A Detour to Barnet

there are five villages that make up Barnet, with a total population of under 2000. there are a large number of Buddhist residents as one of the large centers is located here, Karmê Chöling. my father moved there and was married at the center in 2016. i was able to spend a few days, in between Vermont concerts, visiting.

actually in Hanover, with my father and Esther, at the restaurant at Hanover Inn

the one store in Barnet, besides the Buddhist cushion extravaganza store

this is an old Congregationalist church that is now owned by the town, i was able to practice here during the day between concerts

rainy new england seen from the window of the church

another view of the church, on the green

one of the doors to karmê chöling

October 22 - Rutland, VT tourism

this is a very rare deluxe edition of the first piece in Messiaen’s ‘Tristan trilogy,’ the song-cycle Harawi. see the Peter Hill biography, page 184 in the hardcover. there were only 200 of these printed..

quechee gorge, vermont’s little grand canyon!

proof that i was at quechee gorge

October 21 - Rutland, VT

starting off a week in Vermont was a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Grace Congregational Church in Rutland. the Goldbergs tend to bring a wide swath of people out of the woodwork, people that might not necessarily come otherwise to a piano recital. no exception in Rutland.

the church’s music program is directed by the excellent Alastair Stout, a composer, organist, choral director, and all around great musician. Alastair studied with Peter Maxwell Davies, a composer whose music I am less familiar with, but listening now to some based on alastair’s recommendations.. for instance his Missa L’homme armé. sadly there does not seem to be much in the way of piano music.

the beautiful sanctuary at Grace Congregational

with composer, conductor, organist, and 500’s master Alastair Stout

October 13 - Rochester, NY

the gorgeous Kilbourn Hall at Eastman School of Music; the New Music Ensemble performed works of August Read Thomas and Webern among others.

Arsenal Duo organist Edward Alan Moore was once the organist for Twelve Corners church, while a student at Eastman

down the street from Twelve Corners is St Thomas More church. while i have seen A Man for All Seasons, I am currently a fan of Wolf Hall and its sequel - waiting for the third

following the concert at Downstairs Cabaret. Connor is a student at Eastman and a Pittsburgh native

October 12 - Brighton, NY

the downstairs cabaret, it wasn’t really downstairs

the mighty ampico

Poets of the Piano came to Brighton NY outside of Rochester. the performance took place in a very unusual space, the Downstairs Cabaret. the hall was almost full. following the concert was a reception catered by RIT, it was a high energy event and yes fueled by some beer and wine.

the piano there was quite unusual, actually I had never seen this brand in person, the Ampico. they were based in Rochester, which I did not know, and made player pianos, some rolls are very famous - Rachmaninoff’s in particular. there is a story about Leopold Godowsky playing a concert alternating live performance with the same piece performed by pre-recorded piano rolls, here is a run-down of that unusual event.

i don’t know if Ampico made non-reproducing pianos, but if this was ever a player piano the mechanism was removed. eventually it yielded to my touch but difficult to be honest. i wonder how long this piano has been hiding in the Downstairs Cabaret?

October 10 - Lexington Tour

I’m lucky to have family in surprising places, here is my sister-in-law Julie in Lexington. She was able to attend the concert

no trip to Lexington is complete without a visit to Keeneland races

before the race

during the race

after the race

October 8 - Lexington, KY

Poets of the Piano came to the beautiful bluegrass region of Lexington KY, home of bourbon and horse races and many classical music lovers. The performance took place at the Crestwood Christian Church.

acoustics are excellent for piano in this contemporary church.

October 4 - Kansas City

the famous Dr Weirich

on the way home from Fayetteville I stopped in Kansas City to visit my former professor and dear friend Dr Weirich, who recently retired from teaching at the conservatory after about 20 years. his teaching was characterized by commitment to clarity and a real examination of the score, what was written and what did it mean or imply. he had a productive relationship with Aaron Copland which resulted in among other things a recording of the three Copland piano masterpieces, the Fantasy; Sonata; and Variations. dr weirich is one of those rare teachers whose students can all sound different, their own talents and personality realized through his teaching.

October 3 - Fayetteville, AR

amazing hall

poets of the piano arrived in Fayetteville, hosted by the Butterfield Trail Village, a pretty upscale home with this brand new recital hall / grand piano combination. the piano is about a B size.

on a personal note the Village is home to the lovely lady pictured here, whose daughter was a long time co-worker of my mother and also our neighbor back in the halcyon Cleveland Heights days. she saw my name and came to the concert., it was a real feel-good moment.

also pictured is my former classmate and friend Er-Gene Kahng, a violin professor at University of Arkansas who made a splash with her recording of undiscovered violin concertos of Florence Price, an African-American woman composer of the first half of the 1900’s. Price’s music is more well known in the church world, as she made several arrangements of spirituals as well as having written some organ music. but the classical concert world has largely passed her by, at least until now.

the world surrounding Price is gone but her music remains, like so many others, waiting for someone to hear it. it reminds me of this quote from the great Polish harpsichordist/pianist Wanda Landowska, “Music grows old only if it is neglected – like a woman who is no longer loved. Take an interest in her, and she will become young again.”

September 30 - Casper Mountain

casper mountain goes to an elevation of about 8,000 feet, and the bridle trail is close to 5 miles long. the walk is full of fresh air, ponderosa pine, and aspen trees. apparently a homesteader who lived on the mountain, Elizabeth Neal Forsling, gave an acreage to the county to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve, and created a bunch of fairy shrines for the purpose. i did not see those sadly.

after the initial 60 degree incline, a view of casper below

getting higher to the rocky part

eventually the mist cleared

forest and mist

the waterfall

September 29 - Casper, WY

out on the frontier

the recital hall / choir room

Poets of the Piano arrived in Casper, WY, which I have been looking forward to all summer. how often do you get to go to wyoming? or casper for that matter. if you like trout fishing, apparently that’s where you would go.

but they also have a lively arts scene with a terrific community college, the facilities were superb. the recital took place in the recital hall which doubled as a choir rehearsal room, a new Steinway D, lovely acoustic.

it can be lonely practicing on the great plains

there’s an influential languages professor in town that has taught several people to speak French, so casper stays in my memory with a French accent. the night before the concert, we watched Les Choristes, an inspirational French film about a failed composer who ends up at a reform school for troubled boys, and shapes them into a fabulous choir. get the soundtrack

September 26 - Reston and Falls Church

Poets of the Piano arrived in Reston VA at the Rose Gallery, an art gallery in the center off Lake Anne that does indeed have a grand piano. sadly i did not get a picture of the performance tableau, due to the long receiving line following the concert, but a picture of my host and friend Ben B of Falls church will at least illustrate one corner of the gallery.

the piano was behind the camera.

i was able to stay with him and his fiancée in falls church, where i could also practice and visited her job at the Creative Cauldron. puppets and edgar allen poe tombstones.

not the performance space, but a practice haven

puppet friends

puppet party

ever more

September 24 - West Hartford and Farmington CT

not just for girls

driving through farmington after playing the palace in waterbury i passed miss porter’s. an involuntary memory straight out of proust popped into my head: i had been here before, inside this very building. probably around 2003, a cellist classmate at yale asked me to learn and record the piano reduction to Schoenberg’s cello concerto (!) which i did. we recorded it around midnight, in the parlor or hall or whatever of this building of miss porter’s academy. i also recorded schoenberg’s three pieces op.11, for piano solo. maybe if you can find that recording, it will be worth something. i don’t have it myself. and i have forgotten every note of the cello concerto!

David Garrido Cid was a classmate from the Arcadian yale years and is now master of music at St Thomas the Apostle in west hartford, where he plays piano, organ, directs cantors and choirs, and performs piano concerts in this 5 second long reverb acoustic. you might think that’s hard to deal with, but actually it makes everything easier, you have to play so slow.

watch your grammar

this striking statue of Noah Webster is in west hartford. it has a severity that highlights the strict Calvinism of its subject. but doing a little reading on this statue, i fell down a rabbit hole. the sculptor is a Polish immigrant, Ziolkowski, who also crafted a prize-winning monumental bust of his compatriot, the pianist and statesman Paderewski.

although Ziolkowski is now dead, his legacy continues, as he never finished his truly monumental naturalistic carving of Crazy Horse in the Black Hills of south dakota. this is a huge mountain carving, larger apparently than mount rushmore, begun in the late 1940’s, and still in progress. you can visit their website here.

a reminder to always stop and smell the roses. i had no idea of the sculptor and his vision when i took this imposing picture!

September 23 - Waterbury, CT

the palace in downtown waterbury

the palace theater was the location for poets of the piano - a night at the theater. the second concert in this series features music written for the stage, transformed in some way or other to be played on the piano.

one of the great finds i put on this program was a Stephen Hough arrangement of ‘my favorite things’ from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Sound of music. he did three R&H arrangements in the 80’s, and it seems amazing to me that it took a pianist that long to realize the potential. but still they are excellent concert pieces.

it just goes to show that musicians of the past, were far more engaged with the music of their time, than what you might see today. the addition of these R&H pieces, true to the originals but in that virtuoso concert tradition, is invaluable, not only for expanding the repertoire but for reaching the audience in a different way.

somebody asked me after the concert, if it was possible that so many years down the line, we would see virtuoso arrangements of the pop songs of today.. some of that already exists, thinking of Christopher O’Reilly and Coldplay; the artists he mentioned were elton john and billy joel, well billy joel does have an album of piano solos out, published by Schirmer. but who knows. maybe their music will be the transcriptions of the future.

to my surprise the bar at the Palace was open for my concert, and Fiona arranged for a martini to be sent over as soon as i was finished. brava

September 19 - Nashua, NH

the lovely people of Hunt Community and Manchester NH.

this calls for a piano whisperer

i should have seen this coming

poets of the piano swung south to Nashua NH for the last performance of Cosmopolitan Pianist.

there may have been some small mis communication about the actual instrument. however the action was perfectly even and the tuning was exemplary.

hybrid instruments like this come with an acoustic of their own, kind of built-in to the audio output, and to those who find themselves in this situation my advice is to play to the instrument not the room! you can actually make a lot of layers of sound on these, and you can play super lightly, because every touch registers. on the other side, there’s a cap on the volume really, so the octaves in liszt spanish rhapsody might have to look more dramatic than they sound.