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Well, I told myself I wouldn’t do one of these. It’s hard enough keeping up with flooding messages, gig requests, friends and family, and the works. Plus, will anyone really read these? I know friends and colleagues who dive into their “blogs” with little to no response from their readers, who end up abandoning the upkeep of a blog due to the lack of reward. I warn you, my reader(s), I won’t really edit these besides the basic spell check. These are my thoughts, unfiltered, and imperfect. So if you see something heinous, please forgive me. ANWAYS…
Well, all I can say for certain is that this is a blog (I’ll be damned to call it one, though). I’ll focus more on my thoughts and experiences as a musician struggling to find his niche in 2023. Whether I get a response or not won’t bother me too much. It is what it is. That being said. we start of with one of the titans of the piano world, Polina Osetinskaya.
I saw her in concert last Saturday, June 10th at 92Y stage. Let me tell you…I was blown away. To such a degree it moved me to write about the concert in this part of my site (Like I said, wasn’t too keen on a blog). Polina was amazing, playing a program that consisted of a variety of works by Bach, Rameau, and Handel. She even spoke about the music, and its connections to famous films (the connecting fiber of the concert). She explained each piece, each movie, and finally asked the audience to withhold applause until the end of each half. A move I thought was so effective, the pauses themselves became a part of the music.
Her command of sound, whether roaring louds or beautiful softs, was amazing. The color she extracted from the piano was next level. Everything was crystalline. I have never heard a pianist do something so amazing, ever, especially in person. The thing that struck me the most was her sense of timing. Can you imagine, a cellist sitting at a piano concert wondering how to copy a pianist when it comes to color, sound, and most of all, timing. The way she played with time almost threw me off. I say this because I knew some of the works on the program, yet it ALL sounded fresh, new, and brimming with possibility. She was never in a rush to finish a sentence; it was all like a flowing river without unnatural interruption. To witness her in person was an immense pleasure, but also a grand lesson. Music is a language, and if you rush it, it does no service to the composer or the piece. She definitely made me realize this yet again (because we all have had teachers telling us to stop rushing and slow down). Nonetheless, I aspire to have the sense of timing she does. Her sense of touch, and her musicality wouldn’t be too bad to have either haha!
Her stage presence wasn’t overbearing, no extra motions. No drama. Just her, and the piano. I really appreciated how calm she looked, as if in a trance. Again, another avenue to connect with music, one which I achieve more and more as I get older (and maybe ever so slightly wiser?). But once again, she did something remarkable. Every piece of music felt personal. Every note felt loved. If the music was her voice, it was loud, and clear. Its like she sucked the entire audience into a vortex, her own world, and had us sit down and listen to her story. She is a storyteller, and one of the best, if not the best I’ve personally encountered. I joked to my mom that it would be my goal to collaborate with her one day, and tell a story together. Humans are funny in the sense that music, without words, will almost always get assigned a descriptive device in our minds. Somehow, that night, everything from emotions, to color, to actual words slipped into my mind as she played.
Anyways, I think that’s all I have to say. It was a treat to see her live (her videos don’t do her justice), and to tag along for the journey that was her concert. I’ve attached a video of her below, check it out and everything else she has done!
I wonder what my next post will be about? hmmm, guess we shall see!