I need to start blogging more because I feel like every time I update, I apologize for not updating more. In my defense, I’m currently swamped in rehearsals and practicing and studying for finals. (Not to mention that in addition to my own piano and violin juries, I’m accompanying two vocalists, a clarinet player, and a tuba player for their juries.)
These past few weeks I’ve been plowing through several rehearsals per day in addition to hours of practice, and last Friday I performed Debussy’s La Puerta del Vino and Liszt’s concert-etude Gnomenreigen. (To which my piano professor told me both that it was the best I’ve ever played it, and that I also played it faster than he would ever dare to play it himself.) Saturday I played the same program in a church gig and received some pretty positive feedback.
Tomorrow I will premiere a voice-and-piano piece, titled “The Right,” written by a composer friend. It alternates between being fierce and being sweet, and it’s set to text from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
Learning and rehearsing music that has never been performed before is basically a process of discovery. Alon Goldstein, the concert pianist who taught the master class I played for in September, recently blogged about rehearsing a newly written piano concerto. (Okay, I’m not premiering anything as big as a piano concerto, but it’s the same concept.)
When I perform with an orchestra, whether Mozart or Beethoven, Schumann or Rachmaninov, the days of rehearsals are devoted to building the interpretation, the performance. We don’t have to “worry” about the piece. It has already proven itself. It transcended time and place. It is settled. Our time is spent on making our understanding of the piece work.
When premiering a new piece, the center of our attention falls on helping the piece settle as a new entity. Similar to helping a new baby stand on his two feet, we help the piece stands on its 337,486… notes. Of course a good performance helps.
So wish us luck!
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