Now that it has been 7 months after my experience with the stage version of Coraline, I am pleased to find out that the cast recording that we made has finally been released! It was a grueling recording process for me because I play in every single piece (thus every single take.) I still remember that day vividly. The whole crew were such troopers and the Lucille Lortel Theater transformed into a recording studio for 12 hours. Though that sounds like a long time, I’ve never covered so much musical material in a recording session! It was a rough commitment since it was happening on our one day off that week, but now that the recording is out, it makes it all feel worth it. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a revival…
Author: chenphyllis
My new CD UnCaged Toy Piano was recently reviewed in the New Music Box! I want to thank Frank Oteri for taking the time to listen and write about not only me but the toy piano world. I am glad that he was interested in my original works from The Memoirist. Many people have asked me why the CD only includes the first and third parts of this piece and not the second. While making the CD, I really went back and forth on this matter and decided that the second part of this multimedia piece is driven mostly by the visuals (movie). I think the music of the second part (also title The Memoirist) is best described as a live soundtrack to a movie. The style of the music sounds much more like “pop” and there are folly sounds that coordinate with happenings in the movie. This doesn’t mean that I am not proud of the music, but I find it more appropriate when presented with the movie.
The movie portion was created of recycled materials such as felt, cardboard and miscellaneous found objects. Aside from the toy piano in the music portion, I also used sampled bell-like sounds from kitchen utensils such as bowls, tea balls, pan lids and others. I am still hoping to create a DVD of The Memoirist that will finally present the piece as a whole. I have found live performances of the multimedia work to be most effective, but also pretty high maintenance to set up. (i.e.,In The Dream, the video is also to be projected “miniature-style “on a suspended pillow hanging from the ceiling.) Until then, I hope that The Memoirist parts one and three can hold their own as pure music on the CD!
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Radu Lupu revisited
I went to see Radu Lupu’s recital at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night. The last time I saw him in concert was ten years ago at Chicago’s Sara Lee Piano Series and to this day, I still think of that concert in 2001 as probably the most influential solo piano recital I have seen. Having gone through many of my own musical (and personal) changes, I was curious to know how I would receive him in concert ten years later.
He performed Leos Janacek’s In the Mist as well as Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and ending with the Schubert Bb Sonata. I had spent about $60 to be on the dress circle in Stern Auditorium and I generally had trouble hearing being three levels above ground. (Not to mention that the NYC audience never seem to figure out how to turn off their cell phones, which was a major distraction!) I really wondered whether solo piano recitals were really fit to be listened to in an auditorium that seats 2800 people. I also wondered whether I have gotten use to the controlled amplified musical venues that I frequent which made me feel that I was struggling to really hear him.
Regardless, I still felt that Radu Lupu played with such inflection and beauty. The most beautiful musical moment was his encore, when he played Brahms Intermezzo Op.118 No.3 . This piece has such a significant place in many pianists hearts as a a “turning point” piece. I still remember when I first discovered this intermezzo and feeling that a whole other world of musical possibilities were opening up to me. After speaking to many of my fellow pianists, it seems that many of us hold these kinds of sentiments with this piece. I certainly have heard many renditions, taught it many times and played it myself in concert, but I know that I will never hear that intermezzo played as beautifully as I did last Tuesday. Thanks to this concert, I was able to remember many of our truest intentions and desires to play the piano when we were younger. At a time when the classical piano world is changing so much, it was great to hear a pianist perform with such honesty.
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New Multimedia work
For most of this past Fall, I have been focusing my energies on a new multimedia piece that Rob and I have been creating named Down The Rabbit-hole for two toy pianos, live electronics, video and amplified objects. Like chamber music, I wanted to create something where the video and audio do not cancel one another out, but come together as a whole. The main question I find myself asking is what components of the multimedia piece are absolutely essential? What do we want the audience member to be looking at and at what point? Sometimes it seems that the performer and video can be competing visuals, resulting in a more confused overall statement. I think a lot of our work is aspiring to create a narrative that unfolds through music and images… at certain times the video is what carries the narrative and at others, there are no video but only music.
Now that it is becoming more and more easy to produce multimedia production with computers (and less people), I have found myself as not only the composer/performer, but also the narrator/storyteller. We have become so much more conditioned to take visual and aural stimulus simultaneously that the idea of “multimedia” is perhaps more of a common-life experience. With this in mind, I hope that the immersive environment that is created in Down The Rabbit-hole is one that is completely unique and different than our everyday stimulus.
We did a showing of this piece as a work-in-progress last November at the Flea Theater. Premiere date is yet to be determined.
As many of you might know, after spending twenty years on the piano, I found the toy piano much later in life and it has become my instrument of choice. One thing that frustrates me is the amount of skepticism that I am greeted with in disclosing this passion of mine. I have fallen in love with the world of the toy piano for reasons as hard to describe as why people fall in love with music or another human being. I have often been misunderstood as someone who has picked up the toy piano to “diversify” myself as a classical musician and to boost my “image.” Well, let me tell you something– a toy piano really doesn’t seem like the kind of thing someone ought to do to boost their classical “image.” If anything, it probably makes you look weird and maybe even a little bit creepy. People think “there has to be something that makes you look different.” My advice is buy new clothes. Get a mohawk. Get some unconventional piercings or a tattoo. But why would I dedicate so much of my time developing repertoire for the instrument, writing for it, looking for new music for it if I didn’t sincerely believe in it? I have found the instrument to be truly beautiful and legitimate on its own and the need to prove myself as a classical pianist “first” takes away from the revelation of the toy piano. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy playing piano anymore, but it does mean that I think the toy piano can stand alone as an instrument and I hope that minds aren’t made until it is seen in concert!