November 28 - "Interior Landscapes" at Yale University

Woah! It's been a while. Believe it or not, I've been doing quite a bit in the past few months, even if the lack of blog updates have lead you to believe otherwise. Liz and I have played at a number of small private events; we've filmed more music videos; we've produced, edited, and designed our upcoming CD; I've written a fair amount of my dissertation; and I've composed a couple movements for The 5 Browns next CD.

In addition to everything else, David Kaplan (a fellow pianist and colleague of mine at Yale University) and I performed the world premiere of Ezra Laderman's "Interior Landscapes II" for two pianos. We began the concert with "Interior Landscapes I" which we had already performed last year. (You can listen to the recent performance here on David Kaplan's newly minted website!) The work is massively difficult, but it was refreshing to perform the work again. The piece had evolved significantly over the past few months; our minds had somehow made sense of the thousands of notes and it was much more enjoyable to perform as a result.

After some solo performances (I performed transcriptions of Vivaldi, Lully, and Rameau), we tackled the newest "Interior Landscapes," and boy, did it go well. I had to deal with the usual first performance nerves, but along with those came the usual first performance adrenaline. The last movement in particular raced along at lightning speed to a fiery conclusion.

David drew a picture of the two of us playing together. It's nice.

September 6 - Steinway "Concert Wear for Men" Release Party at Steinway Hall

Flanked by flickering shutters, members of the press, and mannequins wearing tuxedos valued at over $7,500, Elizabeth and I gave each other one of those looks ("...just how did we get ourselves into another one of these fabulously outrageous circumstances?") and plunged into our standard four-hand repertoire with our usual unassailable gusto. Steinway & Sons had invited Anderson & Roe to perform as the featured performers at their black tie event, celebrating none other than their new line of concert wear for men. The tuxes looked seriously awesome (next time, I hope they'll consider fitting me in one of those marvels of modern fashion), and Liz and I were happy to help celebrate the event at Steinway Hall.

We played at the end of the party, after the speeches took place, after the models showcased their new attire, and after the crowd had enjoyed plenty of Chopin vodka. Perhaps the timing was to our advantage because everyone was in a good mood; we certainly did our best to make the evening a little merrier. For the most part, the performance was as much fun as it looked. However, there was one moment, a split second really, that seemed to last forever. Here's a timeline of the event:

00:00:00 Piece begins
00:32:01 Piece progressing smoothly
00:32:06 Playing from memory, one of us briefly hesitates, stalling to find a pitch
00:32:08 The other pianist notices the first pianist has stalled
00:32:09 Both pianists have horrifying, deranged visions of the piece falling apart and turning to complete musical gibberish, visions of the audience hollering foul words and throwing rotten vegetables, and visions of Schumann rising from his grave to torment the Anderson & Roe Piano duo for eternity
00:32:10 Two wrong notes are played
00:32:12 Piece continues, back on track
03:09:37 Piece concludes
03:12:04 Elated audience applauds furiously

Alas! We quickly forgave ourselves, especially considering all the distractions we were facing (a camera and a cameraman, rattling ice in martini glasses, corks popping, and a noisy, abandoned microphone). Thankfully, the biggest distraction of all was the very beautiful Steinway D piano we were playing (it was Steinway Hall after all).

September 5 - "Grosse Fuge" at Juilliard's Convocation

Beethoven's second-to-last opus, the "Grosse Fuge" for two pianists (Opus 134) ... is ... monstrously difficult. Here Liz and I trot around, thinking we've composed some pretty nasty works for piano duo. Little did we know that Beethoven had set the precedent with his thorny and intensely virtuosic fugue, culled from his late string quartet and deftly arranged to be performed by four hands on one keyboard. Beethoven gave us a run for our money; we did the best we could in the time we had, but it will take another couple years with this in our repertoire before we can really give it the justice it deserves.

Check out our duo blog, "Where Soloists Fear to Tread," to read Liz's take on the performance today.

August 22 & 23 - Repeat Recitals at the St. Paul Conservatory of Music

I take my mission very seriously - it plays into every decision I make regarding the concert experience, from the layout of the program booklet to my last bow on stage. These recitals at the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music justify every bead of sweat that goes into making my mission a reality.

I devoted the first half of the program to representations of and reactions to war, as seen in piano music during the last 200 years. I personally was affected by the juxtaposition of music – it’s amazing to see how perceptions have changed over time - and I reacted viscerally to the onslaught of sound. More than ever, I felt chills while performing "Sheep May Safely Graze" (Bach) after having just made my way through hell, experienced a "suicide in an airplane" (Ornstein), and lamented the loss of friends who died in combat (Ravel). The biggest struggle of the evening was the first piece on the program, Viguerie's The Battle of Maringo, composed in 1804. The piece is shockingly difficult to pull off effectively. While the technical difficulties and overall mediocrity of the piece certainly didn't help my cause, I did my best; and thanks to my narrator (Peter Kirwin) and various canon detonators, I think the result was actually something to remember!

To contrast the gravitas of the first half, I devoted the second half to the topic of "Drift." As Bruce Mau stated in Life Style: "Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism." It's certainly a difficult concept to convey to an audience, particularly to those who aren't in the mood to "drift," but I was very happy with the result. With so many competitions out there (from international piano competitions to American Idol) audience members have been trained to listen critically, and it's surprisingly easy to lose touch with the simple joys of music. I designed this half to remind audience members of why we fell in love with music in the first place.

Between the two evenings, we found 11 different audience participants on stage producing canon fires, announcing saber blows, riding log flumes, eating gold, and detailing the indigestion of octopuses. Thank you to the two sold-out crowds of enthusiastic and diverse music listeners. The concerts wouldn't have been the same without you.

I had a ball.

August 19 - Services at Saint Andrew's Lutheran Church

Those who know me know how hard it is to get me out of bed in the morning. No matter how hard I try to align my schedule with the path of the sun, it never works. Routinely, I'm awake during the darkest hours of the night consumed by the compositional process and recital programming, and I'm sound asleep for some of the brightest hours of the day.

So of all the things to get me out of bed while the birds are still chirping, I can't think of much that has done a better job than C major, Beethoven, and Sunday morning church services. Wow, does it feel good to play the Waldstein Sonata in a big reverberant church for throngs of happy-faced Minnesotans!

June 20 & 21 - Gina Bachauer International Piano Festival

This piano festival, run by Paul Pollei, was awesome. The facilities, instruments, and administration were what every concert pianist dreams of. The concert series encouraged creative thinking and was willing to cater to the whims of whatever the pianists could envision. Liz and I enjoyed great lighting, working microphones, and a hearty and responsive audience. As a result, we were able to focus on our performances, which went pleasingly well.

Some musical highlights:
*The Cat's Fugue (a brand new piece that I composed for the event - I was surprised by how much I liked the composition ... we'll be playing that again ...)
*The 9th through the 16th minute of "The Rite of Spring." I was definitely on a musical high, unaware of anything else but the awesomeness of the music.
*The "Turtle Staying Alive," the "Cuckoo in Sussex," and "Jackasses." These movements from our New Depiction of the Zoological Fantasy were performed to my liking and received with great enthusiasm by our audience.

Since I'm supposed to be reviewing my performances, I will be honest and confess that I ran out of steam during our "Flair and Fury" concert on the 21st. While we managed to make it through the excitement of our Blue Danube walzes, I just couldn't barrel to the end with my usual gusto. Thankfully, after the non-stop virtuosity of that concert, our audience was forgiving. :-)

If you attended any of the concerts, what were your favorite moments? Least favorite moments?

June 15 - American Matthay Association Lecture/Recital

Give me an exciting topic and two hours of your time, and you never know what you might get! Today's transcription was titled Reminiscence de transcription: a history and defense. Yes, I know it's a cheesy title, but my other options were Paraphrasing on the Piano: it's purpose - past and present and Transcriptions: derangements, reminiscences, phantasmagoria, and more.

We began with a "Musician's Roundtable" that involved many of the greatest musicians from the past 200 years, including Liszt, Busoni, Schnabel, and Wanda Landowska. I am so grateful for all the theatrical readings provided by my audience of unsung thespians. It made for great fun.

The rest of the lecture was filled with poetry readings, complex graphs, and performances of Vivaldi/Bach, Bellini/Liszt, Lully/Godowsky, and Chopin/Sorabji. There was also a brief diversion into the popular realm, with a look at Everybody Loves Somebody.

How did it go? Well, I could have gone on for another three hours. To squash everything in, I barreled through the last half-hour of text like an auctioneer on crack. I apologize to all those who felt a little breathless following the presentation.

The performances went well thanks to a beautiful instrument and performing space; my favorite was the composite performance of pieces by Lully and Lully/Godowsky. The performance of Reminiscence de Norma, however, taught me a valuable lesson regarding cell phones on "vibrate-mode." My energetic little cell phone, situated in my pocket and pressed tightly against my thigh, rang not once, not twice, not three times; no, not even four times; my cell phone rang FIVE times during the 15-minute performance! It was a test in focus I had never expected. I succeeded admirably, although come the fifth call, I did consider pausing to answer the phone.

I'm so disappointed in myself! How could I forget to turn off my cell phone?!

On a closing note, I had an awesome time at the American Matthay Association Festival. The lectures, performances, and people were wonderful!

June 12 - PS 131Q elemetary school performances

Visit the Anderson & Roe blog, "Where Soloists Fear to Tread," to get the scoop.

June 3 - Anderson & Roe at Yamaha Artist Services

I made sweeping changes to "the new depiction of the zoological fantasy" and was very pleased with the results. Elizabeth and I have decided to include several movements on our CD to be recorded later this summer.

As for the performance: there were no train-wrecks, but something was missing. It could have been the paltry size of the audience on this rainy Sunday evening (thankfully we had several loyal friends who braved the weather!). It could have been Liz's persistent sickness. Perhaps it was the strange acoustics that did us in, or maybe it was our positioning on an unnecessarily long (3 hours!) concert.

Actually, most likely it was the fact that Liz and I were sitting a full 20 feet apart. The pianos weren't dovetailed like usual; instead they were placed tail to tail to fit the strangely proportioned stage. It was like we were screaming to each other across an energy-zapping chasm, and any hopes for intimate, conversational two-piano playing disappeared in the black-hole between us.

Thanks to Keats, David, Melody, Casey, Charles, and TJ for all your hearty laughs!