Music: relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects

On reading Karl Paulnack’s welcome address at Boston Conservatory, I am reminded of the reasons why I stopped my income-producing career midway to enroll in full-time music education for four years. Those were some of the best years of my life. — the passionate pursuit of beauty and perfection, art for art’s sake only, long hours of practice, insane obsession with finishing a composition, weekly lessons with multi-lingual teachers well versed in their art, …. living and breathing music 24/7.

Karl Paulnack recalls the Greeks seeing music as the study of the relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. “Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us.”

Indeed music has a way of drawing out our emotions and soothing our souls. When I was sent to work in Houston in 1996, I rented a piano for my loft apartment. At first I merely wanted to play piano after a long day of number crunching. But something else happened. The memory of a dying friend triggered me to write. I felt the urge to compose. When I did, I couldn’t stop.

And then came a yearning. I wanted to know why, all of a sudden, I was composing. I sought out a composition teacher at Vanderbilt University when I was visiting Nashville, Tennessee in 1997.  As I sat outside his office waiting for my turn, I struck up a conversation with a lady my age. I asked if she was also enquiring about admissions to study music. She replied yes and asked how old my child was. Until then it had not occurred to me that I might be too old to study music.

Dr Michael Rose was kind to meet me. I was confused and needed direction. He looked at my piano solo composition “St Valentine” which I dedicated to my friend Hiroko who had passed away in December 1996. He suggested that I listen to a C# minor prelude of J.S. Bach. He then proceeded to tell me that a musician is a doctor of souls.

St Valentine by Anne Ku

Karl Paulnack’s welcome speech reminded me of that visit to Dr Michael Rose’s office in 1997. Two years later, on my first trip to Maui, I saw a woman dance to my impromptu piano playing at one of the hotels. She burst into tears when I stopped playing.

Indeed I have seen how live music affects the listener. It is ever so powerful when it connects the invisible, internal, hidden objects — things you did not know existed or had meaning or significance. Somehow music summarises it all.

But my own music has stopped. Like the chef in “Eat Drink Man Woman” who lost his sense of taste, I have lost that yearning to compose. Yet I must not forget my own journey to find myself in the music within. And this is why it does not make sense to question the economics of music making.

Piano and guitar amplified

“You’re the third accountant I know who has become a full-time professional musician,” I said to singer/guitarist Jimi Canha over lunch this afternoon.

To his gig partner, Gilbert Emata who started taking lessons on the organ and piano from age 6 and who grew up in the Filipino equivalent of the Jackson Five, I said, “I took piano lessons from a music academy run by Filipino teachers on Okinawa. They’re the best musicians in Singapore I later discovered when I worked there.”

But I had more things in common than the accountant and Filipino teacher connection. Gilbert Emata and Jimi Canha are a duo — a keyboard and guitar/voice duo who plays regularly on Maui. On Thursday evenings, they play at the Grand Wailea. More recently they were flown to the island of Kauai to play for a Google convention.

Gilbert Emata and Jimi Canha at UHMC, Maui, 9 November 2011

Today they appeared in three consecutive music classes at the University of Hawaii Maui College as professional musicians and guest lecturers. I walked into the second class (a piano class) around 10:50 am. The performance was in full swing. It was as if they had brought their gig from a five star hotel into a class room. The front was set up with two amplified speakers and cables connecting keyboards, synthesizers, microphone, and other equipment.

In between their songs, Karyn Sarring, who teaches the piano and voice classes at the college, interviewed the musicians.

Jimi Canha told the story of how he learned music by ear and very quickly too. If a guest requested a song he didn’t know, he’d learn it overnight to play it the next day. At college he took a slack key guitar class but otherwise he was mostly self-taught — on the guitar, trumpet, drums, and keyboards. He worked as an accountant for some 20 years before turning his part-time hobby into a full-time profession.

Between his guitar and his microphone sat a small and nearly invisible iPad on a small stand. Jimi Canha showed the class that the iPad stored just the lyrics of songs he sang. No chords. No notes. Just lyrics. When asked which key he sang in, he replied, “It depends on the mood. I choose a low key if I want to be mellow. For a full band sound, I choose a higher key. This morning I started in A. After I’ve warmed up, I might move to B.”

Gilbert Emata elaborated. “By the time we finish our gig at the Grand Wailea, it’s 9 pm. We pack up and drive home. It’s 10 or 10:30 pm. I shower and eat, and it’s already 11:30.” Jimi Canha added, “This is the earliest we’ve had to get up to perform. We were here at, what? – 9 am?”

Once the original keyboard player for Ekolu, Gilbert brought the synthesizer to the group. When he left, Ekolu replaced him with two horn players. Since then he has played with various groups. His recording credits include Uncle Willie K’s red Christmas CD and also a forthcoming blues CD. As he introduced his bass keyboard, main keyboard, synthesizer, drum kit, and speakers that altogether gave him a full band sound, he played riffs that I recognised immediately: the Hammond organ and a familiar rock and roll sound. The grand piano and a nostalgic melody. The bass and drum kit producing a rhythm that made you dance. Here was a musician with an obviously huge repertoire and an ability to follow and accompany anything and everything.

An exchange student asked,”How do you get gigs?”

It’s the typical and most asked question of any musician who wants to perform. Jimi replied,”You start by playing for free. Play for your church. Play at family gatherings.” In other words, don’t expect to be paid when you first start out.

Gilbert added,”We had a guy from the Big Island come to our gigs. He watched us. Then he asked if he could sit in with us. We heard him. Now he plays four nights a week.” In other words, you have to be heard. Show up. This was an informal audition.

In a nutshell, the music scene is small on Maui. Everybody knows everybody (who is a musician). Jimi describes good musicians as those you can “see their heart through their music.” He played the Tahitian drums with a fire knife dancer during Uncle Willie K’s 15-minute performance in the Oakland Raiders football game. It was a great opportunity to share the aloha spirit — the essence of Hawaiian music.

It was 3 pm. Lunch was over. Gilbert and Jimi had given most of their Wednesday to eager students and two teachers. Karyn had another class to get back to. I was grateful to be invited to hear two local musicians share a sample of their vast repertoire, from reggae to jazz, from pop to rock. Until my own piano guitar duo returns, I am rejuvenated by the musicianship in theirs.

Introducing new piano solos

As a sightreader, I am always looking for new challenges, that is, to play new music I have not seen before.  Before I entered the world of composers, I would search for published music of dead composers.

In my musical journey, I discover that the new music (of living composers) is just as interesting if not more. These days, if I come across music of a composer I like, whether it’s ensemble music or piano guitar duo, I’d ask if he or she had written anything for piano solo or piano duet. Similarly — vice versa.

Below is a catalogue of the piano solo works I have reviewed and introduced on Concertblog. I will continue to add to this list, arranged alphabetically by the composer’s last name.

• Abrams, Daniel: Chaconne on Dido’s Lament (video)
• Alkema, Henk: piano solo from duet ( sample score, photo)
• Carollo, John:  Waltz (mp3, sample score, photo)
• Diehnelt, Kim: Impromptu (mp3, sample score)
• Ku, Anne: Full Moon on Maui (sample score)
• Ku, Anne: Toccata on an Elegie Theme (mp3, sample score)
• Peterson, Tom: Sonatina (video)
• Verleur, Heleen: Daniel’s Song (mp3, sample score, photo)
• Verleur, Heleen: Prelude and Fuga in D minor: mp3, sample scores
• Williams, Chris: Somewhere Between Reason and Light (video)

Prelude for Anne by Robert Bekkers

When I changed the generic title of the mp3 file to “Prelude in d” while preparing the last blog post, the file list automatically reordered alphabetically in itunes. Just above the newly renamed file was “Prelude for Anne.”

Listening to it brought back memories of my early days with Robert Bekkers, who wrote and played the guitar solo piece for me.

Prelude for Anne by Robert Bekkers (mp3)

It was the first time anyone had composed a work dedicated to me. I am pretty sure of that. I was not only flattered but genuinely taken by it. I suppose it’s like receiving a love letter, a love poem, or a gift that is totally original and unique. Such is the gift of music — a composition written for a person and dedicated to that person.

Robert Bekkers in London, April 2001

Shortly after I met Robert in Amsterdam, I organized a small house concert in my home in London in April 2001 in which Robert played several solo pieces. I cannot remember for sure if he included this prelude as I did not mention it in my blog. Nor did I list it in the subsequent house concerts.

Somehow I do recall a premiere and several performances. But when and where?

Would this blog post jog his memory? Or inspire him to find the sheet music?

Prelude and Fuga in d minor by H. Verleur

Before I left the Netherlands, I recorded a CD of three piano duets with Carol Ruiz Gandia for my Call for Scores project followed by several solo pieces that were easy to sightread. Three of the solos came from my collection of music by the Amsterdam-based composer Heleen Verleur.

What a joy it was to find Verleur’s Prelude and Fugue in D minor on my bookshelf! Sightreading the set brought back memories of my first concert in Bussum, Netherlands in March 2002. Back then, I was still working full-time as an energy magazine editor, shuffling between London where I was based to the New York head office and various conference locations. Music was a pastime, a favourite hobby, and an insatiable passion.

If you visit our Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo website, you’ll see that the very first concert is listed in 2002, a year after I met Dutch guitarist Robert Bekkers. That “afternoon of diversity” concert in a Lutheran church in the town of Bussum (east of Amsterdam) featured the music of Heleen Verleur for piano solo and piano and violin as well as that of Astor Piazzolla. In preparing for that concert, I wrote of my expectations of that event where the guest of honour was my childhood friend Leslie from Seattle.

More than 10 years after I met Robert Bekkers and Heleen Verleur in Amsterdam, I would like to share my interpretation of the prelude and fugue, recorded on 4th August 2011 on my 1909 New York Steinway in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Prelude in d minor by Heleen Verleur, interpreted by Anne Ku (mp3)

Prelude in d minor by Heleen Verleur

Fuga in d minor by Heleen Verleur, interpreted by Anne Ku (mp3)

Fuga in d minor by Heleen Verleur

When I searched for “Verleur” on my e-mail programme, I discovered several e-mails of mp3 and concert announcements from Heleen. Now that I have more time in Hawaii, I hope to listen to this backlog of gifts of music, including CDs I received from various composers and performers. You could say that forthcoming entries in this Concertblog will introduce the music I have been collecting during the last 10 years of concertizing and arts management in the Netherlands.

Heleen Verleur official website: http://www.heleenverleur.nl

Piano duets from Hawaii to Holland

Call for Scores of Multi-hand Piano Duets

This was an experimental project to get living composers to submit interesting duets for pianists to play and to get feedback from the pianists on readability, playability, and more.

The first round of sightreading took place in Maui: over 3 separate sessions, Karyn Sarring and Anne Ku sightread the 42 duets accepted. This set was short-listed and some sent to Chong Kee Tan, organiser of the mid-May event in San Francisco to get interest. As a result of feedback, it was decided not to have a sightreading competition but a sightreading workshop with piano soiree instead. The event was not publicised to composers because some pianists expressed reservation in sightreading new works in front of them. In spite of this, two Bay Area composers attended.

To get more pianists to play, Anne Ku took the printed PDF sheet music to the Netherlands to interest pianists to try the music with her. The following pianists (by first name only) in chronological order attempted the duets: Tom, Thera, Brendan, Ahti, Huub, Liesbeth, Carol, and Bart. Anne Ku recorded several extracts of sightreading with Texas-based Brendan Kinsella in early July and 3 studied pieces with Utrecht-based Carol Ruiz Gandia in early August 2011.

Chronology from 31st January 2011 onwards:

• Call for Scores: multi-hand piano duets, deadline 5th April 2011
• Writing multi-hand piano duets questions from a composer answered
• Multi-hand piano duets in San Francisco – the sightreading workshop and piano soiree on 15th May 2011 – placeholder
• Call for pianists: new multi-hand duets on one piano – an attempt to get pianists in Utrecht to sightread music
• Sightreading new multi-hand duets for one piano – a review of different experiences

REVIEWS OF SELECTED DUETS ## = sample score ** = mp3 or video recording

• Piano duets of Henk Alkema ## **
• Piano duets on five Greek tunes by Harizanos ## **
• Readability for playability: piano duets by Mark Francis ## **
• Retrograde by Mari-anne Hof: from trombone quartet to quatre mains ## **
• The Heartbeat Duet by Michael Christopher Churchyard ## **
• Piano duet by Robert Pollock ## **
• Constant, perpetual, everlasting piano duet by Chip Michael ## **
• Piano duet by Christine Donkin ## **
• Piano duets of Loren Jones ## **
• Conversations in the Garden by John Bilotta ##
• Many hands and pianists on one piano – Elizabeth Lauer ##
• Conversations in the garden: how good music travels **
• Three on one piano duet by Anne Ku — not tried in this project but performed by 3 pianists in Maui in July 2011 ## **
• Waltz for 4-hands, 1 piano by Schroeter ## **
• Capriccio for piano, 4-hands by Blessinger ## **
• Girl with the Hat Box for 3-hands, 1 piano by Freihofner ##

Steinway Grand Model A 188 (1909 New York) at the Monument House, Utrecht, Netherlands used in recording of multi-hand piano duets

Impromptu for solo piano by Kim Diehnelt

As a sightreader, I have an insatiable appetite to discover new music. Now and then, I receive a score that I want to sightread and perform for others. Such was one by the Chicago-based conductor Kim Diehnelt. Her music preceded her.

Impromptu for solo piano by Kim Diehnelt

This is one way musicians get to know each other — through music.

At first I thought she was a conductor. She thought I was an agent or arts manager. Once I premiered her piece in Maui, I then got to know her as a composer.

Over an afternoon snack at Chicago O’Hare Airport recently, the first time we met face to face, I asked her about this piece.

The Impromptu was born out of a desire to capture a moment. Although a unique moment, it may very well be one we all have experienced.  A friend shared a brief description of a morning scene where Bach’s Prelude No. 1 flows from the radio, a glance towards the piano where this piece sits open, a memory from long ago surfaces. In a flash, all these combine into a new awareness of how the current self may meet the tasks of the day.

It is the moments of Between-ness that fascinate me. I hope performers – and listeners – will savor the ‘between-ness’ created with the appearance of each new note.       

Because I love the wine-tasting approach to music, the back page of the score has remarks similar to a wine label – “Austere counterpoint of quiet, timeless reflection punctuated by pauses of full, warm harmony. A captured moment – it lingers in the morning air.”

What’s interesting is that when Kim Diehnelt composes an ensemble work, she actually sees the score as an ensemble — not from a keyboard like many composers do. We discussed the importance of readability for playability down to the size of the measure. If it’s too long, the player may think it’s slower than usual. As a conductor, she knows what she’s looking for and what she wants to hear. When she sits down to compose, she can see it and hear it.

Listen to my recording of Kim Diehnelt’s Impromptu below.

Impromptu by Kim Diehnelt, as interpreted by Anne Ku (recorded on Steinway Grand model A, 1909 New York) in Utrecht, Netherlands, 4th August 2011 (mp3)

 

 

Capriccio for piano, 4 hands by Blessinger

It has been nearly five months since the deadline of my Call for Scores has passed and 3.5 months since the Piano Soiree in San Francisco where several of the piano duets were played. And it has taken THAT long to find another pianist to study, play, and record a duet.

During my 2.5 months in Utrecht, Netherlands (end May – mid August 2011), I actively sought pianists to sightread the 42 duets from 30 composers. Aside from those too boring or too difficult, there were many candidates for a replay. After gauging the sightreading experience with different pianists, I decided which ones deserved another re-evaluation.

Martin Blessinger‘s Capriccio is a fun piece that challenged me enough to recruit someone else with whom to prepare and play together. Below is an extract of the recording on my Steinway Grand in Utrecht, Netherlands with me as primo and Carol Ruiz Gandia as secundo.

Capriccio for piano duet by Martin Blessinger (mp3)

The Texas-based composer wrote:

This piece is a transcription of a movement from Tapas, a suite of short pieces I wrote a few years ago for violin and viola duo.  It struck me that one of the middle movements of the work, Capriccio Pizzicato, would work particularly well for four-hand piano.  This is an ensemble that has always appealed to me for personal reasons.  I was a piano major as an undergraduate, and some of my fondest memories are of reading through four-hand piano works with other members of the piano studio at SUNY Stony Brook.    

Capriccio for piano, 4 hands by Martin Blessinger

In studying for this piece, I focussed only on getting the notes correct, labeling ledger lined notes and polite accidentals whenever possible and necessary for clarity. When we got together to play, we decided to make a small comma after the third quarter note in bar 6 because it felt like a breath was needed. These are decisions that can only be made after studying a piece (not sightreading).

I thought I had the difficult part until I saw what the secundo had to do in bar 33 and 34 while I played nothing. Spanish pianist Carol Ruiz Gandia decided to memorise those octaval 16-th notes while I stayed put. Moving the page distracted her. So I waited until bar 36 before I moved the page.

Bars 34 and 35 in the secundo part of Capriccio by Martin Blessinger

We decided to add some dynamics in bar 58 where it was already forte. We went back down to a mezzo forte and made another crescendo to a forte in bar 60. These dynamics added to the piece. In bar 61, we went back down to a piano and steadily climbed until a big fortissimo in bar 64. The secundo immediately dropped back to a mezzo piano (subito) and I joined her to crescendo to another fortissimo in bar 65. And again. These dynamics are essential to make this piece exciting to play and listen to.

On top of page 7, we retracted to piano and then pianissimo as we descended.

Capriccio by Martin Blessinger: bars 78 to 81

Listen to the 3rd movement Capriccio Pizzicato of Tapas from which this duet came. I rather think the entire 4 movement piece for violin and viola could be arranged for piano duet. I particularly enjoy playing fugues in duets.

In the meantime, having discovered its origins, I will share it with my violin and viola friends in Bristol, where just a year ago I was sightreading piano trios and quartets in their newly renovated Georgian home.

Waltz for 4-hands, 1 piano by Schroeter

Among the 42 piano duets by 30 composers submitted to my Call for Scores project is a delightful, easily accessible (readable, playable, and appreciable) quatre mains duet by Brazilian composer. This Los Angeles-based composer’s style is reminiscent of the romantic era familiar to many members of the piano club in San Francisco.

I noticed how easy it was to play this piece in Maui, San Francisco, Utrecht, and the Hague where I introduced this new work. There are many repeated and modulated sections. The secundo sets a firm pace.

Note @ 21 December 2011:

It is with great reluctance that I have decided to erase the rest of this blog post, remove the sample score and recording. I had spent quite some effort getting the music read, interpreted, and reviewed by enthusiastic pianists in Maui, San Francisco, Utrecht, and the Hague, culminating in a recording made with Carol Ruiz Gandia on my Steinway in Utrecht. However, the overwhelming number of protests, to the tune of 50 unpleasant spam e-mails from the composer, tells me that sometimes feedback and publicity is not appreciated.

Three on One piano duet by Anne Ku

It’s a delight to hear the live recording of my multi-hand piano duet “Three on One” performed on 16th July 2011 in the Battle of the Pianists at the Maui Music Conservatory in Hawaii. I was in Utrecht, Netherlands on that date.

The CD arrived in the post along with the programme notes. It’s nice to see my name after Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche, a 4-hand, 2-piano 3-movement piece that I’ve heard played in Munster, Germany.

The Battle of the Pianists was one of several events in “A Little More Summer Music, Please” organised by Ebb & Flow Arts, the same nonprofit foundation that produced our piano guitar duo concert in Makawao in December 2007. When I first heard of the duet concert, I wanted so much to participate, especially to play the Canto Ostinato which is a rare gem.

Ironically it was Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt’s famous Canto Ostinato which inspired me to write my minimalist duet for 6 hands on one piano when I was still studying at Utrecht Conservatory. This multi-hand duet was first sightread by 5 composers (including myself) at the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival in Italy in July 2007. I called it “Five on One” then. When Thomas Rosenkranz asked me for the score to premiere at the University of Hawaii in Manoa a year later, I changed the music slightly and renamed it “Three on One.” [Download the score in PDF]

Three on One piano duet by Anne Ku

After sightreading various new piano duets this year through my Call for Scores project, I am inclined to rewrite this piece. For one, the notes should be bigger. Two, it would be easier to lay it out in parts not in parallel as I have done. Readability is extremely important. A minimalist piece needs to be longer. At 2 minutes 26 seconds, it’s ridiculously too short. Listen to the performance by Karyn Sarring, Robert Pollock, and Lotus Dancer.

Three on One duet by Anne Ku (mp3) – click to listen.

Fellow collaborator of my Call for Scores project Karyn Sarring played the bass. Lotus Dancer played the middle part and Beatrice Scorby the top (highest, primo).

Composer’s biography in programme notes (tailored to the Maui audience):

Born in Brunei of Chinese parents, Anne Ku grew up on Okinawa, Japan where she learned English from age 7 and the piano from age 8. After graduating valedictorian from Kubasaki High School, she won a full scholarship to Duke University where she double-majored in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. She actively participated in chamber music performance while studying the piano under Randall Love. Fast forward ten years later, she was interviewed by the weekly newspaper of the largest university in the Netherlands for her second chamber opera Culture Shock! which premiered in Utrecht on 2 June 2008. Since then she has focussed on chamber music performance with guitar, French horn, and cello and active as producer of Monument House Concert Series and traveling the world with her piano guitar duo and sharing her adventures through her blogs.