Avoid Forum Auditorium Taipei

Hmm. 5 weeks after my lecture recital and still not received payment from the concert hall. Many aspects of the management at Forum Auditorium were not the standards you might expect at a professional concert hall. If you are looking for somewhere with a good piano and good acoustic to give a recital in Taipei I sadly recommend you find somewhere else (until there is some change of management).

Piano Competitions and the Wizard of Oz

I don't know if you have watched the classic movie the Wizard of Oz? When Dorothy finally arrives at Emerald City and peeps behind the curtain, she realises that the mighty Oz was an illusion. Smoke and mirrors. I have been wondering the same about piano competitions recently. So much huff and puff, and... are the rewards actually worth it for the performer?  I decided to conduct an objective experiment to evaluate - are the winners of piano competitions actually getting the solo recitals that their efforts deserve? Here is how I conducted my experiment.

1) I checked out the results of the two most famous competitions: Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, and the Leeds Piano Competition, UK. A full table of winners is here: Leeds competition winners. I decided to randomly select 5 prize winners from the past and check how many recitals they have advertised on their websites in the coming 6 months.

2) Using the wikipedia table, I assigned a number to each prize-winner as follows: top line, Federico C. is number 1 [1-6 reading L to R]; 2nd line, Sofya G. is number 7,  [7-12 reading L to R]etc.

3) Then I visited a 'random number generator website,  'random number generator website, and selected five numbers between 1 and 42. (In my case it gave me 15, 1, 9, 41, 38). So this gave me the names of five Leeds prize-winners between 1993 and 2012.

4) Then I looked online for the websites of these performers, or their agents, and found their concert schedule / concert diary / upcoming engagements etc.

5) Grand total. The number of solo recitals in the next 18 months for the five prize-winning pianists, all added together into one big total, was ... drumroll... 25.  So an average of five 5 recitals per prize-winner over the next 6 months.  Some of these recitals were in pretty small venues such as the tiny Scottish town of Nairn (8,401 population). [Nairn Community and Arts Centre (15 November 2013),  Holy Trinity Church, Nairn, 16 November etc, for Alessandro T., performer number 9].

Now I am absolutely sure that these competition winners play better than me, and that the concert-going public of small towns are great listeners, I have no doubt about it. But the question remains: does the evidence suggest that competition winners are genuinely launched into productive careers on the solo platform, or not?

If you want to check other competition results, I challenge you to find out how many upcoming recitals you can find by Ayako Uehara, 1st prize winner of the Tchaikovsky piano competition.
Is their effort worth it? Perhaps not. You probably know how hard it is to win a major international piano competition, right? Think becoming a brain surgeon, winning Miss World / Mr Universe, and learning to write Arabic.

The point is, perhaps the concert-going public is no longer buying the whole piano competition thing. Consciously or unconsciously, have we reached a tipping-point where people realise that a gladiatorial system is not best suited to expressive artistry? Perhaps the public is over-saturated with pianists performing very similar repertoire (Gaspard de la Nuit, Liszt Sonata, etc), so that it may have become a disadvantage to be a competition winner. 

What the public IS buying is pianists who have NOT won competitions. Paris and Tokyo and New York are buying Yuja Wang, Arkadi Volodos, Yvgeny Kissin, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Daniel Barenboim, Valentina Lisitsa, etc etc

1st prize winner, Vienna Piano Competition, playing Gaspard de la Nuit with his left hand alone

But, I hear you cry, what about great performers who have won competitions?  Like Radu Lupu and Daniil Trifonov. Well, I suspect that, like Yuja Wang and Volodos, they would have come to the attention of concert agents, the public, and record companies, with or without competitions.

I admit any counting method is open to debate: pianists may have failed to update their website; or you need to search in the home language of the performer (eg in Japanese for a Japanese winner). Having said that, if you look up Yuja Wang's upcoming schedule, it is pretty clear, even if you don't search in Chinese script.

But I am not asking you to accept my figures  - be brave, take a peek behind the curtain of the Wizard of Oz, see what is (or is not) behind the curtain!

Rosina Lhevinne

Just heard a great story from my friend Professor Lynn Raley. The illustrious grande dame of pianists, Rosina Lhevinne (teacher of Van Cliburn and wife of pianist Josef Lhevinne), was due to perform Chopin E minor concerto at the tender age of 82. She was asked by an interviewer on radio how she went about preparing for public performance at her advanced age. In a high pitched Russian accent she replied: Well young man what I do is to dim the lights, close the door, and lie on my couch, with my music score on my lap, and then, very slowly and deliberately, I finger my passages.

Upcoming Lecture Recital

Piano Mastery Secrets Unlocked 

Part 1: Rachmaninoff and his circle

Lecture recital presented from the keyboard by pianist Kong Tienxi (Matthew Koumis) in English, with visual presentations and simultaneous Mandarin translation (90 minutes total duration)

Works performed include
Liadov / Siloti: I danced with a Mosquito
Tchaikovsky / Pabst: Lullaby Op 16:1
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in G-sharp minor Op 32:12
Strauss / Godowsky: Standchen Op17:2
Rachmaninoff: Lilacs Op 21:5
Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C minor Op 23:7

Through what alchemy does the early 20th century Russian school of pianism succeed in touching our hearts so deeply? And what role did literature and painting play in inspiring their piano compositions? Technical elements, including fingering, pedalling, tone production and phrasing, will be explained from the editions, writings and recordings of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943); his piano teacher Alexander Siloti (1863-1945); his senior colleague Paul Pabst (1854-97); and two pianists whom Rachmaninoff greatly admired, Josef Hofmann (1876-1957) and Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938).

 Booking through this link here; Tickets: 300 NTD, unreserved.

new concert series in Taipei

I've been asked to promote an exciting new series of concerts for young performers aged 17-19 here in Taipei. Just click for details in mandarin, or contact me for english language info! Good luck everyone!

click here for concert details

wouldn't wish to change a note

Here is a trio of classical music performances that really capture the different moods of relationships just right. As Moriz Rosenthal said, "it's not servants of art we need, it's masters!" and these are all masterful interpreters.

For Russian singing these days you can't beat Anna Netrebko, in Rachmaninoff she is superb, also in Rimsky Korsakov; if this doesn't remind of your passsionate first love... as Anna de Noailles wrote, music promises more than love...

As for Rachmaninoff's friend Chaliapin, you can't beat this performance of Glinka for conveying the paranoid mood of the song to perfection, this really makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

But if it's vocal style of piano playing you are looking for, Shura Cherkassky is your man, as in this setting of a Tchaikovsky Lullaby, transcribed by Pabst. When Cherkassky was asked what he had learnt from his legendary teacher Hofmann, he replied: "Pedalling, dynamics, general vibration". Well, his general vibration is sounding pretty darned good!

Radames Gnattali: beautiful Brazilian piano music

some magical fusion of jazz and popular song performed by the composer Gnattali

new recordings!

Hi everybody! I just uploaded three recordings to YouTube. Rachmaninov’s Preludes in C minor and G sharp minor, plus Manos Hadjithakis ‘Conversation with Sergei Prokofiev’ taken from his suite ‘For a Little White Seashell’, op 1. I recorded them in Forum Auditorium in Taipei 2 weeks ago. I hope you enjoy them! Here is Prelude in c minor Op 23:7

Teresa Carreno

The mind of the performing artist must be as cultured as that of the composer. Culture comes from the observation of many things: nature, architecture, science, sculpture, history, men and women, poetry. I advise aspiring pianists to read a great deal of poetry!

Wise words from Teresa Carreno, one of the greatest lady pianists! As a child she met Liszt himself, who urged her to be true to her own individuality while pursuing her piano studies.

PIano technique

There is a technique which liberates and a technique which represses the artistic self. All technique ought to be a means of expression.

I’m currently compiling a book of favourite quotations by the great pianists of the past. This quote by Hofmann is one of my favourites! People get a bit hung up about technique, but really it is not the main thing to focus on; after all, if you are going out on a friday evening to meet a friend, you are probably not focussing on how the wheels of the bus go round and round…

Piano recital review: Lynn Raley: Contemporary Piano Works by Taiwanese Composers

Lynn Raley (centre) performed Contemporary Piano Works by Taiwanese Composers, at the Chai Found 101 Auditorium, Taipei on June 8th 2013. On his left, composer Tsung-Hsien Yang. On his right composer Chiu-Yu Chou.

Professor Raley is a former student of Taipei American School, who has been making a special study of contemporary Taiwanese piano music. For the past 12 months he has been  Senior Fulbright Scholar, and Visiting Associate Professor of Music at  the National Chiao Tung University.

The evening’s programme consisted of 8 works for piano solo by living composers, three of which were receiving their world premieres. Three of the works were dedicated to Professor Tsung-Hsien Yang at the Taipei National University of the Arts by his pupils to celebrate his 60th Birthday. A related score entitled “The Joy of Keys” was freely available on the night, containing three of the scores by Chiu-Yu Chou, Yuan-Chen Li and Ching-Yi Wang together with contact details. Great idea!

I particularly enjoyed Chiu-Yu Chou’s Fluid Ripples (2012), one of three World Premiere’s in the programme: like a Jeux d’Eaux for our climate-stressed era. The tremolos of Ching-Yi Wang’s Upon the Night, A Whisper of Sky brought to my mind Takemitsu meeting Xenakis, soft-hued poetry meeting harder-edged logic. Tsung-Hsien Yang’s Albumblatter from Sansui Shack occupied its space with the well-formed assurance of a composer who has found his path, like a Brancusi sculpture. Mei-Fang Lin’s Mistress of the Labyrinthsounded to be the most pianistically challenging work of the evening, the exposed left hand passage work at the opening might frighten any pianist of a lesser calibre than Lynn Raley: but here, as throughout the evening, technical difficulties were surmounted and the scores delivered with persuasion and assurance. The audience seemed most intrigued by the Sound of Silence by Chi-Tien Lee: the pianist’s tasks included plucking strings within the piano, plus humming! Now that was a fresh moment!  It was an evening which will linger long in the mind.

My criticisms are very few: the sound of the Kawai piano was slightly hard: a better instrument would have lent an extra degree of velvety atmospheric languour which some of the music called for. The page turning was slightly distracting, but admittedly it looked a nightmare of a job!

Meanwhile the attractive venue was full, lighting and ambience were very good, the bilingual programme notes were helpful. It is to be hoped that Professor Raley will record his performance on YouTube at the earliest opportunity so that these works can find a wider audience that they richly deserve. Hats off!

Review: Piano recital Lin Shuennchin,Taipei, 8th June 2013

 Lin Shuennchin appeared at the National Recital Hall at 14.30 to perform Liszt’s first piano concerto and Rachmaninoff’s second concerto – but without orchestra! Instead, with digital orchestra. O brave new world!

On the stage: a Steinway concert grand with either side two huge loudspeakers; plus a pianist in the most handsome dinner jacket one has seen in a long time.

Every pianist learning a concerto faces a basic problem: how to practice at home without the orchestra. (For any reader unfamiliar with the process, one solution is to find a fellow pianist willing to learn the orchestral reduction, and then to practice with them on a second piano. Then, more recently a range of CDs became available called Minus One (eg Beethoven 3rd Concerto minus one) which contain orchestral playing without the soloist. The difficulty here is that the soloist and orchestra are likely to have slightly different ideas on tempo.)

Professor Lin has been working on an innovative new solution since 2007, a digital orchestral simulation such that the soloist can choose in advance and preset the tempo for different sections. Dynamics and expression can also be preset. He has already tried this out in public for about 10 concerti. This will undoubtedly be extremely useful for the next generation of soloists and students wishing to practice at home with orchestral accompaniment. The potential value is enormous.

So how did it sound in concert? The orchestra was deafening in the ff sections such as the opening of the Liszt concerto, and a simple adjustment to the volume setting would have helped. The orchestral sound quality itself was slightly artificial sounding, like an early digital piano. But the synchronicity of pianist and orchestra seemed fine – the small number of moments of unhappiness between soloist and orchestra could have been because of performer’s nerves – it was hard to tell.

Whilst the programme notes did have excellent stylistic analysis of the music, they gave very little information about how this digital system operates: “The orchestra sound Dr Lin manufactures is by Steinberg Nuendo as the platform and East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra as the VST instrument.” Eehh? I wanted to know basic information, such as how exactly does the pianist pre-programme the orchestral tempo/dynamics? how much computer knowledge would  a soloist need to operate this system? If it is for sale, how much does it cost? If it is not for sale yet, when is it likely to reach the market, etc etc.

As a public event it slightly fell between two stools: neither a demonstration of a prototype (since that would require some verbal explanations, and perhaps commercial marketing), nor quite a concert (since the details such as the volume of the orchestra etc did not seem to take into consideration the enjoyment of the audience). There may be alternative and more appropriate forums outside the concert hall.

It is highly praiseworthy that Professor Lin tackles such demanding works on stage with courage and skill, and is a pioneer of innovative technological techniques for the benefit of the musical community.  Very good, but no cigar – yet!