Crawling home after 18 hours of travel from Tokyo via London, I am now recovering from an inevitable bout of jetlag. It has taken me awhile to write this entry, as I have been mulling over a great many things. The waning rays of summer, the feeling that things are “starting up” again…immersed in this annual transition, and nourished by my experiences and insights from these past few months, I debated how to best approach and write this post.

I have recently been struggling with a difficult experience I had with someone, a fellow musician -  someone I admired and respected very much. What happened between us has left me saddened, disappointed, and very much hurt -  feelings which are very typical when one realizes (and painfully admits) that one has been manipulated and used. I have always felt that it is extremely important for artists to support other artists whom they believe in. Everyone is eager to declare that classical music is dying and is in a severe crisis. But musicians, who are often struggling so much just to be heard, just to survive, sometimes end up behaving in a manner that I think negates the very value of the art we are trying to sustain. Egotism, insecurity, the driving need to somehow be accepted or validated, a quest for recognition — all these things are related and can negatively affect a performer’s ability to sincerely communicate and give through their music. When someone much older than me behaves in a manner that seems more appropriate for someone much younger than me, it is rather disturbing. It makes me wonder why an artist would behave in such a way, and if this is the way that it is, if musicians themselves end up acting without integrity, without courage or class, then what is the point of doing music at all? And so, the disillusionment set in - then why am I a musician? What good does it do? How can I step out onto a stage and share my ideas, share what I find and love in this incredible music, when I am so personally disappointed with the manner in which people I cared about and valued, behaved? It was with this rather heavy heart that I headed off to Japan to start off the season.

This was my fourth trip to Okierabu to perform and teach - a small, beautiful island located near Okinawa off the southern most tip of Japan, it is where my grandparents lived and where my mother was raised. This small island is rich in its people’s generosity and its own historic culture, and has a tradition of being fiercely devoted to children, education, and the future generation. There is a huge banner hanging in front of the main government building there - it says “Yume ni kakeyou”, translated it means “Let’s bet on our dreams”. I am consistently amazed with the city’s ability to be adventurous, to take risks, and their absolute commitment to the future of their children, to produce (as the mayor informed me) “global citizens”. I am always humbled when I hear them talk about their plans and ideas, and feel that this small island has so much that it could teach to much larger countries.

Upon arrival, the happy conversations of the people there, the warmth of their greetings, the fantastic seafood, the beautiful surroundings — somehow they all soothingly enveloped my disenchanted self, and when I finally sat down to play, finding all of the words I have a difficult time expressing in real life contained within the notes, harmonies, and phrases of Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, the audience listened so quietly, so attentively, to what I wanted to express. They experienced it all with me - my recent pain and disappointment, my search for some kind of understanding, my desire to get past it. They experienced it not so that they could understand me better, but rather, they experienced my perceptions in order to bring about a better understanding of their own selves, of their own pains, disappointments, and personal searches. And as I played the quiet opening of the second movement of Schumann’s G minor sonata, as the piece unfurled itself from Schumann’s exquisitely magical writing, I remembered why I do music, and why I am a musician. Every artist’s path is his or her own - the artist I am and the life I lead is a choice I make each and every day. It is a choice I make because I believe in the value of what I do, and I lead my life in a way that I hope sincerely and truthfully reflects that. Every musician makes his or her own choice, not only artistically with their interpretations, but also, like every human being, every musician makes choices in how to lead his personal life, and in how he chooses to treat others around him.

After the recital, I did some intensive teaching through masterclasses and private lessons with many bright and talented students at the Grace Nikae Piano Seminar, which I’ve been doing for several years now. These beautiful students, with their sparkling eyes filled with such joy at just playing at the piano, move me every single time. There is a moment in teaching that I love more than any other - it is when a student’s face (his expression, a shift in the light of his eyes) changes because he has just realized something, discovered something new, not only about the music or instrument, but also about himself, that he didn’t know before - I can find no words to describe my feelings when I see this look. Everything else fades, everything else seems small and irrelevant, next to the power of this expression.

Bleary-eyed and exhausted as I am, I come back from Japan with a different heart than when I left for it. The fact that I am able to experience all of these things - the sadness, the joy, the challenges, the necessary growing pains involved whenever we step forward into the next chapter of our development - makes me grateful. Because it is proof that I am alive, that I am a breathing, living individual who is simply a part of something much greater than all of us. I have been reminded of the reasons why I became a musician, why I believe so much in what it is that I do. And on this day, five years after the unthinkable happened, I remember and am even more poignantly grateful for this.



Click on the picture above to see all the photos from my trip.

I often find myself unable to say what I want in the moment I want to say it. When someone is hurtful, tactless, or insensitive, my brain flails as I try to grasp at some word, some phrase, that could express how I feel - but nothing comes. Instead, the bitter ache of pain, disappointment, or sadness will sit inside of me, internalized, waiting for the release that comes with understanding, waiting for the words that will bring clarity.

As a child, the piano became my voice when I could not speak. When my first crush, Jimmy, moved to a different school, I quietly sat down and practiced Mozart. When my beloved pet rabbit, Blackie, died, I went to the piano and pored through Schubert. During the struggles and challenges of my student days, I found what I was searching for in Brahms. When my first love broke my heart, I grieved through Chopin. Music is intertwined with my personal memories and with the emotional journeys of my life. It is there when the words do not come, cannot come.

When comprehension arrives, when the words finally decide to reveal themselves, it will be at the oddest times — hours, days, or even months later. While I’m washing the dishes, I’ll suddenly realize how I should have responded to X’s hurtful remark. Or while I’m in the shower, I will have a flash of understanding as to why Z acted in such and such way. Riding the subway, getting my hair cut, cooking dinner, sitting at the gate in an airport, while I’m in a restaurant on a date - all moments in which I have had an unexpected revelation.

This morning, as I stand by my apartment window, I sip my cup of coffee and look out onto the bustling, vibrant street filled with people laughing, chatting, and conversing animatedly with one another. I wait for the words to come, for the lucidity that will give me the liberation I now seek - but today is not the day.

And so I sit down at the piano, reach for Schumann’s restless, raging, tormented G minor Sonata, and find my words and solace through his language.

GYÖRGY LIGETI
May 28, 1923 - June 12, 2006

“I am in a prison: One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape.”

As the hectic concert season winds down and the hot, long, sunlit days and warm nights of summer in Madrid open up before me, a hazy, slightly melancholic nostalgia imbues my life. It is the faint, forlorn feeling when something has come to a close, when one realizes that another chapter has finished, and that time is continuing its inexorable march forward. I am left with a cluttered collection of blurry memories from the past season — the music, the sights, the sounds, the places, the people, the challenges, the struggles, and the beauty which have coursed in and out of my life over the past nine months.

Yet, as the quieter (and somehow more introspective) days of summer begin, as I tie up loose ends and try to get organized with all of the little matters I had neglected to take care of because of my performance schedule, the relentlessly bright Spanish sun seems to also shed a new light on everything around me. A freshness, a feeling of sparkling enthusiasm, seems to brilliantly reflect off of everyone and everything. I feel an electric excitement and anticipation in planning my programs for next season - the thrill of delving into the depths of Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Berg; of exploring the sharp edges of Cage, Crumb, Ligeti, and Carter; of the new discoveries and the new memories to come.

This entry marks the beginning of something new as well - my entry into the internet’s blogosphere. I decided to start blogging after maintaining a “travel journal” on my professional website became too cumbersome and time-consuming. The immediacy of blogs appealed to me, and I thought it would be an interesting medium to explore. I am sure that the form of this blog, and the kinds of entries posted, will grow and evolve over time.

I have just returned from London, where I played my last recital of this season, and I cannot think of a better way to end the season than with my recital debut at one of the world’s warmest and most beautiful halls - Wigmore Hall. The piano and the incredibly resonant and accomodating acoustics, made the concert one of those rare, satisfying experiences for me as a performer. I don’t know if people realize just how vulnerable musicians (especially pianists) are to the conditions of the hall and instrument. When a hall’s acoustics can honestly carry my “voice” to speak to each seat in the audience, and when the instrument allows me to be able to “say” every envisioned nuance and inflection, I feel as though all things are possible, and the performance takes on another dimension.

At this concert, I also had the great pleasure of meeting Georgina Ginastera, the daughter of the great composer Alberto Ginastera (whose Danzas Argentinas I had performed on the program) as well as pianist Alberto Portugheis who knew Ginastera very well, and directs the Ginastera Festival in London. In addition, the concert promoter, Nigel, (a natural, warm, bright, and all-around fantastic person) not only did such an amazing job organizing everything, he also took us out for a marvelous post-concert meal, and provided us with stimulating and animated conversation about everything from music to literature, poetry and film. I cannot think of a better way to close what was an already fulfilling and immensely satisfying day for me — thank you, Nigel!


Click on the picture above to view some pictures from London.