Boston Lyric's La Bohème Live this Sunday on WGBH

This afternoon I received the following from WGBH in Boston:

The Boston Lyric Opera's performance of La bohème this Sunday may be nearly sold out, but WGBH 89.7 has reserved the best seat in the house for you. Tune in on November 4 at 2pm as WGBH 89.7 takes you inside Boston's Shubert Theatre for a LIVE broadcast of Giacomo Puccini's passionate portrayal of young love and loss. It's Christmastime in Paris as this story of ill-fated love unfolds amid the carefree and reckless lifestyle of 19th Century bohemian Paris. Puccini's lush and romantic music is performed by a cast of enthralling young singers including soprano Alyson Cambridge as Mimi, tenor Derek Taylor as Rodolfo, soprano Kimwana Doner as Musetta, and baritone Andrew Garland as Marcello; Ari Pelto conducts. Don't miss this special presentation, as Puccini's beloved classic La bohème kicks off Boston Lyric Opera's 2007-2008 Season live on WGBH 89.7.

For those of you that aren't within range of WGBH's FM signal, you can also listen online. Since this live broadcast is coming from Boston, remember that all times are for Eastern Standard Time (don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour on Saturday night if you're in Canada or the United States!).

Find Your Muse, Find Your Process

Forget everything you've read about in this series for the last month.

Art isn't about things you "would" or "should" do. It isn't about placing yourself in a mould, nor is it about following in anyone else's footsteps. It's not about conforming to the prevailing style, nor is it about recreating the past.

Often creating art means distancing yourself from others, disappointing others, finding new ways, viewing the past on your own terms, knowing what to keep and what to throw out.

I recall being told by a well-known composer that I would never have a career in new music because I paid too much attention to creating a beautiful sound at the piano. He was wrong. I also recall being told by a major piano teacher that I would never have a career if I didn't have a perfectly aligned hand position. She was wrong.

I know of operatic singers that have absolutely no interest in performing music written before 1900. I also have several friends who turned their back on classical music to find success in other musical genres. I have also worked with some who abandoned successful careers in more lucrative professions in order fulfill their dreams of learning how to play or sing classical music at a high level even if they had no hope of ever making a living at it.

There comes a time when musicians need to find the music that genuinely speaks to them, a creative process that is congruent with their way of being, and a method that works for them and them alone. If it is important to fulfill goals, create them. If it is important to work without fixed goals, abandon them. Create a toolkit of techniques that work, bearing in mind that many of them may need to be set aside until they are needed.

I will finish the series not with any platitudes, buzzwords, or clichés, but with the video of Linkin Park's Numb, that shows how rage and rebellion can be the impetus that puts an artist on the path to creativity. Turn up the volume up for this one.

Linkin Park - Numb


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YouTube of Shostakovich 10 with Gustavo Dudamel & Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

Tonight I ran across this clip on YouTube of Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela playing the second movement of Shostakovich's 10th Symphony from their August 19th performance at the Proms. In addition to being one of the most exciting renditions of this movement I've heard, the tempo is also one of the fastest, on par with the tempo of Mravinsky's legendary recording with the Leningrad Symphony on Erato.



Un-freaking-believable. And also keep in mind that this is a youth orchestra.

Taking Stock of Your Accomplishments

There is so much work involved in learning an instrument. When we're working hard and improving steadily, it is often difficult to notice that we are making progress at all. We need some items in the win column.

That is why it is worthwhile to take a look back at the work you've done in the last while, either with your teacher or by yourself. Here are some milestones to measure your progress:

• Pieces learned to a fluent level. Extra marks for pieces memorized and/or played in public. It is useful to keep a repertoire list for this purpose.
  
• Successful recitals, festivals, or competitions (and I mean successful in the level of performance relative to your expectations. Winning outcomes are a bonus but not the true barometer of the performing enterprise).
• An increase in the time spent at the instrument.
• An increase in skill level, and being able to do things that seemed difficult or impossible previously.
• An increase in the satisfaction you feel in playing the instrument. Although not a true indicator of self-esteem, improving your playing should make you feel the pride of setting the bar for yourself and then jumping over it.

What are some of your greatest accomplishments in your playing or singing lately?

Next: Find Your Muse, Find Your Process

PR5

The Collaborative Piano Blog has just been re-indexed by Google with a Page Rank of 5, moving up from PR4, where it had been since mid-2006. Some blogs have been hit with uncomfortable Page Rank changes lately, so it is great to see this humble blog's ranking go up.

Add Collaboration To Your Activities

Learning an instrument can be such lonely business. You practice your instrument all week, alone. You meet your teacher and the focus is on you alone to improve. Then you go back to the practice room and work some more, alone. And finally go on stage to perform, alone.

Why is it that collaboration is a valued enterprise nearly everywhere but in piano playing? Collaborative pianists (also still called accompanists in some places) are often perceived as failed pianists, and many people assume that only the pianistic cream of the crop get to perform alone on stage, without the tarnish of any other musician spoiling their perfection, except the occasional orchestra backing them up. But guess what? The reality of this false image of the piano soloist doesn't measure up to how things really work in the music world. Nowadays, it is the collaborative pianist that has the fast track to a playing career, with more performances, more doors that can open, and more opportunities for earning income.

Pianists in their teens often fall by the wayside at the same time that their friends who play other instruments find camaraderie in orchestras. Often adding a bit of collaborative work to the diet of a young pianist is precisely what they need to keep going, and I speak from my own experience regarding this. Collaborative playing can be introduced at an early stage through duets, working with singers of the same age, choral accompanying, and chamber music for the intermediate pianist. There are numerous collections of works for this purpose, and the list is growing regularly. In addition to introducing this new variety to a pianist's musical diet, you are introducing a working process to their playing through the act of working with others that can often completely re-inspire pianists to redouble their practice efforts.

Chamber Music Sampler, Book 1 Edited by Joanne Haroutounian. Set of performance parts for piano trio (piano, violin, cello). Series: Piano. 31 pages. Published by Neil A. Kjos Music Company. (KJ.WP324) See more info...

Christmas Music For Piano Duet Arranged by Norman Dello Joio (1913-). Piano duet songbook for piano four-hands (no lyrics). 31 pages. Published by Hal Leonard. (HL.9239) SMP Level 7 (Late Intermediate) See more info...

The Contemporary Singing Actor Women's Edition Volume 1. By Various. Vocal Collection. 240 pages. Published by Hal Leonard. (740192) See more info...

Next: Taking Stock of your Accomplishments

Norman Lebrecht Article on Wikipedia

I've just been cited as a source for the Wikipedia article on Norman Lebrecht (along with Bob Shingleton of On An Overgrown Path) regarding Mr. Lebrecht's statements regarding the classical music blogosphere's perceived lack of accuracy and subsequent comeuppance on the recent withdrawal of The Life and Death of Classical Music after alleged false statements about Naxos Records and Klaus Heymann:

Lebrecht is on record as attacking the accuracy of music reporting in the blogosphere. In his Evening Standard column he wrote that "Until bloggers deliver hard facts … paid for newspapers will continue to set the standard as the only show in town".^[4] Some bloggers used this statement to charge Lebrecht with hypocrisy in light of the Heymann settlement.^[5][6]

The important issue is that we are all accountable to the same standard, whether bloggers, journalists, or historians, and have to answer to the consequences if we publish something incorrect or false. However, if a blogger is asked to retract, it can be done instantaneously through editing or deleting a post, whereas once a book is published, the process is much more difficult and the edition must be either reprinted with corrections or pulped.