foreign objects between
00:38:02.599 --> 00:38:04.940
the strings for certain effects. Yes, it sounds
00:38:04.940 --> 00:38:08.280
cool. But at the same time, it might damage the
00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:11.659
instrument. So he had this very good idea to
00:38:11.659 --> 00:38:16.840
use rubber squeegees. Yeah, it works. But also
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:19.599
you are explaining in such a way that it's so
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:21.900
engaging. It's like, aha, you know, for those
00:38:21.900 --> 00:38:25.170
who especially. are not familiar with classical
00:38:25.170 --> 00:38:27.750
music or even contemporary you know music and
00:38:27.750 --> 00:38:31.449
how does that even sound does the sound coming
00:38:31.449 --> 00:38:34.550
from piano but there's an explanation to how
00:38:34.550 --> 00:38:37.559
you do it and also you talk about Air turn. So
00:38:37.559 --> 00:38:39.420
we're going to talk more about the air turn.
00:38:39.559 --> 00:38:44.039
And then I actually have it in my hands. I'm
00:38:44.039 --> 00:38:49.840
so proud of you. We're going to talk more in
00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:52.380
details. But, you know, you talk about how to
00:38:52.380 --> 00:38:57.019
use this air turn for two people. I never knew
00:38:57.019 --> 00:38:59.780
that. I thought it was an individual thing. And
00:38:59.780 --> 00:39:03.440
you showed us how to do it. you know the video
00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:07.039
is really uh inviting and and even for those
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:09.239
who do not know how to play the piano people
00:39:09.239 --> 00:39:11.920
really want to see that you know how do these
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:15.519
pianists do do you do all the music production
00:39:15.519 --> 00:39:19.099
audio to visuals i i mean i can see you you are
00:39:19.099 --> 00:39:23.320
tech savvy one of you right and then so do you
00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:25.980
guys do all the production like video audio and
00:39:25.980 --> 00:39:29.420
editing yeah starting starting with the outfits
00:39:29.420 --> 00:39:33.199
and Hairstylist and makeup and everything. I
00:39:33.199 --> 00:39:35.760
take care of the visuals. She insists on putting
00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:38.960
makeup on me, which I can't stand. But, you know,
00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:41.460
it looks good. And, you know, recently we've
00:39:41.460 --> 00:39:46.389
done this. short, this reel on our favorite video
00:39:46.389 --> 00:39:50.610
game music, Baldur's Gate 3. And yeah, we had
00:39:50.610 --> 00:39:53.409
to really go the extra mile there with costumes
00:39:53.409 --> 00:39:56.510
and makeup just to look as realistic as possible
00:39:56.510 --> 00:39:59.570
with certain characters. So that's a lot of fun.
00:39:59.730 --> 00:40:01.769
Yeah. And for me, it's really kind of everything
00:40:01.769 --> 00:40:04.030
else. So yeah. Everything else, yeah. You know,
00:40:04.030 --> 00:40:06.849
I've been interested in making videos. Oh gosh.
00:40:07.230 --> 00:40:09.929
My YouTube channel is 19 years old and YouTube
00:40:09.929 --> 00:40:11.989
just turned 20. So I guess it gives you an idea
00:40:11.989 --> 00:40:14.289
how long I've been. experimenting with videos
00:40:14.289 --> 00:40:16.630
and that's just for fun again just for fun i
00:40:16.630 --> 00:40:20.130
just it's it was a hobby i i loved experimenting
00:40:20.130 --> 00:40:23.389
with editing software and over time you start
00:40:23.389 --> 00:40:24.869
to pick up this piece of equipment that piece
00:40:24.869 --> 00:40:28.929
of equipment and um nothing nothing terribly
00:40:28.929 --> 00:40:31.449
expensive but just you know i you start to and
00:40:31.449 --> 00:40:35.329
also the fact that i recorded so many albums,
00:40:35.369 --> 00:40:38.730
you know, with other musicians. So I have a lot
00:40:38.730 --> 00:40:41.829
of experience being in studios, being in production
00:40:41.829 --> 00:40:44.750
and seeing the equipment that those people use,
00:40:44.809 --> 00:40:47.809
how they use that. And I, we go to the recording
00:40:47.809 --> 00:40:49.670
session, I'd be more excited to meet the engineer
00:40:49.670 --> 00:40:52.030
than actually record the music, you know? So
00:40:52.030 --> 00:40:56.150
I love learning about recording techniques, you
00:40:56.150 --> 00:40:57.969
know, how do they edit, you know, how do they
00:40:57.969 --> 00:41:00.170
keep track of all the takes and everything like
00:41:00.170 --> 00:41:04.199
that. The challenge, though, has always been,
00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:08.340
up until recently, I've only been in situations
00:41:08.340 --> 00:41:11.760
where we had a very limited window of time to
00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:13.840
set up the equipment, record the music, and tear
00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:15.280
everything down and get out of there, right?
00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:21.289
So you have to think about planning out. And
00:41:21.289 --> 00:41:23.789
sometimes the space is very limited because especially
00:41:23.789 --> 00:41:25.849
if you were shooting in a piano store, it's crowded.
00:41:25.949 --> 00:41:27.489
There's lots of pianos there. It's not like a
00:41:27.489 --> 00:41:31.409
stage. So it's very challenging to find the right
00:41:31.409 --> 00:41:33.369
angle, set up the lights correctly so you don't
00:41:33.369 --> 00:41:36.230
have shadows in the wrong place. But the beautiful
00:41:36.230 --> 00:41:39.769
thing about making videos is that every video
00:41:39.769 --> 00:41:44.190
you make, you learn something new. And that's
00:41:44.190 --> 00:41:46.429
definitely been the case every single time. I
00:41:46.429 --> 00:41:48.210
think, you know, maybe next time I'll do it this
00:41:48.210 --> 00:41:50.230
way. Maybe I learned a lesson that this didn't
00:41:50.230 --> 00:41:52.809
work, you know. So that's been a fascinating
00:41:52.809 --> 00:41:57.150
thing. And then microphone wise, I have the great
00:41:57.150 --> 00:42:00.349
fortune of, again, working with some other musicians.
00:42:00.849 --> 00:42:05.769
I worked with one of the country's best piano
00:42:05.769 --> 00:42:10.449
tuners and technicians. And he happened to do
00:42:10.449 --> 00:42:12.789
also audio recording on the side just as a hobby.
00:42:13.849 --> 00:42:16.030
And he saw my equipment. He said, you know, can
00:42:16.030 --> 00:42:17.829
I make some recommendations on some other gear
00:42:17.829 --> 00:42:20.769
to get? And he made a recommendation on some
00:42:20.769 --> 00:42:24.849
microphones. And I said, I wish you didn't tell
00:42:24.849 --> 00:42:26.150
me that because now I'm going to have to buy
00:42:26.150 --> 00:42:28.590
them. They're very expensive. And there was only
00:42:28.590 --> 00:42:30.630
one set left. They're not in production anymore,
00:42:30.710 --> 00:42:33.429
but they happen to be just like the perfect piano
00:42:33.429 --> 00:42:36.269
microphones. And I've been using them now for
00:42:36.269 --> 00:42:38.190
a couple of years. And I think our production,
00:42:38.309 --> 00:42:42.820
it's just been really. fascinating just to dive
00:42:42.820 --> 00:42:46.780
into bootstrap ways to make a video to make it
00:42:46.780 --> 00:42:49.239
as you know look as nice as possible make it
00:42:49.239 --> 00:42:51.500
sound as nice and just having that creativity
00:42:51.500 --> 00:42:53.639
in fact tonight after we do our podcast interview
00:42:53.639 --> 00:42:56.280
with you we have a video shoot she wants to shoot
00:42:56.280 --> 00:42:58.480
two more pieces and so it's nice to be able to
00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:00.320
think you know anytime we have a come have a
00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:03.280
musical idea oh let's go make a video not only
00:43:03.280 --> 00:43:05.440
just musical idea but you know something that
00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:07.980
a product that you've been working on and you
00:43:07.980 --> 00:43:11.239
want to share it. I'm actually more excited about
00:43:11.239 --> 00:43:15.440
the outfits, to be honest. Because again, it's
00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:19.440
part of the show, right? It has to be. Do we
00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:23.860
get to see the video later sometime? Oh, of course.
00:43:26.059 --> 00:43:28.619
It's always a combination of things that we do
00:43:28.619 --> 00:43:31.480
together or, you know, I'll shoot her solo thing.
00:43:31.519 --> 00:43:33.699
She still does a lot of solo stuff. Yeah. So,
00:43:33.780 --> 00:43:35.719
yeah, whatever production, crazy production.
00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:37.480
But, you know, I don't know if we want to talk
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:40.199
a little bit later on. We just finished a production
00:43:40.199 --> 00:43:44.860
with a young composer, Christian Meckham. And
00:43:44.860 --> 00:43:50.280
this was, for me, this was my dream video project,
00:43:50.360 --> 00:43:53.000
believe it or not, because, as I mentioned. We
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:55.559
never have enough time. It's always a rush. I'm
00:43:55.559 --> 00:43:58.340
limited with the cameras I can use. And for the
00:43:58.340 --> 00:44:00.219
first time, we had a young composer approach
00:44:00.219 --> 00:44:04.400
Maddalena about a piece that he wrote in memory
00:44:04.400 --> 00:44:07.539
of George Rockberg. Krum. George Krum. Excuse
00:44:07.539 --> 00:44:10.900
me, George Krum. Very, very, very big distance.
00:44:11.059 --> 00:44:14.539
George Krum, who Maddalena actually specializes
00:44:14.539 --> 00:44:18.380
in. Her doctoral work has been on George Krum's
00:44:18.380 --> 00:44:22.320
Macrocosmos series. book one last year and this
00:44:22.320 --> 00:44:24.639
year she'll be doing book two and somehow through
00:44:24.639 --> 00:44:27.579
the grapevine this young man was reaching out
00:44:27.579 --> 00:44:29.280
to the music community and they all pointed to
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:33.920
her and so he approached her to record this set
00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:37.059
of three pieces it's called three omens three
00:44:37.059 --> 00:44:39.619
little movements called the rabbit the storm
00:44:39.619 --> 00:44:43.539
silence and the face and um so he approached
00:44:43.539 --> 00:44:46.760
her with the idea of making a video project he
00:44:46.760 --> 00:44:48.699
wanted us to work together because he liked the
00:44:48.699 --> 00:44:51.039
videos that we made so he wanted her to be the
00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:52.760
pianist they wanted me to be the videographer
00:44:52.760 --> 00:44:56.340
and initially he was going to have his his girlfriend
00:44:56.340 --> 00:44:59.360
create animation so it's going to be a hybrid
00:44:59.360 --> 00:45:02.960
live video and animations mixed together to tell
00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:06.079
this visual story of the music It was a lot of
00:45:06.079 --> 00:45:07.860
brainstorming at the beginning. I remember we
00:45:07.860 --> 00:45:11.860
met for drinks, meals a couple of times, and
00:45:11.860 --> 00:45:14.780
we just started throwing out ideas and see what
00:45:14.780 --> 00:45:18.199
sticks. And eventually it turned out that just
00:45:18.199 --> 00:45:21.639
making the animations was just too time consuming.
00:45:21.699 --> 00:45:24.760
It was never going to get done. But the nice
00:45:24.760 --> 00:45:27.500
thing was that he gave me a blank slate in terms
00:45:27.500 --> 00:45:30.730
of however I wanted to shoot the video. And so
00:45:30.730 --> 00:45:33.530
my idea was, okay, let's get the audio done first.
00:45:33.610 --> 00:45:36.130
So we recorded the audio, you know, at Cunningham
00:45:36.130 --> 00:45:40.070
on a Cunningham piano on a beautiful nine foot
00:45:40.070 --> 00:45:44.610
Bissendorfer 280 VC. Imperial. Not an Imperial.
00:45:44.730 --> 00:45:46.269
This is a 280 VC. Imperial is a different piano.
00:45:46.469 --> 00:45:49.070
But we recorded on that piano. So we got the
00:45:49.070 --> 00:45:51.849
audio down and that was the backbone. And then
00:45:51.849 --> 00:45:55.650
I was able to use what we call pre -visualization
00:45:55.650 --> 00:45:59.639
software. So if you've ever seen. documentaries
00:45:59.639 --> 00:46:02.659
on how they make Star Wars or how they make the
00:46:02.659 --> 00:46:05.739
latest Marvel movie, you'll see many times that
00:46:05.739 --> 00:46:09.739
they'll have these storyboards. It looks like
00:46:09.739 --> 00:46:12.559
cartoon strips where they draw in what the scene
00:46:12.559 --> 00:46:14.619
should look like and what they're saying at the
00:46:14.619 --> 00:46:18.360
moment. I did a similar thing using 3D software
00:46:18.360 --> 00:46:21.000
where I could have a virtual model of her, a
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:22.440
virtual model of the piano, a virtual model of
00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:24.960
the stage, place them wherever I want, set the
00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:28.050
lights virtually where I want the cameras. For
00:46:28.050 --> 00:46:30.769
the first time, I'm like, I can use my best camera
00:46:30.769 --> 00:46:34.469
and I can have any angle I want, any lighting
00:46:34.469 --> 00:46:37.570
that I want and shoot it just the way I want
00:46:37.570 --> 00:46:40.769
it to kind of measure for measure. And, you know,
00:46:40.769 --> 00:46:43.550
the music became a script and I would lay out
00:46:43.550 --> 00:46:45.869
the cuts according to what the music was telling
00:46:45.869 --> 00:46:49.869
me. it would be the changes lay out the storyboard
00:46:49.869 --> 00:46:52.869
sent the storyboard animated to the composer
00:46:52.869 --> 00:46:55.369
you know he approved and then we shot it over
00:46:55.369 --> 00:46:57.929
two days which is unheard of you know just to
00:46:57.929 --> 00:47:00.670
be able to have two whole days to get it yeah
00:47:00.670 --> 00:47:02.690
the visuals out that was great he was also he
00:47:02.690 --> 00:47:05.789
was also a big help for getting a stage to allow
00:47:05.789 --> 00:47:11.570
us to to unfold like this um we shot that millersville
00:47:11.570 --> 00:47:15.110
university there was no one there we basically
00:47:15.110 --> 00:47:19.360
had the the stage for us for eight hours for
00:47:19.360 --> 00:47:21.980
two days but you know being able to treat um
00:47:21.980 --> 00:47:26.480
the recording very much like a movie movie set
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:28.500
it was very much a movie production you know
00:47:28.500 --> 00:47:32.420
with the way and i loved it i mean for me and
00:47:32.420 --> 00:47:34.219
i'm very grateful for christian to giving us
00:47:34.219 --> 00:47:36.840
the opportunity she played of course she played
00:47:36.840 --> 00:47:38.719
brilliantly this absolutely brilliant performance
00:47:38.719 --> 00:47:41.019
and then of course she came up with different
00:47:41.019 --> 00:47:43.940
visual elements and ideas The mask at the last
00:47:43.940 --> 00:47:45.840
moment was her idea, which I thought was just
00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:48.480
genius. And just, you know, the collaborative
00:47:48.480 --> 00:47:50.719
process. And it really felt like we were making
00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:53.760
quite literally a movie with just music and a
00:47:53.760 --> 00:47:58.260
piano and lights. That's all. I just, yes, that
00:47:58.260 --> 00:48:00.340
was a great idea with the mask. But the idea
00:48:00.340 --> 00:48:03.300
came from George Crumb's Fox Polini, of course,
00:48:03.340 --> 00:48:05.460
that the piece, the very famous piece that premiered
00:48:05.460 --> 00:48:11.320
in the 70s for three players that. requires for
00:48:11.320 --> 00:48:14.360
all of them to wear masks, to depersonalize them.
00:48:15.780 --> 00:48:19.079
So George Brown really inspired the production,
00:48:19.280 --> 00:48:33.420
not just the music. It seems like you guys both
00:48:33.420 --> 00:48:38.570
share, although... coming from very two different
00:48:38.570 --> 00:48:42.130
worlds almost, but then they share so many things.
00:48:42.329 --> 00:48:45.369
One of them is the creativity. So, you know,
00:48:45.409 --> 00:48:48.110
before we, I want to focus on your individual
00:48:48.110 --> 00:48:50.809
work and so on, but I kind of want to know how
00:48:50.809 --> 00:48:55.329
did this duo come to life? As in, did the playing
00:48:55.329 --> 00:48:58.309
together come first or the life together came
00:48:58.309 --> 00:49:02.840
first? I think they went hand in hand. Really,
00:49:02.940 --> 00:49:05.440
they went hand in hand. I never felt a separation.
00:49:07.139 --> 00:49:12.699
No. I mean, it's kind of obvious when two musicians,
00:49:12.840 --> 00:49:15.360
even if they are dating or they're already together,
00:49:15.739 --> 00:49:17.679
it doesn't matter if they're two pianists or
00:49:17.679 --> 00:49:21.659
different instrumentalists. It seems natural
00:49:21.659 --> 00:49:26.340
to start playing together at some point. Unless
00:49:26.340 --> 00:49:29.329
they really hate each other. In terms of, you
00:49:29.329 --> 00:49:32.250
know, what they do professionally. Well, that
00:49:32.250 --> 00:49:36.489
would be really weird. But we are not there.
00:49:37.269 --> 00:49:41.230
I think it just started as, well, let's play
00:49:41.230 --> 00:49:44.429
together. Let's just play together. We went one
00:49:44.429 --> 00:49:47.449
evening to Cunningham and let's just side read
00:49:47.449 --> 00:49:51.469
through some stuff. Well, I remember I received
00:49:51.469 --> 00:49:54.369
an invitation from a good friend of mine to come
00:49:54.369 --> 00:49:56.949
out to play a concert in Paris. And this is very
00:49:56.949 --> 00:49:59.510
shortly after. meeting Madalena. I thought, well,
00:49:59.510 --> 00:50:01.050
rather than me going out, I was like, hey, hey,
00:50:01.090 --> 00:50:04.090
want to go to Paris together? Yeah, but that
00:50:04.090 --> 00:50:10.329
was not why it started. No, no, it wasn't, but
00:50:10.329 --> 00:50:12.110
it gave us a good reason to give our first concert.
00:50:12.110 --> 00:50:15.650
And it was not even the goal of, oh, let's start
00:50:15.650 --> 00:50:18.369
a four -hand piano duo. It was not even that.
00:50:19.710 --> 00:50:23.329
At least that's how I perceived it. I don't know.
00:50:23.889 --> 00:50:29.460
Yeah. Dr. Buechner, Sarah Davis Buechner, have
00:50:29.460 --> 00:50:34.599
anything to do with your duo? Yes. Because last
00:50:34.599 --> 00:50:37.460
year around this time, I was interviewing her.
00:50:37.780 --> 00:50:43.179
Yes, I saw your interview. She's wonderful. She's
00:50:43.179 --> 00:50:45.659
the GOAT. She's unique. She's unique. She's unique.
00:50:45.900 --> 00:50:49.039
And I, you know, speaking of creativity, I don't
00:50:49.039 --> 00:50:52.239
think I've ever met such a creative person like
00:50:52.239 --> 00:50:57.119
she is. You know, I've been. Her student, I've
00:50:57.119 --> 00:51:00.719
been around her, I think, more than six years.
00:51:00.760 --> 00:51:04.679
Yeah, more than six years. And the influence
00:51:04.679 --> 00:51:09.000
that she's had on me as a person, as a musician,
00:51:09.300 --> 00:51:13.900
it's just, I can talk for hours. Really, I can
00:51:13.900 --> 00:51:16.920
talk for hours. And she's really one of the human
00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:21.780
beings that actively has been influencing my
00:51:21.780 --> 00:51:24.639
life. And, you know, I think yours too. So the
00:51:24.639 --> 00:51:28.940
story is Sarah Davis Buechner and I have been
00:51:28.940 --> 00:51:30.659
friends for many years, ever since she came to
00:51:30.659 --> 00:51:34.320
Philadelphia. We connected. really through her
00:51:34.320 --> 00:51:37.000
needing a piano. And then we were Yamaha piano
00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:40.699
dealers. We are piano dealers. And connecting
00:51:40.699 --> 00:51:42.860
with her initially there. And we just hit it
00:51:42.860 --> 00:51:45.179
off. We became very, very close friends. And
00:51:45.179 --> 00:51:47.920
during the pandemic, I helped her a lot with
00:51:47.920 --> 00:51:52.019
helping her set up streams for her concerts and
00:51:52.019 --> 00:51:54.440
a couple other things. So everything, if you
00:51:54.440 --> 00:51:56.820
remember that time, we were all streaming from
00:51:56.820 --> 00:51:58.840
home. So I set up cameras and microphones and
00:51:58.840 --> 00:52:01.199
helped her with a couple of productions. And
00:52:01.199 --> 00:52:04.840
then... She was putting together a one -woman
00:52:04.840 --> 00:52:08.480
show in New York called... On Pigs and Pianos.
00:52:08.500 --> 00:52:10.059
On Pigs and Pianos. Oh, yeah, that's right, that's
00:52:10.059 --> 00:52:12.940
right. I thought it was of whatever. On Pigs
00:52:12.940 --> 00:52:17.760
and Pianos. And she wanted me to be the videographer,
00:52:17.820 --> 00:52:21.400
just to record a version of the show that she
00:52:21.400 --> 00:52:24.880
could shop around to presenters. So I came with
00:52:24.880 --> 00:52:26.880
all my equipment. And that was really just...
00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:30.320
She basically hired me to be there for a week.
00:52:30.719 --> 00:52:32.559
to do shooting and, you know, capture everything.
00:52:33.639 --> 00:52:36.940
And at the end of that week, this woman came
00:52:36.940 --> 00:52:42.099
to one of the after show. I was busy editing
00:52:42.099 --> 00:52:43.860
and then finally came out for the last show and
00:52:43.860 --> 00:52:49.920
met her. And that's how we met. So, yeah. Hi,
00:52:49.940 --> 00:52:52.780
friends of the PianoPod. I want to invite you
00:52:52.780 --> 00:52:56.039
to something very special. On Saturday, October
00:52:56.039 --> 00:52:59.119
4th at 1 p .m. We are stepping out of the studio
00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:01.619
and onto the stage for our very first Pianopod
00:53:01.619 --> 00:53:04.739
Live in Concert at Stiefel Hall, presented in
00:53:04.739 --> 00:53:07.179
partnership with Manus Prep at The New School,
00:53:07.400 --> 00:53:10.099
a pre -college music program offering comprehensive
00:53:10.099 --> 00:53:13.599
and nurturing pre -professional training. This
00:53:13.599 --> 00:53:16.860
won't be just another concert. It's a one -hour,
00:53:16.920 --> 00:53:20.179
one -of -a -kind experience featuring four of
00:53:20.179 --> 00:53:23.500
our past guests, pianists, who are reshaping
00:53:23.500 --> 00:53:26.360
the classical music world. Dr. Jihoon Kerska,
00:53:26.440 --> 00:53:28.820
building opportunities for children through keys
00:53:28.820 --> 00:53:31.780
to success. Eleanor Bindman, opening doors to
00:53:31.780 --> 00:53:34.260
Johann Sebastian Bach's music with her bold and
00:53:34.260 --> 00:53:37.460
innovative transcriptions. Dr. Nana Ogwo, celebrating
00:53:37.460 --> 00:53:39.840
Black composers and honoring cultural legacy
00:53:39.840 --> 00:53:43.340
through Juneteenth LP. Donna Wang Friedman, award
00:53:43.340 --> 00:53:45.980
-winning pianist, producer, and filmmaker, creating
00:53:45.980 --> 00:53:49.099
projects that amplify immigrant and underrepresented
00:53:49.099 --> 00:53:53.199
voices. Each of these female trailblazers will
00:53:53.199 --> 00:53:55.820
perform, then sit down with me for an intimate
00:53:55.820 --> 00:53:58.280
conversation before coming together for a panel
00:53:58.280 --> 00:54:01.099
that ties it all back to our theme, creativity,
00:54:01.519 --> 00:54:05.099
connection, and community. The PianoPod has always
00:54:05.099 --> 00:54:07.139
been about bridging the gap between classical
00:54:07.139 --> 00:54:10.179
music and today's audiences. This event brings
00:54:10.179 --> 00:54:13.000
that mission to life. You won't just hear extraordinary
00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:16.320
performances. You will leave inspired by the
00:54:16.320 --> 00:54:19.090
stories and the vision behind the music. The
00:54:19.090 --> 00:54:22.389
concert is open to public and it marks a huge
00:54:22.389 --> 00:54:25.329
milestone for us. Don't miss the chance to be
00:54:25.329 --> 00:54:28.250
part of this moment. Please visit thepianopod
00:54:28.250 --> 00:54:32.190
.com slash liveevents to reserve your seat and,
00:54:32.289 --> 00:54:35.650
if you are able, support this project so we can
00:54:35.650 --> 00:54:38.250
continue creating experiences like this together.
00:54:38.550 --> 00:54:41.469
Join us for an unforgettable afternoon of music,
00:54:41.530 --> 00:54:46.590
storytelling, and connection. So let's focus
00:54:46.590 --> 00:54:50.570
on the individual work. So I want to start with
00:54:50.570 --> 00:54:55.570
Madalina. You mentioned that the work of George
00:54:55.570 --> 00:55:00.230
Crumb's Macrocosmos, and I watched, I think,
00:55:00.269 --> 00:55:04.150
yeah, you have a YouTube video out there, right?
00:55:04.210 --> 00:55:07.010
Yeah, I watched. Are you still working on your
00:55:07.010 --> 00:55:10.110
DMA from Temple University? Yes, yes. Is this
00:55:10.110 --> 00:55:12.559
part of your research? Yes, it's supposed to
00:55:12.559 --> 00:55:16.900
be. So I'm entering my last year. And it's wonderful
00:55:16.900 --> 00:55:19.559
because I discovered the music of George Crumb
00:55:19.559 --> 00:55:24.980
through Professor Orkes, who known George Crumb
00:55:24.980 --> 00:55:29.199
intimately. He premiered Little Sweet for Christmas.
00:55:29.880 --> 00:55:33.960
They were very good friends. And in one of the
00:55:33.960 --> 00:55:37.139
modern music classes with Professor Orkes, I...
00:55:37.630 --> 00:55:41.570
first heard his music, I was not familiar with
00:55:41.570 --> 00:55:45.849
it. And I remember, even now, I remember the
00:55:45.849 --> 00:55:51.150
shock that I felt. I was very intrigued because
00:55:51.150 --> 00:55:54.650
I felt that that music really spoke to me. And
00:55:54.650 --> 00:55:57.590
I think this is a very important key element
00:55:57.590 --> 00:56:00.409
when it comes to not just contemporary music,
00:56:00.489 --> 00:56:07.230
but any kind of music from any era. If people
00:56:07.230 --> 00:56:10.369
feel that a certain music speaks to them, they
00:56:10.369 --> 00:56:12.510
should trust that. They should trust that instinct.
00:56:12.969 --> 00:56:16.829
And not to mention for players, if they really
00:56:16.829 --> 00:56:19.869
feel that, oh, I have this urge, this impulse
00:56:19.869 --> 00:56:21.809
to play a certain composer, they should really
00:56:21.809 --> 00:56:25.690
follow that. So this happens with George Crumb.
00:56:25.710 --> 00:56:29.610
And looking around, I realized that there were
00:56:29.610 --> 00:56:33.400
not so many people. I would say no one. that
00:56:33.400 --> 00:56:37.820
were interested in in his music and i just decided
00:56:37.820 --> 00:56:40.760
to uh give it a shot and started exploring it
00:56:40.760 --> 00:56:45.760
and um i i'm grateful and lucky that i have professor
00:56:45.760 --> 00:56:48.659
orcas as a mentor you know to show me all the
00:56:48.659 --> 00:56:52.780
the um tricks right in in the book because he
00:56:52.780 --> 00:56:55.699
had played a lot of george crumb and um had talks
00:56:55.699 --> 00:56:59.340
with him and we we have also recently uh reached
00:56:59.340 --> 00:57:03.159
out to other friends of george crumb who had
00:57:03.159 --> 00:57:07.619
known him as a composer and as a friend uh and
00:57:07.619 --> 00:57:10.280
it's like for example uh jennifer higdon she
00:57:10.280 --> 00:57:14.400
was one of his studio students at the upenn um
00:57:14.400 --> 00:57:18.480
interviewed as professor orchis we tried to reach
00:57:18.480 --> 00:57:22.380
out to robert shannon that's still pending um
00:57:22.380 --> 00:57:27.619
another favorite pianist of George Crumb. Who
00:57:27.619 --> 00:57:29.119
else did we... Marc -Antonio Barone. Marc -Antonio
00:57:29.119 --> 00:57:32.119
Barone, yes. We interviewed him as well. Also
00:57:32.119 --> 00:57:37.840
another promoter of Crumb's music. Yeah. So,
00:57:37.940 --> 00:57:41.199
you know, getting this direct information from
00:57:41.199 --> 00:57:44.460
people that had worked with the composer, it's
00:57:44.460 --> 00:57:48.280
also very useful in my own understanding of the
00:57:48.280 --> 00:57:51.010
music, right? Besides of... my let's say you
00:57:51.010 --> 00:57:54.050
know subjective manner you know what what what
00:57:54.050 --> 00:57:56.570
do i get from this music i get all that knowledge
00:57:56.570 --> 00:57:58.610
right from from the outside that contributes
00:57:58.610 --> 00:58:05.289
to um the general um outcome and uh yeah i so
00:58:05.289 --> 00:58:08.250
far it's it's it's been a wonderful uh journey
00:58:08.250 --> 00:58:10.889
exploring that and it's still not done i'm working
00:58:10.889 --> 00:58:14.769
on the second um macrocosmos book and uh i've
00:58:14.769 --> 00:58:19.019
learned a lot about contemporary music technique
00:58:19.019 --> 00:58:25.239
in terms of what kind of sound effects can be
00:58:25.239 --> 00:58:28.420
obtained from the piano. How should I obtain
00:58:28.420 --> 00:58:30.179
that without damaging the instruments, since
00:58:30.179 --> 00:58:32.940
we were talking about that earlier with the squeegees.
00:58:34.380 --> 00:58:40.079
All these elements for extended keyboard techniques.
00:58:40.730 --> 00:58:43.530
I think every pianist should know about. I think
00:58:43.530 --> 00:58:48.929
it's a very important slice of piano repertoire.
00:58:49.909 --> 00:58:53.070
Yeah, so I feel very fortunate to play this music.
00:58:53.130 --> 00:58:55.309
And, you know, when I've played it, I also played
00:58:55.309 --> 00:58:59.590
it in Romania last year as well. People love
00:58:59.590 --> 00:59:02.909
it because they understand it, you know. And
00:59:02.909 --> 00:59:05.389
I think it has to do with the fact that I love
00:59:05.389 --> 00:59:07.849
it and I understand it. And then, you know, I
00:59:07.849 --> 00:59:11.610
share. here's what I think about it. What do
00:59:11.610 --> 00:59:15.829
you think? And so far, the feedback has been
00:59:15.829 --> 00:59:20.690
positive. It's an incredible conceptual art.
00:59:21.030 --> 00:59:24.309
Yeah. And it's very creative. I mean, George
00:59:24.309 --> 00:59:27.389
Crumb was a complex human being, complex, although
00:59:27.389 --> 00:59:29.530
at first glance, you wouldn't say that. I mean,
00:59:29.550 --> 00:59:32.269
if you hear him talking, there are lots, lots
00:59:32.269 --> 00:59:38.130
of interviews of him on YouTube. But he had this
00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:44.039
diverse, colorful, even dark, I would say, to
00:59:44.039 --> 00:59:46.360
a certain extent, universe inside of him, inside
00:59:46.360 --> 00:59:50.719
of his head. I remember Jennifer Higdon, when
00:59:50.719 --> 00:59:54.900
I interviewed him, she was so baffled because
00:59:54.900 --> 00:59:58.079
knowing him, she said, well, he was very quiet.
00:59:58.139 --> 01:00:00.920
He wouldn't talk much. He wouldn't talk much.
01:00:01.019 --> 01:00:04.159
But then if you hear his music, where are all
01:00:04.159 --> 01:00:07.800
those... powerful, violent sounds coming from,
01:00:07.840 --> 01:00:11.099
because he's not like that. So there's a big
01:00:11.099 --> 01:00:14.760
difference between George Crumb as a person,
01:00:14.900 --> 01:00:17.420
George Crumb the person, the human being, very
01:00:17.420 --> 01:00:22.960
gentle, very gently spoken, you know, like I
01:00:22.960 --> 01:00:25.679
said, the tone of voice, very mellow, and George
01:00:25.679 --> 01:00:28.079
Crumb the musician, George Crumb the creator,
01:00:28.380 --> 01:00:32.000
I would say. He's a creator in the real sense
01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:37.210
of the word. Now, you grew up in Romania, so
01:00:37.210 --> 01:00:40.110
your training, earlier training was in Romania.
01:00:40.329 --> 01:00:45.070
So did you discover this sort of experimental
01:00:45.070 --> 01:00:48.590
avant -garde style of playing when you came to
01:00:48.590 --> 01:00:51.570
the United States? No, no, no, no, no. I had
01:00:51.570 --> 01:00:54.969
experimented with a lot of contemporary music
01:00:54.969 --> 01:01:00.070
before coming to the States in 2019. I had...
01:01:00.750 --> 01:01:03.630
If I may say so, I had been at that time for
01:01:03.630 --> 01:01:07.130
many years, I had been one of the primary pianists
01:01:07.130 --> 01:01:09.909
in Bucharest, just like the capital where I lived
01:01:09.909 --> 01:01:13.809
for 10 years. So one of the primary pianists
01:01:13.809 --> 01:01:17.590
that actively was actively involved in playing
01:01:17.590 --> 01:01:22.769
contemporary music. And I just like to do that,
01:01:22.829 --> 01:01:26.090
first of all. Also, from a pragmatic point of
01:01:26.090 --> 01:01:33.000
view, it was work that I could get. And also
01:01:33.000 --> 01:01:36.500
because I like the idea of working directly with
01:01:36.500 --> 01:01:39.719
the composer. How I wish to just pick up the
01:01:39.719 --> 01:01:42.480
phone and call Mozart or call Brahms or call...
01:01:42.909 --> 01:01:45.590
you know, defy us and supplying that and ask
01:01:45.590 --> 01:01:49.289
them, hey, what did you mean by this? What was
01:01:49.289 --> 01:01:51.730
in your head when you wrote this down or something
01:01:51.730 --> 01:01:54.829
like that? But we can't. So the idea of working
01:01:54.829 --> 01:01:58.329
with living composers, it's very appealing. You
01:01:58.329 --> 01:02:02.050
know, when I read about Brahms composing his
01:02:02.050 --> 01:02:04.130
violin concerto for Joachim, basically Joachim
01:02:04.130 --> 01:02:07.070
laid down the violinistic part, right? Right.
01:02:07.530 --> 01:02:12.530
It's an incredible bond between composer and
01:02:12.530 --> 01:02:16.570
performer. Right. Um, so yeah, I've always wanted
01:02:16.570 --> 01:02:20.730
to, to go through that. Um, and it's wonderful
01:02:20.730 --> 01:02:26.230
when I come across composers that feel to trust
01:02:26.230 --> 01:02:28.750
the performer, they feel to trust me and they
01:02:28.750 --> 01:02:31.309
allow me like, like Christian, for example, right.
01:02:31.409 --> 01:02:34.289
Um, Christian Meckam with Three Almonds. He,
01:02:34.289 --> 01:02:38.550
um, remember he was not so pretentious in terms
01:02:38.550 --> 01:02:41.469
of, and picky. no pretensions but picky in terms
01:02:41.469 --> 01:02:44.630
of you know how to do certain things um he trusted
01:02:44.630 --> 01:02:50.730
me and um yeah it worked out he i think i think
01:02:50.730 --> 01:02:54.349
it paid back uh quite nicely and i'm honored
01:02:54.349 --> 01:02:56.570
when composers do that when composers trust the
01:02:56.570 --> 01:03:01.510
performer you know um yeah and also i think it
01:03:01.510 --> 01:03:04.530
also has to go the other way around the performer
01:03:04.530 --> 01:03:08.530
has to trust the composer so you've been in the
01:03:08.530 --> 01:03:12.409
united states no Too long. It's been like 60
01:03:12.409 --> 01:03:17.570
years. Yeah. Yeah. How do you like it here? I
01:03:17.570 --> 01:03:19.829
know there's a lot going on right now, but there's
01:03:19.829 --> 01:03:24.590
a lot going on. There's a lot going on. I found
01:03:24.590 --> 01:03:28.230
a very refreshing. So if I had to summarize the
01:03:28.230 --> 01:03:32.170
whole thing in a phrase, I found a very refreshing.
01:03:33.659 --> 01:03:37.260
point of view in approaching music through the
01:03:37.260 --> 01:03:39.860
people that I have worked with and through the
01:03:39.860 --> 01:03:42.579
people that I have encountered and have guided
01:03:42.579 --> 01:03:47.500
me. And we mentioned already two of them, Professor
01:03:47.500 --> 01:03:50.260
Lambert Orcus, Sarah Davis Buechner. I can mention,
01:03:50.400 --> 01:03:54.699
for example, Dr. Joyce Lindorf in period instruments
01:03:54.699 --> 01:03:57.820
and harpsichord. I've done a lot, a lot of work
01:03:57.820 --> 01:04:00.059
on harpsichord and period instruments. And that
01:04:00.059 --> 01:04:04.889
helped. shaped, that actually has shaped a lot
01:04:04.889 --> 01:04:09.909
my perspective on, for example, music from classicism,
01:04:09.949 --> 01:04:13.230
like music of Mozart or of Beethoven, because
01:04:13.230 --> 01:04:16.909
of the exposure to period instruments and to
01:04:16.909 --> 01:04:20.429
reading materials and to audio materials and
01:04:20.429 --> 01:04:24.190
to other people that are considered specialists,
01:04:24.329 --> 01:04:28.900
like, for example, Robert Levin. giant in forte
01:04:28.900 --> 01:04:31.119
piano, for example, and I had the privilege to
01:04:31.119 --> 01:04:33.320
work with him for a little bit in a masterclass.
01:04:33.739 --> 01:04:38.000
It was powerful. I will remember that masterclass
01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:41.880
for the rest of my life. And just recently, speaking
01:04:41.880 --> 01:04:46.960
of masterclasses, just two weeks ago, I think,
01:04:47.039 --> 01:04:50.539
we were in Delaware. We were invited to teach
01:04:50.539 --> 01:04:52.940
a masterclass at the music school in Delaware
01:04:52.940 --> 01:04:58.579
as part of their summer piano program. And we
01:04:58.579 --> 01:05:01.800
only had, I would say, about 20 minutes for each
01:05:01.800 --> 01:05:05.380
group, right? So it was a masterclass, right?
01:05:06.860 --> 01:05:10.900
But I was hoping, now I can confess, you know,
01:05:10.900 --> 01:05:14.639
before it started, I was hoping that at least
01:05:14.639 --> 01:05:16.880
for one group, at least for one people, we could
01:05:16.880 --> 01:05:18.860
make a difference, you know, because I think
01:05:18.860 --> 01:05:22.219
that's what masterclasses do. They should make
01:05:22.219 --> 01:05:26.079
a difference. They should be influential. So,
01:05:26.099 --> 01:05:31.239
yeah, there's a lot going on. And that's exactly
01:05:31.239 --> 01:05:34.980
why I came here. I came here to get a new life.
01:05:35.739 --> 01:05:39.360
And that's how short I can summarize it. To get
01:05:39.360 --> 01:05:43.800
a new life, to get a new perspective. And, yeah,
01:05:43.880 --> 01:05:46.119
I think overall to be more creative, to learn
01:05:46.119 --> 01:05:50.880
to be more creative with my life. And by that,
01:05:50.920 --> 01:05:56.769
I mean to experiment. to be playful, to know
01:05:56.769 --> 01:05:59.170
what I want, to know what I want to add in my
01:05:59.170 --> 01:06:02.429
life and to what to hold on to, what to let go.
01:06:02.829 --> 01:06:06.269
I think that's what being creative, since we
01:06:06.269 --> 01:06:08.929
mentioned this word so many times already, I
01:06:08.929 --> 01:06:11.949
think that's what it means at least. That's actually
01:06:11.949 --> 01:06:14.429
one of the words for this season, creativity
01:06:14.429 --> 01:06:18.050
and connection. So, yeah. Well, thank you, Marilina.
01:06:19.210 --> 01:06:24.230
It's such a joy to hear your story and how you
01:06:24.230 --> 01:06:28.570
get here and so on. So, Hugh, now your turn.
01:06:29.130 --> 01:06:34.489
So your path has taken also many turns and from
01:06:34.489 --> 01:06:37.570
Curtis and collaborated with Hilary Hahn and
01:06:37.570 --> 01:06:41.030
so on to and inventing Air Turn, the famous,
01:06:41.230 --> 01:06:45.239
you know, pedal. This, you know, for those. who
01:06:45.239 --> 01:06:47.980
are listening piano pedal comes in the regular,
01:06:48.119 --> 01:06:51.539
you know, three pedals on down at the bottom
01:06:51.539 --> 01:06:54.239
of the piano. Each one has a different function.
01:06:54.280 --> 01:06:57.500
And then now this is like the 21st century version
01:06:57.500 --> 01:07:02.219
of pedal, which we use this for page term. Right.
01:07:02.260 --> 01:07:07.760
So, and you are part of the co inventor, right?
01:07:07.860 --> 01:07:15.480
Yeah. Yeah. So how does this, entrepreneurial,
01:07:15.480 --> 01:07:21.300
innovative curiosity come from? Well, I think
01:07:21.300 --> 01:07:24.940
a lot of it came from growing up watching shows
01:07:24.940 --> 01:07:29.079
like Star Trek. It was my first love. I loved...
01:07:29.789 --> 01:07:32.670
This vision of the world where technology was
01:07:32.670 --> 01:07:35.590
so pervasive and solved so many interesting problems
01:07:35.590 --> 01:07:38.869
and was able to transport your imagination to
01:07:38.869 --> 01:07:41.329
different worlds. And I love that. I love that
01:07:41.329 --> 01:07:45.230
aspect. And I've always been drawn to fantasy
01:07:45.230 --> 01:07:48.449
elements, you know, whether in books, reading
01:07:48.449 --> 01:07:50.969
through the Lord of the Rings before the movies
01:07:50.969 --> 01:07:53.070
came out, you know, or any of those kinds of
01:07:53.070 --> 01:07:54.989
things, just wonderful exercises in imagination.
01:07:58.990 --> 01:08:03.550
One of the curious things I can look back and
01:08:03.550 --> 01:08:08.090
I think at first I was ashamed of it, but now
01:08:08.090 --> 01:08:11.329
I'm actually glad I have this, was this innate
01:08:11.329 --> 01:08:15.769
curiosity, you know, about how things work. I
01:08:15.769 --> 01:08:19.949
remember coming to Curtis very young. I was 13
01:08:19.949 --> 01:08:23.050
when I started there and attended a couple of
01:08:23.050 --> 01:08:26.100
recitals and I was just baffled. You know, I
01:08:26.100 --> 01:08:27.560
would sit there. I mentioned this at the beginning
01:08:27.560 --> 01:08:29.319
of the episode. Like, I don't know what's going
01:08:29.319 --> 01:08:31.560
on. I would ask my friends, what do you hear
01:08:31.560 --> 01:08:34.079
when you hear music? And they had a hard time
01:08:34.079 --> 01:08:35.659
explaining. And then here's a great example.
01:08:36.289 --> 01:08:39.750
So when I came to Curtis, I came in with Eleanor
01:08:39.750 --> 01:08:41.890
Sokoloff. She was my main teacher. But then George
01:08:41.890 --> 01:08:44.329
Bullett, who was teaching at the time, one of
01:08:44.329 --> 01:08:46.489
his students was not coming back. So he actually,
01:08:46.569 --> 01:08:48.529
he was the head of the piano department at the
01:08:48.529 --> 01:08:50.890
time. So he went to Eleanor Sokoloff and said,
01:08:50.989 --> 01:08:52.750
I'd like to audition your students. I'd like
01:08:52.750 --> 01:08:54.890
to take one of your students to add to my class.
01:08:55.430 --> 01:08:57.170
She wasn't happy about it, but she didn't have
01:08:57.170 --> 01:08:59.810
a choice. So all of the Sokoloff students played
01:08:59.810 --> 01:09:01.590
for him. I remember playing for him. And anyway,
01:09:01.649 --> 01:09:05.119
long story short. I became his student, but she
01:09:05.119 --> 01:09:07.479
wouldn't let me go so soon, so I had two lessons
01:09:07.479 --> 01:09:09.960
with her and one lesson with him every week my
01:09:09.960 --> 01:09:12.960
first year. Well, one of my first lessons, I
01:09:12.960 --> 01:09:16.819
brought a piece in, and then Mr. Bullett kind
01:09:16.819 --> 01:09:19.100
of went, well, who told you to do this or that?
01:09:19.359 --> 01:09:21.920
I said, well, Mr. Sokoloff. No, no, no, no, don't
01:09:21.920 --> 01:09:24.220
do that. Do this. He would change a couple of
01:09:24.220 --> 01:09:27.039
details. Well, I changed the details. Well, I
01:09:27.039 --> 01:09:28.979
went back to Mr. Sokoloff with the same piece,
01:09:29.020 --> 01:09:32.119
and she yelled at me, who told you to do this?
01:09:32.640 --> 01:09:35.920
Mr. Paulette, don't do that. And that became
01:09:35.920 --> 01:09:40.659
the very first conundrum. Who's right? They're
01:09:40.659 --> 01:09:44.020
both my teachers and they're taking the same
01:09:44.020 --> 01:09:45.640
piece of music and saying completely opposite
01:09:45.640 --> 01:09:51.880
things. Who is right? And that question really
01:09:51.880 --> 01:09:54.920
perplexed me. And I was probably a very annoying
01:09:54.920 --> 01:09:57.359
Curtis student because I kept asking that question.
01:09:57.420 --> 01:09:59.520
Well, why? Why are you doing it this way? Why
01:09:59.520 --> 01:10:01.199
are you changing your mind there? Well, someone
01:10:01.199 --> 01:10:03.060
says it does it this way. Why are you doing it
01:10:03.060 --> 01:10:07.539
that way? And the puzzling thing was that many
01:10:07.539 --> 01:10:09.920
people couldn't answer that question. They would
01:10:09.920 --> 01:10:12.100
just say, just do it. Just follow your heart.
01:10:13.159 --> 01:10:19.300
Why? How? So for me, I think the entrepreneurial
01:10:19.300 --> 01:10:24.420
question came from seeing that there was an assumption
01:10:24.420 --> 01:10:26.300
that as a classical musician, you just know.
01:10:26.439 --> 01:10:28.800
You're just supposed to know everything. I didn't
01:10:28.800 --> 01:10:32.100
know everything. And I wanted to know everything,
01:10:32.239 --> 01:10:37.079
but nobody was giving me answers. So I think
01:10:37.079 --> 01:10:39.479
a lot of that came from just being honest with
01:10:39.479 --> 01:10:42.340
my ignorance. I don't know. And I want to know.
01:10:42.500 --> 01:10:46.159
And eventually, I'm not ashamed of owning up
01:10:46.159 --> 01:10:51.399
to, I don't know. I want to learn. And so that
01:10:51.399 --> 01:10:55.600
came from that, I think, from that mindset. And
01:10:55.600 --> 01:10:58.000
that also helped me to see, well, I'll tell another
01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:02.050
story. The entrepreneurship, I think, came more
01:11:02.050 --> 01:11:05.149
out of seeing, number one, this breakdown in
01:11:05.149 --> 01:11:08.829
communication between artists and audiences.
01:11:09.449 --> 01:11:13.329
Right. Yes. I heard all throughout my upbringing,
01:11:13.630 --> 01:11:16.890
music is the universal language. Well, if it's
01:11:16.890 --> 01:11:19.229
a universal language, we have a syntax problem
01:11:19.229 --> 01:11:21.829
because most of the people just don't understand
01:11:21.829 --> 01:11:27.649
what we do. Again, pragmatically speaking. i
01:11:27.649 --> 01:11:30.270
experienced that i would go to a concert i'd
01:11:30.270 --> 01:11:32.010
be bored out of my mind and somebody somebody
01:11:32.010 --> 01:11:36.390
would play something suddenly and my heart would
01:11:36.390 --> 01:11:40.329
race and i didn't know why and i wanted to really
01:11:40.329 --> 01:11:43.390
try to be better at explaining that phenomenon
01:11:43.390 --> 01:11:46.770
first to myself but then more importantly to
01:11:46.770 --> 01:11:49.930
other audiences how can i make the music that
01:11:49.930 --> 01:11:53.010
i love so much now that i understand it better
01:11:53.470 --> 01:11:55.489
How can I pass that understanding to other people
01:11:55.489 --> 01:12:00.069
and get them to fall in love with this incredible
01:12:00.069 --> 01:12:04.369
art that is able to truly connect? But we just
01:12:04.369 --> 01:12:06.989
need to do, I think, a better job of conveying
01:12:06.989 --> 01:12:10.529
that connection a little bit more clearly. And
01:12:10.529 --> 01:12:12.149
the other parts of the entrepreneurship really
01:12:12.149 --> 01:12:15.890
came from practical things. Being at Curtis,
01:12:16.069 --> 01:12:20.210
after I graduated, they asked me to come on faculty.
01:12:20.310 --> 01:12:22.430
And then in addition to becoming the director
01:12:22.430 --> 01:12:24.170
of instrumental accompaniment, I suddenly became
01:12:24.170 --> 01:12:26.649
the director of student recitals when the person
01:12:26.649 --> 01:12:29.489
in that position died. Well, that's a full -time
01:12:29.489 --> 01:12:31.890
job. And this is back in the days when we were
01:12:31.890 --> 01:12:34.729
using lecture typewriters to type out programs
01:12:34.729 --> 01:12:37.890
and make notes. And it was just horrifying. And
01:12:37.890 --> 01:12:40.630
I thought, there's no way I can do this and still
01:12:40.630 --> 01:12:43.470
play with all the students. Luckily at that time,
01:12:43.819 --> 01:12:47.020
Computers were a new thing. I'm really dating
01:12:47.020 --> 01:12:50.119
myself here. So I was the first one to use a
01:12:50.119 --> 01:12:51.460
computer at Curtis because I just brought my
01:12:51.460 --> 01:12:54.359
own home computer there. First I used, and then
01:12:54.359 --> 01:12:56.720
I thought, if I could figure out a way for the
01:12:56.720 --> 01:13:00.880
computer to automate the process of making programs,
01:13:01.180 --> 01:13:06.739
that would be great. So I tortured myself, but
01:13:06.739 --> 01:13:10.000
I learned how to make what's called a relational
01:13:10.000 --> 01:13:13.489
database. A relational database. Simply being
01:13:13.489 --> 01:13:17.350
where instead of me typing Beethoven's name and
01:13:17.350 --> 01:13:21.590
then typing his year, birth and death year, dozens
01:13:21.590 --> 01:13:25.090
of times, or individually typing those pieces,
01:13:25.289 --> 01:13:27.810
these tables could refer to each other. One table
01:13:27.810 --> 01:13:29.810
would be Beethoven's table. The other table would
01:13:29.810 --> 01:13:31.970
be his repertoire table. The other table would
01:13:31.970 --> 01:13:34.710
reconnect to a student name, instrument name.
01:13:34.829 --> 01:13:37.829
And all those tables would come together. And
01:13:37.829 --> 01:13:40.590
then I found a way of creating programs instantly.
01:13:43.779 --> 01:13:47.939
I can go into that for hours and hours. That
01:13:47.939 --> 01:13:50.180
was a transformational moment for me. Suddenly
01:13:50.180 --> 01:13:52.140
I saw the power of computers, how that could
01:13:52.140 --> 01:13:58.119
change the operation of an entire program. Went
01:13:58.119 --> 01:14:01.439
from this being a full -time job to something
01:14:01.439 --> 01:14:04.659
I could do in three minutes. Instead of spending
01:14:04.659 --> 01:14:08.100
two weeks writing a report, instantly just spit
01:14:08.100 --> 01:14:11.319
out a 300 -page report. When I saw this, I realized,
01:14:11.439 --> 01:14:16.659
wow. Now, what if, this is back way before we
01:14:16.659 --> 01:14:19.140
had anything called a tablet, right? We all had
01:14:19.140 --> 01:14:22.859
laptops, you know, but what is dreaming? Wouldn't
01:14:22.859 --> 01:14:25.300
it be amazing if, because I was, you know, carrying
01:14:25.300 --> 01:14:29.310
lots of music in my bag and thinking. Oh my goodness.
01:14:29.329 --> 01:14:31.289
I was forgetting music in my office, forgetting
01:14:31.289 --> 01:14:33.109
music at home. I can't tell you how many trips.
01:14:33.369 --> 01:14:37.710
One time I flew out to, I was the pianist with
01:14:37.710 --> 01:14:40.369
Aaron Roseanne at one point for many, many years.
01:14:40.470 --> 01:14:42.789
And one time we flew out to St. Louis, opened
01:14:42.789 --> 01:14:45.329
up the bag and I was missing music. There's no
01:14:45.329 --> 01:14:47.869
music store. There was no internet to download
01:14:47.869 --> 01:14:49.750
the music at the time. It was just paper music.
01:14:50.010 --> 01:14:53.329
And the smoke that came out of his ears and just
01:14:53.329 --> 01:14:56.590
the shame I felt of not having my music with
01:14:56.590 --> 01:14:59.500
me. My dream was, Wouldn't it be amazing? This
01:14:59.500 --> 01:15:01.119
sounded like a crazy dream. Wouldn't it be amazing
01:15:01.119 --> 01:15:05.220
if I could have every piece I play in one device
01:15:05.220 --> 01:15:09.220
and just carry everything with me? That was my
01:15:09.220 --> 01:15:12.420
real dream. And then when Microsoft came up with
01:15:12.420 --> 01:15:15.539
the tablet PC in 2001, the first time that a
01:15:15.539 --> 01:15:18.659
computer could show a full page of music vertically
01:15:18.659 --> 01:15:20.720
instead of just the half screen we see on a laptop,
01:15:20.939 --> 01:15:23.439
that was my aha moment. That was it. I bought
01:15:23.439 --> 01:15:27.140
one, spent lots of money at the time. They scan
01:15:27.140 --> 01:15:29.619
some music, use the pen to draw notes. It was
01:15:29.619 --> 01:15:33.960
like, this is it. My dream has come true. This
01:15:33.960 --> 01:15:38.619
was before iPad. Oh, way before. The iPad came
01:15:38.619 --> 01:15:42.579
out in 2010. So now I'm thinking, how do I turn
01:15:42.579 --> 01:15:44.779
the pages? Because I can now only see one page
01:15:44.779 --> 01:15:49.399
at a time. That's where the idea came for creating
01:15:49.399 --> 01:15:52.539
a pedal, a pedal system. I jury rigged so many
01:15:52.539 --> 01:15:55.520
different pedal systems. everybody at school
01:15:55.520 --> 01:15:58.180
laughed at me they were like who is this crazy
01:15:58.180 --> 01:16:01.000
guy walking on stage with these machines and
01:16:01.000 --> 01:16:04.539
cables and pedal contraptions and playing music
01:16:04.539 --> 01:16:06.479
it just looked more like a science experiment
01:16:06.479 --> 01:16:10.779
than a classical musician but you know that led
01:16:10.779 --> 01:16:13.659
to um somebody coming sitting in the audience
01:16:13.659 --> 01:16:17.340
one day seeing my crazy invention running up
01:16:17.340 --> 01:16:19.689
to me afterwards and saying We've been looking
01:16:19.689 --> 01:16:22.250
for you for five years. We finally found you.
01:16:22.289 --> 01:16:24.729
She flew me out to Colorado to meet my business
01:16:24.729 --> 01:16:28.470
partner, Lester Karpis. And he said, we've been
01:16:28.470 --> 01:16:32.289
looking for you. Let's start a company. Just
01:16:32.289 --> 01:16:36.270
like that. It was crazy. But again, I think a
01:16:36.270 --> 01:16:39.250
lot of it was just this hunger to know, hunger
01:16:39.250 --> 01:16:43.369
to answer questions, and a hunger to think outside
01:16:43.369 --> 01:16:45.810
the box. The other thing I've always been very
01:16:45.810 --> 01:16:48.909
concerned about is Again, coming at it from an
01:16:48.909 --> 01:16:53.430
administrative point of view and seeing how dependent
01:16:53.430 --> 01:16:55.869
on the economy a lot of these nonprofits were.
01:16:56.170 --> 01:16:59.529
If the donors aren't there, that operation lights
01:16:59.529 --> 01:17:02.569
out. And everything from the Philadelphia Orchestra
01:17:02.569 --> 01:17:04.949
to Curtis Institute of Music to any other institution,
01:17:05.329 --> 01:17:10.630
they're very fragile tenants holding on to whatever
01:17:10.630 --> 01:17:12.970
the economic situation of any given environment
01:17:12.970 --> 01:17:16.229
is and thinking, there's got to be a better way.
01:17:18.139 --> 01:17:20.319
there's got to be a better economic model for
01:17:20.319 --> 01:17:23.220
all of this. So for me, the entrepreneurship
01:17:23.220 --> 01:17:28.020
is really a quest to find a better business model
01:17:28.020 --> 01:17:31.840
for being a musician, for organizations, for
01:17:31.840 --> 01:17:35.220
presenting concerts, for connecting people and
01:17:35.220 --> 01:17:37.319
music and musicians. So it's just an ongoing
01:17:37.319 --> 01:17:42.420
experiment with everything involved with making
01:17:42.420 --> 01:17:46.350
what we do sustainable. This has been an exciting
01:17:46.350 --> 01:17:49.109
journey. Well, I personally want to thank you
01:17:49.109 --> 01:17:52.170
for creating this wonderful tool. Very welcome.
01:17:52.590 --> 01:17:56.850
Yeah, yeah. I made it for myself. But this is
01:17:56.850 --> 01:17:59.909
like my second one because the first one, you
01:17:59.909 --> 01:18:02.649
know, living in New York, you just to and fro,
01:18:02.729 --> 01:18:04.829
you lose things. And one of them was obviously
01:18:04.829 --> 01:18:10.270
I lost this. So then I had to just quickly buy
01:18:10.270 --> 01:18:14.399
something cheaper. Just in the meantime, and
01:18:14.399 --> 01:18:17.319
I try that. So compared to Airturn, this cheaper
01:18:17.319 --> 01:18:19.800
version was obviously terrible. You know, what
01:18:19.800 --> 01:18:22.420
happens is like once you, you know, tap once
01:18:22.420 --> 01:18:26.039
and then just you go 10 pages ahead, you know,
01:18:26.039 --> 01:18:30.779
like that. But this one has this own like, I
01:18:30.779 --> 01:18:34.560
don't know, the perfect resistance and super
01:18:34.560 --> 01:18:39.420
intuitive. told me uh for in the video that you
01:18:39.420 --> 01:18:41.659
know by doing the forehand duet so you have two
01:18:41.659 --> 01:18:45.119
different tablets but with this one can you tell
01:18:45.119 --> 01:18:47.859
us yeah so that's what's what really unique and
01:18:47.859 --> 01:18:51.239
actually um this is something i discovered as
01:18:51.239 --> 01:18:53.880
the need was there but apparently um several
01:18:53.880 --> 01:18:56.619
app developers have built this in the app that
01:18:56.619 --> 01:18:59.720
we use for our music reading is called fourscore
01:18:59.720 --> 01:19:03.319
but there i know they're the music is another
01:19:03.319 --> 01:19:06.260
one, N -E -W -Z -I -K, French developers. They
01:19:06.260 --> 01:19:09.340
also have this capability where one iPad can
01:19:09.340 --> 01:19:12.500
be the master and it can actually connect locally,
01:19:12.600 --> 01:19:15.300
directly to other iPads and change all their
01:19:15.300 --> 01:19:18.560
pages. So it's designed really for orchestras
01:19:18.560 --> 01:19:21.260
and ensembles and things like that. But we use
01:19:21.260 --> 01:19:25.109
Fourscore. It's an option called Q, C -U -E,
01:19:25.369 --> 01:19:28.670
where one iPad can be the master and the other
01:19:28.670 --> 01:19:31.189
iPad's the slave. You can determine whether you
01:19:31.189 --> 01:19:34.409
open music together or just turn pages. And that's
01:19:34.409 --> 01:19:36.710
what I have it set to. So I'm the page turner
01:19:36.710 --> 01:19:40.729
and her iPad works with mine. And it's great
01:19:40.729 --> 01:19:44.770
because that way. Even with scores where we have
01:19:44.770 --> 01:19:47.390
both parts of one page, she can have her markings
01:19:47.390 --> 01:19:50.569
on her version. I can have my markings on my
01:19:50.569 --> 01:19:53.569
version. So our scores are really our own scores
01:19:53.569 --> 01:19:56.090
and we can optimize that and we don't have to
01:19:56.090 --> 01:19:58.029
worry about page turns. You know, speaking of
01:19:58.029 --> 01:20:00.909
page turns, in Delaware two weeks ago when we
01:20:00.909 --> 01:20:03.189
taught the master class for the Piano Institute,
01:20:03.350 --> 01:20:08.229
a lot of the time we spent on teaching the kids
01:20:08.229 --> 01:20:13.270
how to page turn. And none of them had any iPads.
01:20:13.270 --> 01:20:15.590
None of them, I don't think they had ever heard
01:20:15.590 --> 01:20:18.810
of air turn, but we got back to the old fashioned
01:20:18.810 --> 01:20:23.970
way. And we, I think for every single duo, we
01:20:23.970 --> 01:20:26.369
emphasize that over and over the fact that it's
01:20:26.369 --> 01:20:30.949
so page turning, deciding who turns when is as
01:20:30.949 --> 01:20:34.090
important as playing the notes. Because if you
01:20:34.090 --> 01:20:37.970
can't do that, then really you can't play. I
01:20:37.970 --> 01:20:42.310
mean, right. And to me, it was it was it was
01:20:42.310 --> 01:20:46.489
a joy to to teach that to them because I was
01:20:46.489 --> 01:20:50.149
taught to turn my own pages. And I know that
01:20:50.149 --> 01:20:53.590
he doesn't like that, but I do not use air turn.
01:20:53.750 --> 01:20:57.210
I have used it a couple of times and it was not
01:20:57.210 --> 01:21:02.409
a success. It always it failed. Something happened
01:21:02.409 --> 01:21:05.789
on stage and I decided that I should trust my.
01:21:06.869 --> 01:21:11.590
skills to practice the real funny thing is her
01:21:11.590 --> 01:21:13.729
you know she's she's younger you know and she's
01:21:13.729 --> 01:21:15.789
more old -fashioned than i am i'm the guy that
01:21:15.789 --> 01:21:18.770
wants to get all the tech toys in some in some
01:21:18.770 --> 01:21:22.529
ways yes and in some other ways no but it's funny
01:21:22.529 --> 01:21:26.170
yeah to to observe that um but it was you know
01:21:26.170 --> 01:21:29.050
i think it was quite interesting to to go back
01:21:29.050 --> 01:21:33.460
to the Primitive? Yes, to the primitive, because
01:21:33.460 --> 01:21:35.420
this is where things started. You have to know
01:21:35.420 --> 01:21:38.060
where things started. You have to know history,
01:21:38.239 --> 01:21:41.020
right? You have to know the past. So it was quite
01:21:41.020 --> 01:21:45.020
extraordinary. I mean, at the end of the program,
01:21:45.380 --> 01:21:49.699
at the final concert, they all did a great job,
01:21:49.760 --> 01:21:52.399
you know, just turning pages and flawlessly,
01:21:52.500 --> 01:21:57.220
I would say. reminded me of the days when i was
01:21:57.220 --> 01:22:01.579
learning how to turn pages in in such a way that
01:22:01.579 --> 01:22:04.319
it didn't disturb music and and it's a skill
01:22:04.319 --> 01:22:06.300
to be practiced and yes i agree that air turn
01:22:06.300 --> 01:22:11.020
saved a lot of time um and uh effort but i'm
01:22:11.020 --> 01:22:12.479
just saying there are still people that prefer
01:22:12.479 --> 01:22:17.180
the paper the paper and yeah yeah I remember
01:22:17.180 --> 01:22:21.859
a student a long time ago, a young student come
01:22:21.859 --> 01:22:23.840
to my office and I had invented the air turn.
01:22:23.939 --> 01:22:27.619
She's like, but I love the smell of paper. And
01:22:27.619 --> 01:22:30.899
I'm like, clearly there's a difference between
01:22:30.899 --> 01:22:34.739
where my brain is, where everybody else's. It
01:22:34.739 --> 01:22:37.079
is great. I mean, when you get a new book, right?
01:22:37.239 --> 01:22:39.239
I mean, this is what I do and I'm not ashamed
01:22:39.239 --> 01:22:41.640
of it. I smell the book. It's great. The smell
01:22:41.640 --> 01:22:44.819
of new. book of paper. So I think what's really
01:22:44.819 --> 01:22:46.899
interesting is finding ways of connecting the
01:22:46.899 --> 01:22:49.460
old and finding new ways of presenting them.
01:22:49.539 --> 01:22:51.960
That's an interesting tension between us. It
01:22:51.960 --> 01:22:58.619
keeps me on my toes. Yeah. That's so cute. So
01:22:58.619 --> 01:23:03.939
now this may be too personal. If that's the case,
01:23:03.979 --> 01:23:08.439
just let me know. But because, you know, I ask
01:23:08.439 --> 01:23:11.439
every guest to fill out the form, guest form.
01:23:12.159 --> 01:23:15.479
So that I can create a meaningful, you know,
01:23:15.479 --> 01:23:18.199
topics of conversation. And your questions are
01:23:18.199 --> 01:23:20.479
amazing. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Thank you. Thank
01:23:20.479 --> 01:23:23.739
you. Thank you. But one of the things that you
01:23:23.739 --> 01:23:26.500
mentioned in the form that you both came from
01:23:26.500 --> 01:23:30.579
experiences where you lost everything and had
01:23:30.579 --> 01:23:32.979
to discover how to build a new life completely
01:23:32.979 --> 01:23:36.359
from scratch, a life where you had to develop.
01:23:36.880 --> 01:23:39.979
courageous creativity. So that really stuck with
01:23:39.979 --> 01:23:44.340
me. And somehow I'm able to connect with you
01:23:44.340 --> 01:23:48.060
in very complicated ways. But, you know, this
01:23:48.060 --> 01:23:52.300
is not my story. So if possible, if you can share
01:23:52.300 --> 01:23:55.979
even just a little bit of what that means. Sure.
01:23:56.439 --> 01:24:02.039
You want to go first? Yeah. I mean, when I first
01:24:02.039 --> 01:24:05.539
came to the States, all I had, literally all
01:24:05.539 --> 01:24:11.039
I had, were two luggages and $500. That's all
01:24:11.039 --> 01:24:17.060
I had. And I had to carefully select the things
01:24:17.060 --> 01:24:19.180
that I had in my luggage in terms of clothing
01:24:19.180 --> 01:24:23.079
and stuff because I couldn't afford buying. And
01:24:23.079 --> 01:24:26.279
it was basically starting from scratch. Literally,
01:24:26.340 --> 01:24:32.319
I knew no one here. I was 29 years old. So at
01:24:32.319 --> 01:24:35.899
my age, I had former classmates that had married,
01:24:36.079 --> 01:24:42.420
even had kids or were already with a job. Oh,
01:24:42.520 --> 01:24:51.180
and one year before the final move, I was a freelancer.
01:24:51.300 --> 01:24:53.500
I had never tried that. I had never been in the
01:24:53.500 --> 01:24:56.539
position of being a freelancer in terms of, you
01:24:56.539 --> 01:24:59.850
know. Leaving off concerts, leaving off gigs.
01:25:00.270 --> 01:25:04.550
And that taught me a lot about keeping cool,
01:25:04.770 --> 01:25:09.090
about not freaking out and about making connections.
01:25:09.449 --> 01:25:16.449
And this ability to make connections extended
01:25:16.449 --> 01:25:22.050
when I came here. And I learned even more about
01:25:22.050 --> 01:25:26.140
that. I remember the feeling of insecurity that
01:25:26.140 --> 01:25:29.880
was there every day, because wanting to make
01:25:29.880 --> 01:25:34.640
this big move made me give up the security of
01:25:34.640 --> 01:25:39.020
finding a job, the security of settling, I guess.
01:25:41.060 --> 01:25:45.159
For example, I started my DMA in Bucharest, but
01:25:45.159 --> 01:25:49.409
then... you know, I just decided I don't want
01:25:49.409 --> 01:25:53.189
to do that. I don't want to do this. And I realized
01:25:53.189 --> 01:25:55.930
that it was not me who started it. It was not
01:25:55.930 --> 01:26:00.689
me who was convinced to do that. It was someone,
01:26:00.810 --> 01:26:04.050
it was people around me. It was my teachers that
01:26:04.050 --> 01:26:06.789
wanted me to go into DMA there. But that was
01:26:06.789 --> 01:26:10.149
not me. It was not what I wanted to do. And then
01:26:10.149 --> 01:26:14.760
luckily, opportunity presented itself and I met
01:26:14.760 --> 01:26:17.899
the right person to determine me to make this
01:26:17.899 --> 01:26:24.039
big move and bold move and um except my mom there
01:26:24.039 --> 01:26:28.340
was no one to leave behind it was just her if
01:26:28.340 --> 01:26:30.920
I you know if I had to think of someone to leave
01:26:30.920 --> 01:26:35.659
behind and that was just her so um it was hard
01:26:35.659 --> 01:26:38.409
because Coming to a new place where you don't
01:26:38.409 --> 01:26:40.970
know anyone, you don't have any friends, you
01:26:40.970 --> 01:26:43.649
are on an extremely tight budget and you don't
01:26:43.649 --> 01:26:45.310
even know how economy works. You don't know anything
01:26:45.310 --> 01:26:47.430
about dollars. I mean, I was like, what bill
01:26:47.430 --> 01:26:50.569
is this? I couldn't even figure out the coins.
01:26:51.130 --> 01:26:56.569
And I'm still having a hard time sometimes. But
01:26:56.569 --> 01:27:02.180
yeah, it was challenging. It helped me. helped
01:27:02.180 --> 01:27:05.199
me understand better how the world works and
01:27:05.199 --> 01:27:12.840
how I work and how can I adjust myself into this
01:27:12.840 --> 01:27:17.260
new environment. It taught me a lot about myself,
01:27:17.420 --> 01:27:21.279
what I can do, my strengths, my weaknesses, not
01:27:21.279 --> 01:27:24.800
to mention that pandemic hit four or five months
01:27:24.800 --> 01:27:27.819
after my arrival, this pandemic hit. So I was
01:27:27.819 --> 01:27:32.079
trapped in my dorm room and, you know, classes
01:27:32.079 --> 01:27:37.439
went on Zoom, of course. I had a very old laptop
01:27:37.439 --> 01:27:40.000
that didn't work whatsoever. So the one that
01:27:40.000 --> 01:27:42.979
I brought with me from Romania, it was five or
01:27:42.979 --> 01:27:45.840
six year old, not even updated. I couldn't have
01:27:45.840 --> 01:27:49.800
Zoom on it. And so I borrowed a laptop, an Air
01:27:49.800 --> 01:27:54.729
Mac, sorry, Mac Air. from a temple which offered
01:27:54.729 --> 01:27:58.390
that so you know in a way um i could see that
01:27:58.390 --> 01:28:02.149
um conditions to learn conditions that temple
01:28:02.149 --> 01:28:05.289
university provided were were way better than
01:28:05.289 --> 01:28:08.569
what i what i had for example in romania like
01:28:08.569 --> 01:28:13.390
no one prepared me for this right so um and then
01:28:13.390 --> 01:28:17.399
and then i started um looking around for um churches
01:28:17.399 --> 01:28:21.119
romanian churches and i found a church on brown
01:28:21.119 --> 01:28:24.399
street i think 20 minutes or so away from temple
01:28:24.399 --> 01:28:26.979
and i started going there because i felt the
01:28:26.979 --> 01:28:29.960
need for romanian community i still wanted to
01:28:29.960 --> 01:28:33.600
you know be able to speak face to face with with
01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:37.039
people to speak my own native language we think
01:28:37.039 --> 01:28:41.399
yes So that was helpful. That was helpful. But
01:28:41.399 --> 01:28:44.899
remember the first probably three months or so
01:28:44.899 --> 01:28:46.779
were very, very difficult. I remember at some
01:28:46.779 --> 01:28:53.619
point after a month, we had just finished a studio
01:28:53.619 --> 01:28:59.819
class night. Dr. Bugner has, even now, she gathers
01:28:59.819 --> 01:29:04.399
all her students once a week and we play in front
01:29:04.399 --> 01:29:07.460
of each other. And not to mention that the pace
01:29:07.460 --> 01:29:11.479
of learning things is more accelerated here overall.
01:29:12.319 --> 01:29:14.859
You have to really be quick. Like there's no
01:29:14.859 --> 01:29:17.739
way to linger. There's no way to take it easy.
01:29:17.800 --> 01:29:20.119
After that, you learn and you adjust and then
01:29:20.119 --> 01:29:22.939
you can slow down a bit. But at first you have
01:29:22.939 --> 01:29:25.640
to, or at least that's how I saw things. I had
01:29:25.640 --> 01:29:29.399
to prove myself. There was no time to come up
01:29:29.399 --> 01:29:32.939
with excuses. And I remember, so after that night
01:29:32.939 --> 01:29:36.449
studio class, I don't know, what i played but
01:29:36.449 --> 01:29:40.329
it was it didn't go as well as i wanted and i
01:29:40.329 --> 01:29:45.770
i felt that you know i'm gonna say that there
01:29:45.770 --> 01:29:49.050
was no encouragement i just i i didn't feel um
01:29:49.050 --> 01:29:53.590
that i was adjusting there um as i had hoped
01:29:53.590 --> 01:29:57.369
so and um i was um on the stairs in front of
01:29:57.369 --> 01:30:02.630
a rock hall building and um i just i started
01:30:03.560 --> 01:30:06.239
I just lost it. I think it was the first time
01:30:06.239 --> 01:30:10.819
when I felt to just let it out, you know, in
01:30:10.819 --> 01:30:14.699
form of tears. And I saw that at that point,
01:30:14.779 --> 01:30:19.340
everybody had left home and Dr. B came out of
01:30:19.340 --> 01:30:21.380
the building and told me what's going on. And
01:30:21.380 --> 01:30:25.090
I told her, like, I'm so sorry. I messed up and
01:30:25.090 --> 01:30:27.010
everything. And there was so late. I couldn't
01:30:27.010 --> 01:30:30.930
call anyone here in Romania. I mean, it was late
01:30:30.930 --> 01:30:35.729
because of the seven hour difference. So it took
01:30:35.729 --> 01:30:40.850
me a while to, to find the pace. It took me a
01:30:40.850 --> 01:30:44.109
while, but as difficult as it was. And like I
01:30:44.109 --> 01:30:46.590
mentioned, there was a pandemic that added up
01:30:46.590 --> 01:30:50.510
to that. I would do it all over again, because
01:30:50.510 --> 01:30:55.649
I think this is how you, find answers, a lot
01:30:55.649 --> 01:31:00.250
of answers. And this is how eventually, eventually
01:31:00.250 --> 01:31:03.289
you start feeling good about yourself. This is
01:31:03.289 --> 01:31:06.430
the only way, you know, just sobbing and staying
01:31:06.430 --> 01:31:09.390
in an environment that it's just clearly doesn't
01:31:09.390 --> 01:31:11.630
work anymore because that's what was going on
01:31:11.630 --> 01:31:14.729
before. It was not working. Things were not working
01:31:14.729 --> 01:31:18.449
for me. You know, I think that's the only way.
01:31:20.180 --> 01:31:22.479
as paradoxical as it sounds, just take the leap,
01:31:22.600 --> 01:31:26.020
take the leap and see where you land. You have
01:31:26.020 --> 01:31:29.600
to land somewhere. You have to. And before that,
01:31:29.859 --> 01:31:33.819
the preparation for it, because Temple was not
01:31:33.819 --> 01:31:39.479
the only option that I had, I decided to, so
01:31:39.479 --> 01:31:42.979
I had tried three times to come to the States.
01:31:43.579 --> 01:31:49.449
So first time, I think it was Houston. They wanted
01:31:49.449 --> 01:31:51.250
to give me a scholarship, but then something
01:31:51.250 --> 01:31:54.210
happened and they just canceled it. And then
01:31:54.210 --> 01:31:57.949
I tried, I think it was Michigan, same thing,
01:31:57.970 --> 01:32:00.010
but I didn't go there to audition. I didn't audition
01:32:00.010 --> 01:32:02.689
in person. And then the third time I said, I'm
01:32:02.689 --> 01:32:04.090
going to do this right or I'm not going to do
01:32:04.090 --> 01:32:05.729
it at all. It was the third time and that's it.
01:32:06.109 --> 01:32:10.170
And I auditioned for 10 universities. I prepared
01:32:10.170 --> 01:32:12.829
and Hugh still doesn't believe it, but I kept
01:32:12.829 --> 01:32:14.710
the notebooks and the planners and everything.
01:32:16.220 --> 01:32:18.600
i prepared auditions for 10 universities across
01:32:18.600 --> 01:32:24.359
the the us and i raised money myself and i prepared
01:32:24.359 --> 01:32:26.859
everything like every single document that that
01:32:26.859 --> 01:32:32.739
goes with it the toefl exam the um you know having
01:32:32.739 --> 01:32:35.920
your diplomas legalized and sent over and researched
01:32:35.920 --> 01:32:38.420
for universities and program and repertoire and
01:32:38.420 --> 01:32:41.340
it was it was a lot of um a lot of work that
01:32:41.340 --> 01:32:43.899
i did by myself no one knew absolutely no one
01:32:43.899 --> 01:32:46.569
knew except my mom but she wasn't quite sure
01:32:46.569 --> 01:32:52.390
that i was gonna do that anyway um so it in a
01:32:52.390 --> 01:32:54.909
sense it was it was very exciting right to prepare
01:32:54.909 --> 01:32:58.189
for something like that like something big um
01:32:58.189 --> 01:33:04.850
and i was pretty much aware of what implied right
01:33:04.850 --> 01:33:08.489
but like i said it you really you really have
01:33:08.489 --> 01:33:11.430
to be really desperate to to do that and i think
01:33:11.880 --> 01:33:15.500
yeah um that that's why i i said i would do it
01:33:15.500 --> 01:33:20.840
over again just yeah because right now um i'm
01:33:20.840 --> 01:33:27.119
very grateful for how things turned out um because
01:33:27.119 --> 01:33:30.579
i've learned a lot something that i i'm sure
01:33:30.579 --> 01:33:33.460
i could not have learned being back in romania
01:33:33.460 --> 01:33:35.380
you know at some point you just have to feel
01:33:35.380 --> 01:33:38.920
when it's time to move on really you just have
01:33:38.920 --> 01:33:41.949
to feel and just have to go with that and and
01:33:41.949 --> 01:33:46.170
i'm i'm i was happy to discover similar situation
01:33:46.170 --> 01:33:49.729
that hugh went through you know in terms of we
01:33:49.729 --> 01:33:52.810
we could share and we could understand each other
01:33:52.810 --> 01:33:57.590
you know that there was a time when that was
01:33:57.590 --> 01:34:01.270
the bottom of course very very uh different experience
01:34:01.270 --> 01:34:03.489
unique experiences right right right but the
01:34:03.489 --> 01:34:07.289
core of it was was was similar you know so that's
01:34:07.289 --> 01:34:12.949
the common thing that you shared. More than music,
01:34:13.069 --> 01:34:16.310
dual music. Yeah. Equally, I don't know. Maybe
01:34:16.310 --> 01:34:18.989
equally. And the fact that, you know, I grew
01:34:18.989 --> 01:34:21.949
up in the 90s right after the revolution when
01:34:21.949 --> 01:34:24.090
Romania was opening up and it was opening up
01:34:24.090 --> 01:34:26.930
very, very slowly. And for the first, I would
01:34:26.930 --> 01:34:30.170
say, 10, 15 years, it was still the aftermath
01:34:30.170 --> 01:34:35.270
of communism. And, you know, I could see that
01:34:35.270 --> 01:34:39.399
we do have more things in common. than we think.
01:34:39.800 --> 01:34:43.000
Even if I'm younger, it doesn't matter, but we
01:34:43.000 --> 01:34:48.880
still have certain life values that make us think
01:34:48.880 --> 01:34:51.500
like, boy, it's like we grew up in the same place
01:34:51.500 --> 01:34:56.100
at the same time. Yeah. Well, thank you for being
01:34:56.100 --> 01:34:59.800
candid and sharing this beautiful part of your
01:34:59.800 --> 01:35:07.270
story. So now, Hugh, it's your turn. Well, I'll
01:35:07.270 --> 01:35:10.109
share a story, actually much younger, when I
01:35:10.109 --> 01:35:13.789
was invited by a local orchestra to do a tour
01:35:13.789 --> 01:35:17.869
to perform Rachmaninoff's, no, no, no, it was
01:35:17.869 --> 01:35:21.409
the Beethoven Emperor Concerto. They do a tour,
01:35:21.590 --> 01:35:24.750
local tour, and at the time I was studying with
01:35:24.750 --> 01:35:28.350
Seymour Lipkin. And I remember coming up to him,
01:35:28.390 --> 01:35:32.289
I was so excited. Seymour, or Mr. Lipkin, I'm
01:35:32.289 --> 01:35:33.689
going to play the Emperor Concerto with such
01:35:33.689 --> 01:35:35.770
and such an orchestra. And he looked at me and
01:35:35.770 --> 01:35:41.520
said, No, you're not. You're not ready. I was
01:35:41.520 --> 01:35:47.039
so devastated. And he just said, call the conductor,
01:35:47.220 --> 01:35:49.899
cancel the tour. You're not ready. I'm not going
01:35:49.899 --> 01:35:57.300
to permit it. I remember feeling so angry, so
01:35:57.300 --> 01:36:03.340
disappointed. I was in shock. I mean, I was never
01:36:03.340 --> 01:36:05.800
told I can't do something. There's an opportunity,
01:36:06.100 --> 01:36:10.939
you know? And so I did something very interesting.
01:36:14.260 --> 01:36:17.060
I drove out to the local hobby store back when
01:36:17.060 --> 01:36:19.220
we had hobby stores. I bought a model of the
01:36:19.220 --> 01:36:23.600
USS Enterprise. And I stayed up all night. I
01:36:23.600 --> 01:36:26.340
didn't get any sleep. I just stayed up all night.
01:36:27.310 --> 01:36:30.430
Building this model enterprise, the decals, I
01:36:30.430 --> 01:36:35.689
was so angry. And the only way I could get this
01:36:35.689 --> 01:36:38.890
anger or this emptiness out was to build something.
01:36:39.329 --> 01:36:42.470
It sounds strange. By the morning, I had this
01:36:42.470 --> 01:36:45.369
beautiful model of the Starship Enterprise. Kind
01:36:45.369 --> 01:36:47.390
of worked out my anger. And I decided, you know
01:36:47.390 --> 01:36:51.229
what? I'm going to do it anyway. I played the
01:36:51.229 --> 01:36:54.510
concerto. I performed with it. And I've gone
01:36:54.510 --> 01:36:57.300
since. had a chance to perform that Ampere Concerto
01:36:57.300 --> 01:37:01.380
many times afterwards. And, and I'm really glad
01:37:01.380 --> 01:37:04.760
that as a youngster, I had the courage to defy
01:37:04.760 --> 01:37:07.699
my classical music. You never defy your teacher.
01:37:07.779 --> 01:37:11.140
I, you know, I just, it was, I thought that was
01:37:11.140 --> 01:37:14.520
the wrong way to do it. You know, for me, I'd
01:37:14.520 --> 01:37:17.520
rather perform and make a mistake. Then he was
01:37:17.520 --> 01:37:18.939
the kind of person, he was kind of teacher that
01:37:18.939 --> 01:37:22.880
was so afraid of, he, he would play a concert.
01:37:23.520 --> 01:37:25.819
And we'd be just like, oh, Mr. Lipkin, that was
01:37:25.819 --> 01:37:27.840
incredible. That was wonderful. And he'd be just
01:37:27.840 --> 01:37:31.180
like beating himself up and just couldn't allow
01:37:31.180 --> 01:37:34.100
himself to enjoy the beautiful music he made.
01:37:34.180 --> 01:37:37.119
I'm like, where is this coming, this self -masochism,
01:37:37.119 --> 01:37:40.739
you know? And it just, I couldn't do that, you
01:37:40.739 --> 01:37:43.979
know? Fast forward, you know, many years there
01:37:43.979 --> 01:37:46.300
have been situations where, yes, and I've had
01:37:46.300 --> 01:37:48.939
my share of beating myself up too. One of the
01:37:48.939 --> 01:37:51.340
patterns I've seen. There was one, there was
01:37:51.340 --> 01:37:53.720
one particular incident where, well, one episode
01:37:53.720 --> 01:37:56.680
of my life where just everything was gone. I
01:37:56.680 --> 01:38:00.760
was very, I was just kind of rock bottom. And
01:38:00.760 --> 01:38:05.079
I decided to go and start a business. Another
01:38:05.079 --> 01:38:09.380
separate business. Okay. Just all in this whole
01:38:09.380 --> 01:38:13.180
new business. And it was a collaboration. And
01:38:13.180 --> 01:38:15.380
at first it was great, you know, and then it
01:38:15.380 --> 01:38:18.439
just, you know. Took my mind, you know, focused
01:38:18.439 --> 01:38:21.479
my energies. And, you know, I felt a lot of loss,
01:38:21.560 --> 01:38:23.279
but I felt like I was building something new
01:38:23.279 --> 01:38:27.119
through this. Well, a few months into it, we
01:38:27.119 --> 01:38:30.680
had a big, big disagreement in terms of how things
01:38:30.680 --> 01:38:33.180
should run. Clearly some miscommunication because
01:38:33.180 --> 01:38:36.420
it was quite successful. We had this miscommunication.
01:38:36.699 --> 01:38:39.619
And then I, and again, here I am again, rock
01:38:39.619 --> 01:38:42.550
bottom. I'm about to lose this whole new venture
01:38:42.550 --> 01:38:45.869
that I just spent all this time and energy investing
01:38:45.869 --> 01:38:50.590
myself in. What did I do? I started a podcast.
01:38:50.869 --> 01:38:54.130
I threw myself in. This is my old podcast called
01:38:54.130 --> 01:38:57.050
A Musical Life, and I went on to interview some
01:38:57.050 --> 01:39:01.270
pretty amazing musicians. I interviewed people
01:39:01.270 --> 01:39:05.069
like Peter Schickley before he died. PDQ Buck.
01:39:05.250 --> 01:39:08.979
PDQ Buck, and also... Yeah, time for three when
01:39:08.979 --> 01:39:11.699
they were just getting started. Yo -Yo Ma. Yo
01:39:11.699 --> 01:39:15.060
-Yo Ma. Actually, yeah. Sony Productions actually
01:39:15.060 --> 01:39:16.979
reached out to me and just said, you know, they
01:39:16.979 --> 01:39:20.479
were inviting podcasters to come out and interview
01:39:20.479 --> 01:39:23.300
the Silk Road Ensemble. They were releasing a
01:39:23.300 --> 01:39:25.399
new album. So I thought I would be, you know,
01:39:25.439 --> 01:39:27.399
one of, you know, dozens of people in the room
01:39:27.399 --> 01:39:30.279
or something. But I went up to New York City.
01:39:30.359 --> 01:39:34.270
I was the only podcaster. Yeah, it's a really
01:39:34.270 --> 01:39:36.909
new thing. Yeah, so I was the only podcaster.
01:39:36.989 --> 01:39:38.649
I got to interview like two or three people in
01:39:38.649 --> 01:39:40.130
the radio station. Then they brought me into
01:39:40.130 --> 01:39:42.409
the radio booth where I got to set up my camera
01:39:42.409 --> 01:39:45.930
and interview Yo -Yo Ma. Oh, wow. It was kind
01:39:45.930 --> 01:39:51.069
of cool. Yeah, he's a great guy. So the podcast
01:39:51.069 --> 01:39:54.729
went really, really. So I've had these, if there's
01:39:54.729 --> 01:39:59.279
a pattern that I've noticed in my life, when
01:39:59.279 --> 01:40:02.539
things are taken away from me or I'm very, very
01:40:02.539 --> 01:40:07.520
disappointed. My therapy is just to go on a creative
01:40:07.520 --> 01:40:12.800
binge. And again, I don't know how I would teach
01:40:12.800 --> 01:40:16.039
this, but some of the best creativities have
01:40:16.039 --> 01:40:18.460
been when I've been forced out of absolute desperation
01:40:18.460 --> 01:40:23.260
or despair or just frustration, just a feeling
01:40:23.260 --> 01:40:27.699
like I've hit a brick wall in something. And
01:40:27.699 --> 01:40:30.979
then my brain just goes and just latches on to,
01:40:31.079 --> 01:40:33.500
maybe I'll just start a new hobby. I remember
01:40:33.500 --> 01:40:36.140
starting to teach myself how to shoot a bow,
01:40:36.260 --> 01:40:38.039
you know, the recurve bow just from scratch.
01:40:38.560 --> 01:40:42.039
Out of nothing, you know. And these kinds of
01:40:42.039 --> 01:40:45.199
creative, I think there's a lot of validity to
01:40:45.199 --> 01:40:48.300
some of the greatest art comes from our greatest
01:40:48.300 --> 01:40:52.279
loss or our greatest moments of despair where
01:40:52.279 --> 01:40:57.289
the creativity becomes a healing mechanism. You
01:40:57.289 --> 01:40:59.810
know, where something, you know, if you feel
01:40:59.810 --> 01:41:01.750
like something beautiful, something positive
01:41:01.750 --> 01:41:04.510
is coming out of all this desperation or all
01:41:04.510 --> 01:41:07.789
this frustration. That's just been the pattern
01:41:07.789 --> 01:41:10.430
of my life. I've seen this over and over again.
01:41:10.750 --> 01:41:14.609
Not that I welcome the terrible, desperate, awful
01:41:14.609 --> 01:41:19.310
times. No one wants that. But I think when you're
01:41:19.310 --> 01:41:22.409
an artist, and I'm going to even put this out
01:41:22.409 --> 01:41:24.350
there, even for folks who don't think that they
01:41:24.350 --> 01:41:28.699
are artists. There are always artistic venues
01:41:28.699 --> 01:41:34.500
that anybody can reach towards to channel, you
01:41:34.500 --> 01:41:36.880
know, channel this frustration, channel this
01:41:36.880 --> 01:41:39.000
despair, channel the loneliness, channel the
01:41:39.000 --> 01:41:42.800
loss. You know, we can do it destructively. We
01:41:42.800 --> 01:41:45.359
can drink a lot. We can ingest things. We can,
01:41:45.399 --> 01:41:47.659
you know, really take things that either numb
01:41:47.659 --> 01:41:51.300
us, right? And I've been in that period of time
01:41:51.300 --> 01:41:55.739
too. I've been too. Or we can take that. and
01:41:55.739 --> 01:42:00.380
then rechannel it into something that, you know,
01:42:00.380 --> 01:42:04.239
it can be learning something brand new for the
01:42:04.239 --> 01:42:28.560
first time. Thank you so much. I mean, we are
01:42:28.560 --> 01:42:32.460
coming toward the end of the conversation. So
01:42:32.460 --> 01:42:37.100
what I want is let's promote. The floor is yours.
01:42:37.180 --> 01:42:39.859
So tell us what you have coming up and where
01:42:39.859 --> 01:42:42.960
our listeners can experience more of your music.
01:42:43.180 --> 01:42:45.439
Oh, so this is coming out at the end. At the
01:42:45.439 --> 01:42:48.779
time of this publication, it's the end of September.
01:42:50.239 --> 01:42:55.890
We have... Just to check our website. And one
01:42:55.890 --> 01:42:59.350
of the things that we're being more active with
01:42:59.350 --> 01:43:02.590
is certainly getting our newsletter ramped up.
01:43:02.609 --> 01:43:04.149
We haven't actually done a newsletter in a while.
01:43:04.229 --> 01:43:06.350
We're getting that back up again. So I encourage
01:43:06.350 --> 01:43:11.109
you to join our newsletter list and go to matahew
01:43:11.109 --> 01:43:15.229
.com. There's a whole list of the concerts that
01:43:15.229 --> 01:43:16.890
we have coming up. We've got a number of concerts
01:43:16.890 --> 01:43:19.149
already booked at this point, and we're going
01:43:19.149 --> 01:43:24.159
to continue to be booking more things. more projects
01:43:24.159 --> 01:43:28.619
in terms of video projects. We're going to be
01:43:28.619 --> 01:43:31.180
doing more forehand videos and stuff. So there's
01:43:31.180 --> 01:43:34.420
always going to be something, but be sure to
01:43:34.420 --> 01:43:37.020
sign up because we may be coming to a town near
01:43:37.020 --> 01:43:39.779
you. So check out our concert tour list on our
01:43:39.779 --> 01:43:42.920
website at matahew .com. Sure. And then you're
01:43:42.920 --> 01:43:46.619
also active on Instagram, TikTok. I mean, I got
01:43:46.619 --> 01:43:50.319
a message from you. He's on TikTok. I'm on Instagram.
01:43:51.159 --> 01:43:54.399
Yeah, we share that. Great. And the Facebook
01:43:54.399 --> 01:43:57.760
and so on. So that people can connect with you.
01:43:57.880 --> 01:44:02.140
Yep. Great. Now, before the rapid fire questions,
01:44:02.340 --> 01:44:06.439
is there anything else? Are we good? Can we move
01:44:06.439 --> 01:44:07.840
on to that? I think we're good. I mean, I think
01:44:07.840 --> 01:44:09.060
the thing to be looking out for is we're going
01:44:09.060 --> 01:44:11.039
to be working on a series of educational content.
01:44:11.619 --> 01:44:14.460
Oh, wonderful. That's developing. Yes, we're
01:44:14.460 --> 01:44:16.960
developing actually a history of forehand piano
01:44:16.960 --> 01:44:19.500
music. We're going to be looking at, I think
01:44:19.500 --> 01:44:22.859
partly we were just so inspired by being guest
01:44:22.859 --> 01:44:25.739
teachers at this piano institute and running
01:44:25.739 --> 01:44:29.119
into so many interesting compositions. that were
01:44:29.119 --> 01:44:31.920
so expertly curated by Lotus Cheng, who was the
01:44:31.920 --> 01:44:34.520
director of the program there. I mean, I was
01:44:34.520 --> 01:44:36.460
so impressed with how she was able to find such
01:44:36.460 --> 01:44:38.479
disparate pieces that matched the levels of the
01:44:38.479 --> 01:44:42.380
kids. We want to do a deep dive to sharing more
01:44:42.380 --> 01:44:45.159
of the repertoire, not only from the classical
01:44:45.159 --> 01:44:48.039
period, but also what's being published now that's
01:44:48.039 --> 01:44:50.539
worth for, you know, we want to become a resource
01:44:50.539 --> 01:44:54.829
for teachers. so that we can help teachers and
01:44:54.829 --> 01:44:56.810
publishers and composers. And so we want to try
01:44:56.810 --> 01:44:59.729
to be a nexus for folks who want to explore the
01:44:59.729 --> 01:45:01.930
forehand literature more. So that's going to
01:45:01.930 --> 01:45:04.069
be an ongoing project. So a lot of resources
01:45:04.069 --> 01:45:06.010
we're developing for that too. Yeah. And also
01:45:06.010 --> 01:45:10.109
a new repertoire to learn. We have a work by
01:45:10.109 --> 01:45:15.149
a Hungarian composer, Peter Wolf, very good friends
01:45:15.149 --> 01:45:19.310
with Sarah Davis Bugner. Oh, I remember. Yes.
01:45:19.449 --> 01:45:24.430
Yeah. some of his Wolf tempered clavier pieces.
01:45:24.649 --> 01:45:28.189
Oh yeah, that's right. Yes. Very imaginative
01:45:28.189 --> 01:45:33.189
and creative music. And yeah, he wrote, I believe
01:45:33.189 --> 01:45:36.970
he wrote a forehand piano piece for us that we
01:45:36.970 --> 01:45:39.489
have not recorded yet. So we have to do this.
01:45:39.529 --> 01:45:42.689
We have this, this, this little bucket list of
01:45:42.689 --> 01:45:47.649
repertoire pieces that we have to. dive in any
01:45:47.649 --> 01:45:52.329
of your arrangements available as a score yeah
01:45:52.329 --> 01:45:54.210
actually curiously enough if you come to our
01:45:54.210 --> 01:45:58.029
patreon page our patreon page is where we usually
01:45:58.029 --> 01:46:01.100
post our arrangements Not all of them, but many
01:46:01.100 --> 01:46:03.819
of them. We have to be careful because I know
01:46:03.819 --> 01:46:05.859
with the John Williams estate, we're not allowed
01:46:05.859 --> 01:46:10.119
to post our John Williams arrangements. To monetize,
01:46:10.119 --> 01:46:14.140
actually. But if you become a Patreon supporter
01:46:14.140 --> 01:46:16.119
on our Patreon page, I mean, first of all, we
01:46:16.119 --> 01:46:18.920
would really appreciate it. And that's where
01:46:18.920 --> 01:46:22.399
we distribute all of our, you know, what we can.
01:46:22.399 --> 01:46:24.680
We distribute our scores there. Great. Well,
01:46:24.880 --> 01:46:28.109
before I let you go. We have one more thing to
01:46:28.109 --> 01:46:30.350
do, the PianoPod rapid -fire questions. Now,
01:46:30.430 --> 01:46:33.810
we take this segment very seriously. You've shared
01:46:33.810 --> 01:46:36.789
stories and expertise today, but these questions,
01:46:36.949 --> 01:46:39.789
the upcoming questions, carefully curated by
01:46:39.789 --> 01:46:44.090
my team, me, will give our listeners a glimpse
01:46:44.090 --> 01:46:48.909
into who you truly are. So let's do this. What
01:46:48.909 --> 01:46:55.409
is your comfort food? Cauliflower pizza. Curried
01:46:55.409 --> 01:46:59.000
ribs. How do you like your coffee in the morning?
01:46:59.460 --> 01:47:03.020
Medium roast with homemade almond milk, cinnamon,
01:47:03.180 --> 01:47:07.319
and cardamom. Recently discovered this new mushroom
01:47:07.319 --> 01:47:09.899
coffee. So now it's going to be black coffee
01:47:09.899 --> 01:47:13.119
with her homemade almond milk. She makes an amazing
01:47:13.119 --> 01:47:17.420
homemade almond milk and mushroom coffee all
01:47:17.420 --> 01:47:21.619
mixed together with some agave. Wow. Very specific,
01:47:21.720 --> 01:47:25.180
you guys. Yeah. Next question. Sunrise or sunset?
01:47:25.899 --> 01:47:32.039
Sunrise. Sunset. Summer or winter? Summer. Winter.
01:47:32.699 --> 01:47:39.659
Level two. What skill have you always wanted
01:47:39.659 --> 01:47:42.880
to learn but haven't had a chance to? Dance.
01:47:43.260 --> 01:47:46.500
Romanian. Romanian. Oh. And we're still working
01:47:46.500 --> 01:47:50.039
on it. I'm still not very good. I can say one
01:47:50.039 --> 01:47:58.300
sentence in Romanian. I can say, That's great.
01:48:01.039 --> 01:48:03.920
Did you understand? Yeah, they are. No, she is
01:48:03.920 --> 01:48:07.680
my friend. Oh, my friend. Okay, cool. That's
01:48:07.680 --> 01:48:16.079
so cool. I had a Romanian roommate in college.
01:48:16.199 --> 01:48:19.199
Oh, there you go. Yeah, there we go. Right. What
01:48:19.199 --> 01:48:23.409
is your word or words to live by? Carpe diem,
01:48:23.609 --> 01:48:26.590
music making, you know, stuff like that. Depends
01:48:26.590 --> 01:48:30.510
on the mood and day. Create something. Favorite
01:48:30.510 --> 01:48:36.310
venue you have ever performed in. Carnegie. Carnegie.
01:48:36.310 --> 01:48:38.149
Carnegie's Ankle Hall, that's for sure, yeah.
01:48:38.569 --> 01:48:41.369
What is the most important quality you look for
01:48:41.369 --> 01:48:45.569
in other people? Creativity and craziness. Sense
01:48:45.569 --> 01:48:49.409
of humor. Name a composer you wish more people
01:48:49.409 --> 01:48:54.829
knew about. George Crumb. Mel Boni. All right.
01:48:54.850 --> 01:48:58.329
Two more questions. Name one piece in your current
01:48:58.329 --> 01:49:02.130
playlist. Doesn't matter the genre is. Wait,
01:49:02.270 --> 01:49:04.770
I'll retract my answer. You go, you go. I want
01:49:04.770 --> 01:49:06.689
to think about it. Hey, hey, we're the monkeys.
01:49:06.909 --> 01:49:15.210
I don't know. Thunderstruck. ACDC. Okay. All
01:49:15.210 --> 01:49:18.409
right. There we go. All right. Last question.
01:49:18.489 --> 01:49:23.909
Fill in the blank. Music is blank. Music is the
01:49:23.909 --> 01:49:31.970
most expressive and powerful tool to connect
01:49:31.970 --> 01:49:36.989
people. Music is food. Music is food. Oh, this
01:49:36.989 --> 01:49:40.750
is the first one. This is a very pragmatic. Ding,
01:49:40.750 --> 01:49:43.829
ding. Congratulations. Well, you know, it's something,
01:49:44.149 --> 01:49:48.289
like I said, I... I didn't realize those three
01:49:48.289 --> 01:49:50.649
years that I was in a drought. I didn't realize
01:49:50.649 --> 01:49:53.949
it until I was actually fed again. And then I
01:49:53.949 --> 01:49:56.590
realized how hungry I was and how much I needed.
01:49:56.750 --> 01:50:01.699
So, yes, for me, music is food. Great. Madalina
01:50:01.699 --> 01:50:03.819
and Hugh, thank you so much for joining us today.
01:50:04.020 --> 01:50:05.899
Oh, my goodness, Yukiko. Thank you so much for
01:50:05.899 --> 01:50:09.819
the wonderful questions. Yeah, your podcast is
01:50:09.819 --> 01:50:12.500
just incredible. I think I don't know anyone
01:50:12.500 --> 01:50:16.979
to do this. And to edit it and to do, yes. This
01:50:16.979 --> 01:50:19.399
kind of depth. The depth of your questions, yeah,
01:50:19.420 --> 01:50:21.020
and discussion. Yeah, but, you know, just like
01:50:21.020 --> 01:50:23.520
what you do and creativity and so on, and then
01:50:23.520 --> 01:50:26.220
you just obsess and you do it, that sort of thing.
01:50:26.420 --> 01:50:28.560
And it's the same thing for me. And then this
01:50:28.560 --> 01:50:32.310
is giving me, a lot of, you know, many, so many
01:50:32.310 --> 01:50:36.090
things. So it's just being able to talk to artists.
01:50:36.170 --> 01:50:38.390
I mean, without this platform, I would never
01:50:38.390 --> 01:50:41.229
have met you guys to begin with. And then this
01:50:41.229 --> 01:50:43.970
has been a really wonderful conversation. Yeah.
01:50:44.210 --> 01:50:46.810
It was because of Dr. Buechner in a way because
01:50:46.810 --> 01:50:49.810
she was, yeah. But hopefully next, hopefully
01:50:49.810 --> 01:50:51.409
next time we were in Brooklyn, if we get a chance,
01:50:51.430 --> 01:50:53.850
we'd have to grab some dinner together. Oh, yeah.
01:50:53.850 --> 01:50:56.050
Sounds great. We're not too far each other. So
01:50:56.050 --> 01:50:59.420
we need to hang out. Yes, definitely. Yeah. So
01:50:59.420 --> 01:51:03.560
anyway, going back. So, I mean, we really appreciate
01:51:03.560 --> 01:51:06.939
you being here and sharing your journey and really
01:51:06.939 --> 01:51:11.159
being candid with your stories and opinions.
01:51:11.319 --> 01:51:14.119
So to our audience, if you'd like to explore
01:51:14.119 --> 01:51:17.380
more of Mada and Hugh's work, visit their website
01:51:17.380 --> 01:51:20.939
at madahugh .com and follow their YouTube channel
01:51:20.939 --> 01:51:25.300
at Mada Hugh Piano Duo for the latest performances,
01:51:25.500 --> 01:51:28.939
arrangements, and so on. with them on Instagram,
01:51:29.140 --> 01:51:32.060
TikTok, Facebook, and support their work through
01:51:32.060 --> 01:51:34.979
Patreon. You can find all the links in the show
01:51:34.979 --> 01:51:37.460
notes. And of course, a huge thank you to all
01:51:37.460 --> 01:51:39.920
of you, our faithful fans and listeners for tuning
01:51:39.920 --> 01:51:42.300
in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give
01:51:42.300 --> 01:51:46.039
it a thumbs up and subscribe. I saw a lot of
01:51:46.039 --> 01:51:48.340
thumbs up popping out. I didn't know what they
01:51:48.340 --> 01:51:51.460
were. I know, right? It's just a platform thing.
01:51:51.960 --> 01:51:54.439
Yeah, I have to figure it out. But please share
01:51:54.439 --> 01:51:56.539
and review this episode on your favorite social
01:51:56.539 --> 01:51:59.140
media platform and tag the Pianapod. It's one
01:51:59.140 --> 01:52:01.779
of the best ways to help our community grow and
01:52:01.779 --> 01:52:04.380
we love hearing your feedback. For the latest
01:52:04.380 --> 01:52:07.840
updates, the guest news and stories that spark
01:52:07.840 --> 01:52:10.140
creativity and connection, follow the Pianapod
01:52:10.140 --> 01:52:12.960
on Substack, TikTok, and LinkedIn. I'll see you
01:52:12.960 --> 01:52:15.359
in the next episode of the Pianapod. Thank you,
01:52:15.380 --> 01:52:19.010
Mara and Hugh. Thank you. Take care. Thank you.
01:52:19.010 --> 01:52:22.750
Say bye. Oh, bye. Bye. Bye.