John Adams' Chamber Symphony

Inspired by both Arnold Schönberg and the chaos of kids running around at a birthday party, the John Adams Chamber Symphony is a tremendously fun work to listen to and play. Here's Grup Mixtour at the Palau de la Música de Valencia in September 2014:




The difficulty of the solo parts is matched only by the difficulty of the ensemble work. I had the pleasure to play this work in Vancouver several years back with John Adams conducting.

Chamber Music Connection: Promoting the Role of Chamber Music in a Musician's Development

One of the biggest challenges with developing musicians has always been how to create opportunities for learning chamber music. The Chamber Music Connection is a non-profit that looks to fill that void:

The Chamber Music Connection (CMC), located in Worthington, Ohio, provides an environment where student musicians (age 7 to 70) realize their potential and flourish. Studying and performing with local and nationally acclaimed musicians, while connecting with peers in small ensembles, the musicians who come to CMC grow both musically and personally. Leadership, responsibility, and cooperation are learned small ensembles where each person must play a different musical part. Students are grouped together based on many factors: age, musical ability, and their potential to learn from (and teach) each other. They must collaborate to achieve their musical goals. Musical mentors, including local pedagogues, members of the Columbus and New Albany Symphonies, university music professors from Denison, CIM, and Baldwin Wallace, and visiting chamber music artists performing at the Southern Theatre, coach the student groups in learning to play together and creatively discover their own musical ideas. CMC is a place where people, music, and life connect.


What an amazing mandate! Some young musicians from the CMC program playing intermediate-level piano quintets:




You can check out the Chamber Music Connection calendar here.

Jason Doell is the Recipient of the 2014 Toronto Emerging Composer Award

Congratulations go to Jason Doell, who has just won the Canadian Music Centre's 2014 Toronto Emerging Composer Award (full press release here).

Jason's multi-location chamber work Delicate Triangles:



Warheads for piano, double bass, and percussion played by the Toy Piano Composers' Ensemble:



Finally, the charming Two Music Box Pieces from a recent Soundstreams Salon 21 performance:

Help Ensemble Meme Record the Piano Chamber Works of Gabriela Lena Frank

A Kickstarter project from Ensemble Meme aims to record several works for piano and chamber ensemble by Gabriela Lena:

We are trying to complete our recording of a fabulous CD which features world-premiere, never recorded chamber music works by the brilliant composer Gabriela Lena Frank. So far we have recorded a portion of the disc, thanks to generous contributions from the Copland Recording Grant and our donors. However, we need your help in order to complete this CD! Please watch our video, where you will see Molly and Gabi in person, and sample a little bit of the beautiful music on this disc, performed by Barry and Molly live.

Our story began with Molly, our pianist, who met Gabi, a wonderful composer at the John Harbison/Dawn Upshaw Workshop at Carnegie Hall in 2004. They bonded both musically and on their views of life and living over rehearsals and meals shared during those weeks. A strong friendship ensued. And during a sushi meal in Berkeley a few years back, this recording project was born.

The works on this CD include: Tres Homenajes: Compadrazgo (For Piano Quintet), Sueños de Chambi: Snapshots for an Andean Album (For Flute and Piano), Canto de Harawi: “Amadeoso” (For Flute, Clarinet, and Piano), Sonata Andina (For Solo Piano), and a brand new work for piano four hands that Gabi will join in with Molly!

Molly Morkoski talks with Gabriela about their collaborative process so far:



The deadline for contributions is June 15 and the recording is already 27% funded as of this evening. Lots of promotions await those who donate, including dedication rights, house concerts, coachings, instruments,CDs and digital downloads.

Who Accompanies Whom in Mozart Violin Sonatas?

Ever take a look at the title page on an urtext edition of Mozart violin sonatas? The title reads "Sonaten für Klavier und Violine". Yes, Mozart's early piano/violin sonatas started out as piano sonatas with optional violin obbligato. Throughout the course of his compositional career, he gradually gave the solo violin part more prominence and independence. Susan Tomes weighs in on the subject en route to a November 11 concert in Scotland's brand-new Perth Concert Hall:

Piano and violin, I hear you say? Isn’t it ‘violin and piano’? Well, not according to Mozart who called them ‘sonatas for piano and violin’. In his letters, he mentions playing the piano parts himself ‘with the accompaniment of a violin’. That was how they were perceived until the nineteenth century and the age of the celebrity violinist, when things flipped around. These works, and many others like them, started to be listed as ‘violin sonatas’, and the piano part was suddenly ‘the accompaniment’. Even today the violinist is often the one with their photo on the record cover, the one whose name is in bigger font in the programme, or the only one whose name is mentioned at the end of the radio broadcast. 

Why does this matter? It matters because the re-labelling tricks people into perceiving things falsely. They expect the violin part to be the leading voice, when in fact the meat of the musical narrative is in the piano part. If you approach these works expecting the violin part to be pre-eminent, you experience a kind of cognitive dissonance as you listen: often the violin is doing something quite modest, and you sense that the piano part is full of interest and information, but you don’t understand why such prominent material should be relegated to ‘the accompaniment’. The answer is that it isn’t an accompaniment. If you switch to hearing the music as piano with violin, everything falls into place. Of course you still need an excellent violinist, and perhaps even more importantly, an excellent musician, both of which I’m fortunate to have.

Here is pianist Alex Zhang accompanied by violinist Alicia Ciccone in the first movement of Mozart's Sonata for piano and violin K. 304:

Are Tabla Accompanists Becoming More Important Than Soloists in Indian Classical Music?

Just as collaborative pianists are beginning to achieve increased prominence in North American and Europe, the same thing is happening with tabla accompanists in Indian classical music, with an unintended change to the power dynamic between soloist and accompanist. Take a look at this excerpt from an editorial by Kuldeep Kumar in the Times of India:

...just as the Hindi film music has made a transition from being melody-based to becoming rhythm-based, Hindustani classical music too is slowly following suit. In the process, the centuries-old equation and relationship between the main performer and his percussion accompanist is getting warped. In the bygone era, accompanists on tabla, sarangi, violin or harmonium used to sit on the concert stage in a way so that they did not directly face the audience but facing the main performer. This arrangement gave primacy to the main artiste and enabled the accompanists to take the cue from him or her. Today, most tabla players face the audiences. They want to be treated at par with the main performer. It is not at all unusual to see listeners sitting with deadpan faces while a sitar or sarod player is probing the depths of a ragain the alap-jodjhalasection and breaking into an uproarious applause the moment the tabla accompanist starts playing.

On most occasions, it is the tabla player who receives more appreciation and applause from the audiences whenever the main artiste repeats the melodic line and allows the accompanist to play solo sequences. As vocalist or instrumentalist want to attract as big an audience as possible, they too go along with this so that the concert becomes 'successful'.

Fascinating. Who are the headline collaborative pianists that would influence your decision to attend a concert?

ACMP - The Chamber Music Network

Finding other musicians to play chamber music with can often be a challenge. Enter ACMP: The Chamber Music Network, a world-wide chamber music community that puts chamber musicians of all levels in contact with one another as well as offering grants for community initiatives, workshops, and home coachings. About the ACMP Directory:

The Directory is at the heart of ACMP–The Chamber Music Network. Use it to establish new friendships in your area and to meet fellow musicians when you travel. You can locate people by country, geographic region, instrument, and self-grading level. Members expect to be telephoned or e-mailed to arrange a morning, afternoon or evening of music-making. Initiating and responding to contacts is what the ACMP network is all about.

Your involvement is a matter of personal choice. You may be content to invite others for a one-time session, or you might wait for someone to call you. Think about using the Directory to organize a chamber music party or to find an extra player to expand your regular chamber music group.

Membership consists of two levels: free directory listing, which gets you the directory, guide, and newsletter, or the $25 annual full membership, which gives you options for discounts on products and services, as well as access to the ACMP's extensive grant program. You can also make a contribution online.

Creating a Name-Dropping Extravaganza of a Bio

Wondering how to write a really cool classical music bio? The Cereal List has created several bio templates for different types of classical performers so you can generate just as much hubris as the musicians you admire. Here is the template for intimidating your chamber music opponents:

An active chamber musician, [NAME] has performed with the groups [LIST UP TO 30 CHAMBER ENSEMBLES YOU HAVE PERFORMED WITH, STARTING WITH THE ONE PEOPLE ARE MOST LIKELY TO HAVE HEARD OF AND ENDING WITH YOUR COLLEGE'S BAND/ORCHESTRA/CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE]. [HE/SHE] has also performed with [LIST UP TO 15 MUSICIANS PEOPLE MAY HAVE HEARD OF. IF YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED WITH A FAMOUS MUSICIAN, LIST ANY FAMOUS MUSICIANS WHO MAY HAVE PERFORMED WITH YOUR SCHOOL ORCHESTRA TO INCLUDE MARGINALLY FAMOUS TEACHERS AT YOUR SCHOOL] and under the baton of [LIST CONDUCTORS]. In addition, [NAME] has recorded for the [NAME OF RECORD LABEL] record label.

Condoleezza Rice Plays the Dvorak Piano Quintet at Aspen

Say what you will about the recently departed Bush administration, but what few people know is that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was one of the most talented musicians ever to serve on the Executive Branch of government in the United States. Here she is in early August 2008 at the Aspen Music Festival playing the first movement of the Dvorak Piano Quintet with violinists Eric Wong and Ken Hamao, violist Lydia Bunn, and cellist Aleisha Verner. It's important to realize that Condy was still serving as Secretary of State when this was filmed--how on earth did she have time to practice?

Part 1:

Part 2:

(Via @twitkarl7777, @davidrhodes, @jamescombs)

The Two Most Boring Words In the English Language?

Anne Midgette writes in today's New York Times about whether or not chamber music needs redefining in order to reach a wider audience.

Link (Via artsJournal)

New Additions To The Collaborative Piano Store

Last month, I created The Collaborative Piano Store, an online resource that would contain many of the core books used by those in the collaborative piano profession in a wide variety of relevant categories. In the last few days, I've added a few more categories--Collaborative Piano/Accompanying, Chamber Music, Novels about Musicians, and College Guides. Do bear in mind I am limited to titles carried by Amazon. However, if you know or have written any titles that you feel should be included, please leave a comment or email me!

112 Concerts in 15 Days at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival

This summer's Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, one of the world's leading chamber music festivals, features a massive lineup of concerts and performers from July 21 to Aug 4 in various venues across Ottawa, Canada. The festival's mandate is "to make classical music accessible and affordable to everyone and to introduce new audiences to classical/chamber music."