“The true poem is not that which the public reads. There is always a poem not printed on paper… in the poet’s life. It is what he has become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince’s gallery.” - Henry David Thoreau

The above is one of my favorite quotes. I first came across it as a teenager at a time when I was immersed with thoughts about my future and what it meant to pursue a life in music. I recently had some interesting conversations with some friends about the nature of creativity and the definition of an artistic life, and as I thought about how to discuss this idea on this blog, this quote came floating to me from the memories in the back of my mind.

I do not come from a family of professional musicians. They are all music lovers and my mother is an amateur pianist, but my family members are all educators, scholars, researchers, and activists. One of my uncles, a mathematician, was one of my closest relatives during my childhood. My brother and I wrote handwritten letters to him every week, and would receive one back from him as well. These letters are some of my most prized possessions, and the joy I felt in reading them is one of the strongest memories I have from my childhood. Although I was only seven years old, his letters to me were filled with his thoughts on life, his work, his research, and his philosophical musings about the nature of the universe and its connection to everything around us including the arts, sciences, and humanities.

When I was about ten, he finally completed one of his great life opuses by solving a celebrated mathematical problem. Taking a break from his work, he came to visit and shared with us how he came to the solution. He was kind enough to show me his published theory (which, of course, I couldn’t even remotely fathom) but he took the time to explain to me as though I could understand. He had been working on the solution to this problem for 15 years. This fact alone boggled my 10 year old mind - why that was even longer than my age! I asked him how he could think and work on one problem, one idea, for so long. He then told me about a trip he had taken to France in which he visited the beautiful gardens and home of Monet in Giverny. Inspired by the natural setting and beauty, he decided to walk back to the city he was staying in rather than take the train back as he had planned to. He ended up walking for over five hours to get back to his hotel. I was astonished. “Why didn’t you just take the train back?” I asked. He calmly replied, “Because I wanted to think.” What I took from his anecdote was that time - whether it be 5 hours or 15 years or even an entire lifetime - becomes irrelevant when one endeavors to reach for an original insight.

Since then, my uncle has continued his research into another theory, another chapter and challenge in his life’s work. My formative years were colored by conversations and the sharing of ideas with people who I believe, like my uncle, lead an artistic life in their respective professions. There may be many layers of interpretation to Thoreau’s quotation, but I have always interpreted it to mean that an artist’s best work and the true meaning of his life is always yet to be discovered; that is, the essence and definition of what it means to be an artist lies within the very act of questioning, searching, and seeking. There is always a possibility that we may never discover what we hope to find. We may reach the end knowing that what we have learned along the way is not even remotely close to satisfying, and we may spend a lifetime pursuing an idea or belief that ultimately has no resolution - but this in no way means that the search itself was futile. An artistic life celebrates and values the courage needed to ask the question that allows us to continue searching and growing - not for “any prince’s gallery”, but because the question itself reveals the infinite dimensions of our relationship to the world around us.

I recently came across two classical concert musicians who are using their education and skill to express through comedy, much like Victor Borge did in the past.

For more videos of their humor, you can visit their website which has more videos as well as information about their background, their show, and upcoming performances which include a tour with violinist Gidon Kremer in the fall.

This particular video seemed to be an appropriate way to start off the week - enjoy!



I Will Survive

April is National Poetry Month, and as I have mentioned before, I was always horrible at writing poetry. This has always led me to have a profound respect and admiration for those who are able to create works in this most enigmatic and elusive art form.

There are many poets I enjoy, and numerous poems I have held dear to my heart and committed to memory. In honor of this month’s celebration of the world’s poetry past, present, and future, I have chosen to reprint two of my current favorite poems from two very different artists - the hauntingly beautiful and melancholic Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, and the disarmingly bracing and urbane American poet, Frank O’Hara.

Solemn over Fertile Country

Solemn over fertile country passes
The white cloud, ineffectual, fugitive,
Which from among the fields for one black instant
Raises a lukewarm breath.

Flying high in my soul the slow idea
Blackens my mind, but already I am turning
- Like the field’s self to itself - to the daylight
Of imperfect life.

- Fernando Pessoa

—–

Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

- Frank O’Hara

As you may have ascertained by now, I am a person that tends to take life, work, my personal life and relationships quite seriously, and lean towards an intensively reflective type of existence. But I am also a person that has a hopeless, lifelong addiction to laughing. I love the sound of laughter more than anything else in this world. Unfortunately, I was not gifted with the fine talent of humor, and am incapable of even telling or remembering a joke. Because I know this, I have always tried to surround myself with people who do have this marvelous ability and talent, who have the gift of allowing me to be able to laugh about the absurdities of life and also, perhaps more importantly, to laugh at myself.

This weekend, I immersed myself in conversations with hysterically funny people, reading hilarious blogs and tweets, and spent some time watching movies and shows that make me laugh out loud. I am fortunate to be surrounded in my everyday life by friends and family who possess either witty sarcasm, or physical skills that allow them to produce killer impressions, or interesting quirks that result in a wonderfully charming eccentricity. As I slowly venture into the online social realm, I have also encountered numerous warm and clever souls who, whether they realize it or not, enrich my life daily with their perceptive commentary and droll observations.

Laughing non-stop over the past few days has rejuvenated and re-energized me like nothing else can. It has filled me with immeasurable joy and gratitude. I am very lucky to be surrounded by people both in the real world and online who give me the gift of laughter, because they give me something that I would not have without them - and for that, I thank them.

I feel as though I’ve been a little disconnected this week because I have been immersed in preparations and recording sessions for my next CD, and have been inhabiting the turbulent, restless, melancholic and highly emotionally charged inner worlds of Schumann and Chopin rather than that of the outside world.

Recording of the Schumann G- minor sonata was completed in the past two days, and due to scheduling conflicts for all the parties involved, recording of the Chopin third sonata will take place next month. If all goes well, it will hopefully be released during the summer. Recording is always a difficult and challenging process for me - it is a gruelingly self-critical and a brutally emotional and mentally exhausting time. Listening to oneself over and over again, reworking and trying new things, and the constant emotional drainage that takes place from repeating takes to a microphone and not to a live audience, is very difficult. Unlike a live performance, which is a communicative and sharing event that takes place in one moment in time, a recording is a permanent archive that preserves an artist’s voice and interpretative statement, and because of this, a different set of challenges present themselves.

As I take a little time to rest and revive myself, click here to view a few photos I snapped at the recording sessions.

My first public performance was at the age of three. I don’t remember too much about it - I don’t remember what I played or what I wore, but I do remember two things. One was that it was the first time I played on a grand piano, and I thought it looked funny. The second thing I remember is that when I finished playing and crawled off the piano bench to take my awkward bow, the audience laughed. I will never forget that moment because I remember very clearly feeling a certain kind of pain, a pain that comes from feeling alienated, from feeling a separation between you and those around you. I remember running back to my mother’s arms and crying. She kept asking me what was wrong, and I couldn’t explain to her (the words to articulate were not in my vocabulary yet) that I hurt because I had become aware that I was different.

The start of this pain marked the start of the loneliness that is an inherent part of life as an artist. At the age of thirty, I’ve been performing professionally for 22 years, and have performed and lived in many parts of the world. My mother tried to protect me and provide as normal a life as possible for me, but it goes without saying that with the trajectory of my musical career, this was not easy. Over the years, I have learned to become comfortable, accepting, and grateful for the unusualness of my life. I have been able to use my work as a musician to reach out and get involved with different projects as well as social, educational, and humanitarian causes that I believe in. I have come to the understanding that it was my path to discover, just as everyone else has their own unique life path to follow.

But along that path that has brought me to where I am, my experiences have also taught me that others may not be able to comprehend or feel as comfortable with the atypical nature of my life as I do, and that they will often prefer to see what it is they want to see, rather than who I really am or what I feel my life stands for. As human beings, whether it be because of our own ignorance, fears, or limitations, we have this need to constantly categorize everyone, to put people into clearly defined boxes in order to either feel better about our own selves or to superficially describe someone who has lived a very different life than our own. Over the years, I have been on the receiving end of many attempts at categorizations, whether it be sexism, racism, or ageism (most often a combination of all three). And I continue to face them all the time. It is frequently easier for others to define you on their terms, rather than to accept what is the reality.

It used to upset me tremendously when people did these things, when there was such a blatant disregard for my life and for me as a human being - whatever the reason may be. It reminded me of that moment at age three when I felt helpless in the midst of oblivious adults, and it compounded the sense of distance I already felt from people. I once talked to P, a great friend of mine, about all of this and complained, “You know, I am just so cynical now”, and he laughed and replied, “No, you are an optimist because you still believe in people - that’s why you get disappointed.” And he was right.

It has taken me a long time to understand that, like a painting of contrasts, the sometimes base, petty qualities of human nature actually highlight the very reasons why I have chosen to dedicate my life to art. In the face of such ugliness, music reminds us of the beauty and inspiration we are capable of creating, and, optimist that I am, I cling to that hope.