an obvious sign one has practiced too much

Greg vs. Piano
Greg: 4 (4 broken strings)
Piano: 10 (10 fingers in pain!!!)

January 12 - Lindsay Benefit Concert

"First performances" can be terrifying. It usually isn't until the third or fourth performance that I begin to feel comfortable playing a piece in public. Or ... in the case of the Ligeti etude (the one featured on my video page), it wasn't until the 12th, 13th ... no, the 31st go that I finally could perform the piece without having a nervous breakdown before the concert. :)

Tonight I performed the Saint-Saens Fourth Piano Concerto for the first time. In attempt to quell my nerves, I made certain I was over-prepared. I could do my octaves blindfolded, I could play the difficult passage-work backwards, and my toes could have played the slow sections in my sleep. Still, on stage, my heart was racing like a trapped mouse. ... a. trapped. mouse.

That unbelievable heart rate, however, can provide a performer with a working environment unlike anything he or she is bound to find in the practice room: a slower perception of time! So while I'm up there wondering why the piece feels weirdly sedated, the audience is out there forced into the cushion of their backrest by the velocity of the thing. So while I'm up there watching my hands stroll around the keyboard and occasionally fretting over a missed note, the audience is out there wide-eyed, wondering how my hands managed to be in two places at once. Yes, tonight's performance had that energy that comes hand-in-hand with a first performance.

I also had the pleasure of performing a set of two-piano pieces with my former piano teacher. Kim Craig is an amazing woman: she can organize innumerable details at the last minute, catch a falling piano with remarkable grace, and simultaneously tug at your heartstrings and knock you in the funny bone while seated at the piano. Kudos to Kim!

December 30 - Walton Home Recital

My "iPod Shuffle" selection of repertoire for this recital was fun, but I found it very difficult to jump from genre to genre so quickly. Three minutes of Mozart, a couple minutes of Ligeti, a Joplin rag, a Bach Choral Prelude, a virtuoso Christmas tune, Ravel, etc. I found that by the time a reached the end of a piece, I was in the mood for more ... not necessarily something different! In the future, it will be helpful to practice transitioning between styles in order to solidify my execution, because I really like the concept.

Regardless, this was a tremendously enjoyable event, made all the better by the enthusiastic crowd (at least half of whom were members of the Minnesota Choral). I enjoyed accompanying the remarkably boisterous sing-a-long after the recital, and in the end, my audience serenaded me with a glorious rendition of the "Halleluia" chorus from Handel's Messiah. I can't say I expected that!

December 14-17 - Yale University - Piano Duo Filming

Although these performances were not necessarily "live in concert," they were filmed for eventual viewing on our websites and YouTube. With any luck, they will be edited and on the web by February!

Liz (my piano duo partner) joined me in New Haven, and we spent four jam-packed days filming in various locations around Yale University. 17 minutes of music netted over six cassette tapes of footage and two very exhausted pianists. Much like a recording session, filming sessions can be extremely demanding. In a live performance, you play the piece once; extreme focus and concentration are required, but I find that can I feed off the energy of the audience. With a recording, you've got to recreated the energy of a live performance without the audience there - it's sometimes very difficult to do! Plus, you've got to run through the piece over and over again to get a good take! With a video recording, you've got to recreate the energy of a live setting, perform it repeatedly for a good take, *and* do it over and over again from different angles!

That's not to say we didn't have a good time! Half of the time, our exhaustion wasn't the result of the demanding nature of filming, but the result of laughing too hard for too long. It's quite possible these videos will "cross the line," and filming anything anywhere near that "line" is simply comical for Liz and I. Accordingly, we've decided to create a couple "out-take reels" to show the joy inherent in over-the-top four-hand performance.