Unpacking Diversity: Pianist Joel Schoenhals on Schubert, Schumann, Chinese Music, and Beyond
Fanfare Magazine, 2014
By Colin Clarke
One of the perks of writing for this August journal is being introduced to pianists one might not otherwise have encountered, and even, on occasion, interviewing them. Here is a case in point: two discs on the Fleur de Son label by Joel Schoenhals. Even a cursory listen introduces a sensitive pianist who clearly cares about and has thought deeply about the music he champions.
This was a fascinating assignment; two very different releases from the same pianist, one presenting core repertory (the Schubert “Wanderer” and the Schumann C Major Fantasy) and a cornucopia of delights in a disc entitled Chinese Piano Music. Intriguing doesn’t even start to cover it. Joel Schoenhals is Professor piano at Eastern Michigan University, and also guest professor of piano at Nanchang University (Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China). Do, I wonder, these two discs reflect different sides of the pianist? Or are they linked at a deeper level?
“Great question! I have always been interested in the great masterworks of the piano literature as well as lesser-known works. I’m excited to be able to release these two discs almost simultaneously as they do represent different aspects of my musical exploration.”
I absolutely adore the idea of synesthesia being used as an integral part of the CD experience in the case of the Shubert/Schumann disc; here artist Michelle Good responded as she listened to each track on the recording by creating matching artwork for the booklet.
“I’m glad you responded so positively to the stunning artwork on this CD. Michelle Good is currently a student at Eastern Michigan University, which makes her art all the more impressive as she is just at the beginning of her career and of exploring the relationship between music and images. I feel the images she created resonate beautifully with the music on this CD, and I’m really proud to present this art and to collaborate with a student, which is something I believe in. She is a fascinating artist and one who I believe will get more and more attention. She is both a pianist and an artist, and has had a very strong connection between image and sound since she was very young. I also love the art on the Chinese disc, which is done by a famous Chinese traditional artist, Yun Fang, who is also my brother-in-law. He has done a series of 100 paintings on porcelain plates based on Zen subjects, and the art is very moving and suits this disc equally well. It’s an honor to present this artwork alongside the music. One of the great things about the LPs I had growing up was the artwork those featured; I’ve always remembered that and I enjoyed the opportunity to combine art and music on these two recordings.”
I see from Schoenhals’ website (joelschoenhals.com) that he is currently involved in a cycle of the Beethoven piano sonatas. It seems to be spread over four years, and with the works presented in order of opus number (an approach Maurizio Pollini also took when I heard his complete cycle in London some years ago).
“As any pianist who has embarked on the journey of playing the cycle of Beethoven sonatas would say, this is one of the most rewarding musical experiences of my life, and I feel enriched daily by the process of discovering this music. As Beethoven’s student Carl Czerny said, ‘The one, all-encompassing rule of performance practice for the playing of Beethoven is total personal involvement’. I find that this music fully demands the most of me – intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This whole personal involvement and integrated experience of playing music is what has always driven me, and the Beethoven sonatas really push this issue. For me it was natural to choose to do the cycle chronologically, since it really heightens for both myself and the audience the experience of the development of the piano, and of Beethoven’s musical and emotional world.
“After recording seven compact discs for Fleur de Son Classics in a studio environment, I though it would be rewarding to present a live video experience of these performances free online. You can access these through my website. As much as I love studio recording, there is no substitute for live performance, even with all its pitfalls. I have performed four of the eight concerts and those are available to view freely. I am halfway through am challenged and humbled daily. I hate to see this journey come to an end; I wish it could continue forever. Making this experience even more rewarding, I have been performing the sonatas in historic Pease Auditorium on my own 1921 Steinway D that I am really proud of and love. The piano continues to evolve, and it’s a wonderful experience to perform on the piano I play every day at home.
“In addition to these performances, I have started a house concert, or salon series, in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is a wonderful place to live because there are so many sophisticated music lovers and wonderful pianists. I have six homes that I play in regularly in preparation for these concerts – all of them have wonderful pianos and receptive and open people. I am more and more convinced that this intimate and less formal way of experience this music is one of the most optimal for understanding its true power. Again, I hate to see this journey come to an end, but I have another two years. It is quite a challenge to balance academic responsibilities with such a large performance commitment, but the joy carries me.”
Schoenhals seems to have a real feel for the core of Schubert’s writing, an affinity akin to that of the lies of Brendel in this repertoire. There is terrific detail, yet the sense of flow is never impeded, something which might be indicative of a Schenkerian basis, I speculate. Does he use analytical methods in his approach to core repertoire?
“Yes! I couldn’t be more pleased that you brought this up – thank you. A Schenkerian basis is indeed part of this, and I have listened to a lot of Schnabel, who always has such a beautiful sense of creating harmonic motion and never letting the music sit. Along with that I am inspired by pianists such as András Schiff, who gives so much attention to individual gesture, meter, and articulation, and also the character in these smaller moments. This is indeed the same challenge found in Beethoven, and I continue to learn a lot about how to handle these various aspects. Yet, in the end ironically, what you want is for the music to be alive and improvised in feeling – spontaneous. This is why I call the Beethoven video project Music Living, because what I strive for is for music to sound alive.
“You are also right that one of the tricks of creating a magical or great performance is managing a sense of large-scale flow along with terrific moment-to-moment attention to detail. I find this a great challenge, and I often feel I’m hitting on either side of it. One always wants a better balance of these aspects and is continuously seeking that. Analysis is a big part of this and I don’t have one formalized approach, but it obviously involves being aware of how all of the parts connect, from gesture to clause, from clause to phrase, from phrase to period or paragraph, and from paragraph to story, and for all of the pieces to relate to each other on both an intellectual and proportional level, and then ultimately and more importantly to relate to each other in your own narrative of the piece, or emotional and communicative world you are trying to create.”
Moving on, clearly the disc of Chinese piano music represents a particular part of Schoenhals’ activities. What qualities of this music is he drawn to? The situation and history of Chinese music is summed up eloquently in the notes for this release, but for the purposes of this interview I asked for a summary to help us on our way.
“In 2008, I went to China for the first time with my wife Bing to meet her family. Since that time, China has been an important part of my life. Prior to that I had many Chinese students and have always been interested in getting to know the culture of the people that I work closely with. I have now been to China about six times and currently have a teaching position at Nanchang University as guest professor. My involvement in China has thus been both personal and professional, so it felt quite natural to explore the music of China through the piano. With my son being born in 2010, I also felt it was even more important and meaningful to know this culture, as it is a large part of him as well. Eastern Michigan University granted me a sabbatical in the winter of 2011, and I devoted this time to the exploration of this music, finally arriving at the selections on the CD through a long process. It was very rewarding, and at the same time my wife’s family was living with us, so I could discuss this music and learn things about the music that is hard to find out through research. So, it was the perfect fusion at the time between my personal and professional life. It’s a magical thing when that happens, and this CD was really a labor of love in this sense and is dedicated to my son. It also features my own arrangement of two very sweet folk songs that my wife and my mother-in-law would sing to my son to help him sleep, so the CD is deeply personal in this sense. In another sense, I realized that in the vast standard repertoire we have music from so many cultures, but hardly any standard music from Asia. I felt it was important to bring this music to the Western public and musicians. I have loved playing these pieces alongside more standard piano literature on recital programs as well as for encores.
“As for the music itself, like all folk music, it speaks simply and directly from the heart and is very accessible. I also wanted to learn about the manner of arhu playing and Chinese folk singing, which features a lot of portamento and rubato. It was attractive to me to try to emulate this on the piano, an instrument that is highly mechanical. My lifelong drive, like many pianists, is to try to make the piano sing – in this music, you have to learn how to make everything flexible and the phrases melt. It is very appealing. The politics and history of the last 100 years of Chinese history are also embodied in this music, so from that point it was also fascinating. And now, being able to speak a decent amount of Chinese, I can feel better how the inflection should mirror the language. So, more concisely, this project has appealed to me on many levels, and I really hope that this music is embraced.”
There is a charming simplicity to some of the Chinese pieces, and I wonder if there is a link somewhere there to Bartok? (I notice Schoenhals has previously recorded For Children.) Possibly in the folk idioms at the basis, although of very different geographically origin?
“You’ve got it! Yes! One of my long-term interests has been folk music: It speaks so simply and directly from the heart, it tells stories of the everyday lives of people, it is such a genuine expression of humanity, and it is accessible to people of all cultures I believe. The Bartok had the same appeal for me. If you read the texts to the songs that Bartok set, they are not unlike some of the situations that you encounter in the Chinese songs – everyday stories of humanity. Both of these projects perhaps have popular music elements in them, and the irony of this music is that while it is simple, it requires great imagination and detail to make it come off as simple. The melodies and structures of this music are very lucid, and this has helped to push me toward finding the same simplicity in music more complex music, such as the Schubert and Schumann fantasies. My aim is the same here – to make the music clear, accessible, and attractive to those who do not know the music at all. It’s a great challenge.”
As far as the instrument Schoenhals uses to realize his interpretations, he is a Steinway artist. The great resonance, yet potential for clarity, of these magnificent instruments clearly serve the Chinese music as well as the more core repertoire.
“A Steinway is a wonderful instrument, with so much potential for expression and beauty and variety. That is really why it is favored by so many pianists. I bought my first Steinway in 1998 – a 1911 Model B – and then sold it and purchased a 1921 Model D in 2006. Somehow these instruments get under your skin and stick with you, and you develop alongside them. They help you grow, and they grow as well. It’s a wonderful part of being a pianist. I had not thought of it quite like that before, but when you contrast these two discs that we are talking about – realizing it is the same instrument on both recordings – it is really quite impressive and perhaps shocking that a single instrument could lend itself to such a variety of expression.”
It is also worth noting the fantastic recorded sound (and I note that another Fanfare reviewer praised the sound of Schoenhals’ Schubert/Liszt transcription disc).
“I have been very fortunate to have an incredible team of people around me who have grown quite close over the years. I first recorded Bartok in 2002 with recording engineer Paul Eachus. We have now recorded seven CDs together. Just before I recorded the Chinese CD, Oberlin College opened its state-of-the-art Clonick Hall. It is an incredible facility. Paul and I have had the time over the years to experiment with many different halls and microphone placements. We now have a recipe that we feel is very strong, but it keeps evolving too. Recording the piano is extremely difficult. You obviously want the microphones close enough that you get an intimacy, immediacy, and energy from the piano. You also want enough distance that you get a harmonic blending, a fullness, and a sense of a live concert sound. Sometimes a matter of inches in one direction or spacing between microphones can make a huge difference. It is wild. Currently, we place a pair of Neumann M149 microphones in omni setting about 6.5 feet from the piano straight on and about six feet high; the microphones are about 28 inches apart. Both the Chinese and fantasy discs were recorded this way.
“Paul and I have also had many years of working together to know what works well post-recording. I aim for complete takes and using as few edits as possible. Over the years, this has gotten better, as has my preparation and knowing how to do this successfully. The obvious danger with recordings is one of not sounding natural, because you have overly edited a performance to sew the best moments together. I’ve even grown to be okay with more imperfections, in order to have a great energetic and musical flow. The last thing is that you not only have to have a great engineer, and I do with Paul, and a beautiful hall, which I do at Clonick; you also need to have a superior instrument prepared at the highest level. These microphones are so sensitive and pick up every imperfection. I have been so fortunate to work with piano technician Robert Murphy at Oberlin College on these recordings. And my own piano technician in Michigan, Dan Harteau, who is one of the best in the business, and is a big part of keeping me growing and learning. Like all things, it takes a team. Nothing is done in isolation.”
Schoenhals clearly has a searching mentality. Where did it come from?
“I have had diverse musical interests since I was a child. I played in a rock band and jazz band. I composed in these groups along with friends. I played for Broadway musical productions as a young person, and played cocktail piano in a country club. My father was a minister in the ELCA Lutheran Church, so I played piano at church as well as growing up within the rich Lutheran music tradition; I played hymns at home and for holidays with family members standing around singing. So, I had all kinds of music around me in addition to classical music. This was a great benefit to me and I really believe that music is music. I have learned a lot from talking with jazz musicians and songwriters – about the creative process, about phrasing, about all types of things. I guess I also have a personality trait that tends to lie to focus on one project at a time and to try to learn a lot about it, so this has mixed well with recording. If you listen back to the Bartok in 2002, and then go forward to the Schubert and Rachmaninoff disc recorded in 2009 and then to the Chinese and Fantasies discs recorded in 2011 and 2012, I hope that you would not only see a large variety of musical interests, but also hear a change in performance styles. That is the wonderful part about this business – it’s never over and there is always more to explore.”
Talking of exploring more, I asked what the future holds.
“Well, I’m engaged with finishing the Beethoven cycle in the next two academic years, which will keep me busy. I never quite know what is around the corner, but Eastern Michigan University, which has been so incredibly supportive over the years (it has supported each of my CD projects with time or resources) has given me time in the coming year to explore improvisation, leading to my own compositions. This pairs up very naturally with the Beethoven project. It is a new direction for me, which is very exciting. Stay tuned. “
Stay tuned, indeed.
Fanfare Magazine, 2014
By Colin Clarke
One of the perks of writing for this August journal is being introduced to pianists one might not otherwise have encountered, and even, on occasion, interviewing them. Here is a case in point: two discs on the Fleur de Son label by Joel Schoenhals. Even a cursory listen introduces a sensitive pianist who clearly cares about and has thought deeply about the music he champions.
This was a fascinating assignment; two very different releases from the same pianist, one presenting core repertory (the Schubert “Wanderer” and the Schumann C Major Fantasy) and a cornucopia of delights in a disc entitled Chinese Piano Music. Intriguing doesn’t even start to cover it. Joel Schoenhals is Professor piano at Eastern Michigan University, and also guest professor of piano at Nanchang University (Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China). Do, I wonder, these two discs reflect different sides of the pianist? Or are they linked at a deeper level?
“Great question! I have always been interested in the great masterworks of the piano literature as well as lesser-known works. I’m excited to be able to release these two discs almost simultaneously as they do represent different aspects of my musical exploration.”
I absolutely adore the idea of synesthesia being used as an integral part of the CD experience in the case of the Shubert/Schumann disc; here artist Michelle Good responded as she listened to each track on the recording by creating matching artwork for the booklet.
“I’m glad you responded so positively to the stunning artwork on this CD. Michelle Good is currently a student at Eastern Michigan University, which makes her art all the more impressive as she is just at the beginning of her career and of exploring the relationship between music and images. I feel the images she created resonate beautifully with the music on this CD, and I’m really proud to present this art and to collaborate with a student, which is something I believe in. She is a fascinating artist and one who I believe will get more and more attention. She is both a pianist and an artist, and has had a very strong connection between image and sound since she was very young. I also love the art on the Chinese disc, which is done by a famous Chinese traditional artist, Yun Fang, who is also my brother-in-law. He has done a series of 100 paintings on porcelain plates based on Zen subjects, and the art is very moving and suits this disc equally well. It’s an honor to present this artwork alongside the music. One of the great things about the LPs I had growing up was the artwork those featured; I’ve always remembered that and I enjoyed the opportunity to combine art and music on these two recordings.”
I see from Schoenhals’ website (joelschoenhals.com) that he is currently involved in a cycle of the Beethoven piano sonatas. It seems to be spread over four years, and with the works presented in order of opus number (an approach Maurizio Pollini also took when I heard his complete cycle in London some years ago).
“As any pianist who has embarked on the journey of playing the cycle of Beethoven sonatas would say, this is one of the most rewarding musical experiences of my life, and I feel enriched daily by the process of discovering this music. As Beethoven’s student Carl Czerny said, ‘The one, all-encompassing rule of performance practice for the playing of Beethoven is total personal involvement’. I find that this music fully demands the most of me – intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This whole personal involvement and integrated experience of playing music is what has always driven me, and the Beethoven sonatas really push this issue. For me it was natural to choose to do the cycle chronologically, since it really heightens for both myself and the audience the experience of the development of the piano, and of Beethoven’s musical and emotional world.
“After recording seven compact discs for Fleur de Son Classics in a studio environment, I though it would be rewarding to present a live video experience of these performances free online. You can access these through my website. As much as I love studio recording, there is no substitute for live performance, even with all its pitfalls. I have performed four of the eight concerts and those are available to view freely. I am halfway through am challenged and humbled daily. I hate to see this journey come to an end; I wish it could continue forever. Making this experience even more rewarding, I have been performing the sonatas in historic Pease Auditorium on my own 1921 Steinway D that I am really proud of and love. The piano continues to evolve, and it’s a wonderful experience to perform on the piano I play every day at home.
“In addition to these performances, I have started a house concert, or salon series, in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is a wonderful place to live because there are so many sophisticated music lovers and wonderful pianists. I have six homes that I play in regularly in preparation for these concerts – all of them have wonderful pianos and receptive and open people. I am more and more convinced that this intimate and less formal way of experience this music is one of the most optimal for understanding its true power. Again, I hate to see this journey come to an end, but I have another two years. It is quite a challenge to balance academic responsibilities with such a large performance commitment, but the joy carries me.”
Schoenhals seems to have a real feel for the core of Schubert’s writing, an affinity akin to that of the lies of Brendel in this repertoire. There is terrific detail, yet the sense of flow is never impeded, something which might be indicative of a Schenkerian basis, I speculate. Does he use analytical methods in his approach to core repertoire?
“Yes! I couldn’t be more pleased that you brought this up – thank you. A Schenkerian basis is indeed part of this, and I have listened to a lot of Schnabel, who always has such a beautiful sense of creating harmonic motion and never letting the music sit. Along with that I am inspired by pianists such as András Schiff, who gives so much attention to individual gesture, meter, and articulation, and also the character in these smaller moments. This is indeed the same challenge found in Beethoven, and I continue to learn a lot about how to handle these various aspects. Yet, in the end ironically, what you want is for the music to be alive and improvised in feeling – spontaneous. This is why I call the Beethoven video project Music Living, because what I strive for is for music to sound alive.
“You are also right that one of the tricks of creating a magical or great performance is managing a sense of large-scale flow along with terrific moment-to-moment attention to detail. I find this a great challenge, and I often feel I’m hitting on either side of it. One always wants a better balance of these aspects and is continuously seeking that. Analysis is a big part of this and I don’t have one formalized approach, but it obviously involves being aware of how all of the parts connect, from gesture to clause, from clause to phrase, from phrase to period or paragraph, and from paragraph to story, and for all of the pieces to relate to each other on both an intellectual and proportional level, and then ultimately and more importantly to relate to each other in your own narrative of the piece, or emotional and communicative world you are trying to create.”
Moving on, clearly the disc of Chinese piano music represents a particular part of Schoenhals’ activities. What qualities of this music is he drawn to? The situation and history of Chinese music is summed up eloquently in the notes for this release, but for the purposes of this interview I asked for a summary to help us on our way.
“In 2008, I went to China for the first time with my wife Bing to meet her family. Since that time, China has been an important part of my life. Prior to that I had many Chinese students and have always been interested in getting to know the culture of the people that I work closely with. I have now been to China about six times and currently have a teaching position at Nanchang University as guest professor. My involvement in China has thus been both personal and professional, so it felt quite natural to explore the music of China through the piano. With my son being born in 2010, I also felt it was even more important and meaningful to know this culture, as it is a large part of him as well. Eastern Michigan University granted me a sabbatical in the winter of 2011, and I devoted this time to the exploration of this music, finally arriving at the selections on the CD through a long process. It was very rewarding, and at the same time my wife’s family was living with us, so I could discuss this music and learn things about the music that is hard to find out through research. So, it was the perfect fusion at the time between my personal and professional life. It’s a magical thing when that happens, and this CD was really a labor of love in this sense and is dedicated to my son. It also features my own arrangement of two very sweet folk songs that my wife and my mother-in-law would sing to my son to help him sleep, so the CD is deeply personal in this sense. In another sense, I realized that in the vast standard repertoire we have music from so many cultures, but hardly any standard music from Asia. I felt it was important to bring this music to the Western public and musicians. I have loved playing these pieces alongside more standard piano literature on recital programs as well as for encores.
“As for the music itself, like all folk music, it speaks simply and directly from the heart and is very accessible. I also wanted to learn about the manner of arhu playing and Chinese folk singing, which features a lot of portamento and rubato. It was attractive to me to try to emulate this on the piano, an instrument that is highly mechanical. My lifelong drive, like many pianists, is to try to make the piano sing – in this music, you have to learn how to make everything flexible and the phrases melt. It is very appealing. The politics and history of the last 100 years of Chinese history are also embodied in this music, so from that point it was also fascinating. And now, being able to speak a decent amount of Chinese, I can feel better how the inflection should mirror the language. So, more concisely, this project has appealed to me on many levels, and I really hope that this music is embraced.”
There is a charming simplicity to some of the Chinese pieces, and I wonder if there is a link somewhere there to Bartok? (I notice Schoenhals has previously recorded For Children.) Possibly in the folk idioms at the basis, although of very different geographically origin?
“You’ve got it! Yes! One of my long-term interests has been folk music: It speaks so simply and directly from the heart, it tells stories of the everyday lives of people, it is such a genuine expression of humanity, and it is accessible to people of all cultures I believe. The Bartok had the same appeal for me. If you read the texts to the songs that Bartok set, they are not unlike some of the situations that you encounter in the Chinese songs – everyday stories of humanity. Both of these projects perhaps have popular music elements in them, and the irony of this music is that while it is simple, it requires great imagination and detail to make it come off as simple. The melodies and structures of this music are very lucid, and this has helped to push me toward finding the same simplicity in music more complex music, such as the Schubert and Schumann fantasies. My aim is the same here – to make the music clear, accessible, and attractive to those who do not know the music at all. It’s a great challenge.”
As far as the instrument Schoenhals uses to realize his interpretations, he is a Steinway artist. The great resonance, yet potential for clarity, of these magnificent instruments clearly serve the Chinese music as well as the more core repertoire.
“A Steinway is a wonderful instrument, with so much potential for expression and beauty and variety. That is really why it is favored by so many pianists. I bought my first Steinway in 1998 – a 1911 Model B – and then sold it and purchased a 1921 Model D in 2006. Somehow these instruments get under your skin and stick with you, and you develop alongside them. They help you grow, and they grow as well. It’s a wonderful part of being a pianist. I had not thought of it quite like that before, but when you contrast these two discs that we are talking about – realizing it is the same instrument on both recordings – it is really quite impressive and perhaps shocking that a single instrument could lend itself to such a variety of expression.”
It is also worth noting the fantastic recorded sound (and I note that another Fanfare reviewer praised the sound of Schoenhals’ Schubert/Liszt transcription disc).
“I have been very fortunate to have an incredible team of people around me who have grown quite close over the years. I first recorded Bartok in 2002 with recording engineer Paul Eachus. We have now recorded seven CDs together. Just before I recorded the Chinese CD, Oberlin College opened its state-of-the-art Clonick Hall. It is an incredible facility. Paul and I have had the time over the years to experiment with many different halls and microphone placements. We now have a recipe that we feel is very strong, but it keeps evolving too. Recording the piano is extremely difficult. You obviously want the microphones close enough that you get an intimacy, immediacy, and energy from the piano. You also want enough distance that you get a harmonic blending, a fullness, and a sense of a live concert sound. Sometimes a matter of inches in one direction or spacing between microphones can make a huge difference. It is wild. Currently, we place a pair of Neumann M149 microphones in omni setting about 6.5 feet from the piano straight on and about six feet high; the microphones are about 28 inches apart. Both the Chinese and fantasy discs were recorded this way.
“Paul and I have also had many years of working together to know what works well post-recording. I aim for complete takes and using as few edits as possible. Over the years, this has gotten better, as has my preparation and knowing how to do this successfully. The obvious danger with recordings is one of not sounding natural, because you have overly edited a performance to sew the best moments together. I’ve even grown to be okay with more imperfections, in order to have a great energetic and musical flow. The last thing is that you not only have to have a great engineer, and I do with Paul, and a beautiful hall, which I do at Clonick; you also need to have a superior instrument prepared at the highest level. These microphones are so sensitive and pick up every imperfection. I have been so fortunate to work with piano technician Robert Murphy at Oberlin College on these recordings. And my own piano technician in Michigan, Dan Harteau, who is one of the best in the business, and is a big part of keeping me growing and learning. Like all things, it takes a team. Nothing is done in isolation.”
Schoenhals clearly has a searching mentality. Where did it come from?
“I have had diverse musical interests since I was a child. I played in a rock band and jazz band. I composed in these groups along with friends. I played for Broadway musical productions as a young person, and played cocktail piano in a country club. My father was a minister in the ELCA Lutheran Church, so I played piano at church as well as growing up within the rich Lutheran music tradition; I played hymns at home and for holidays with family members standing around singing. So, I had all kinds of music around me in addition to classical music. This was a great benefit to me and I really believe that music is music. I have learned a lot from talking with jazz musicians and songwriters – about the creative process, about phrasing, about all types of things. I guess I also have a personality trait that tends to lie to focus on one project at a time and to try to learn a lot about it, so this has mixed well with recording. If you listen back to the Bartok in 2002, and then go forward to the Schubert and Rachmaninoff disc recorded in 2009 and then to the Chinese and Fantasies discs recorded in 2011 and 2012, I hope that you would not only see a large variety of musical interests, but also hear a change in performance styles. That is the wonderful part about this business – it’s never over and there is always more to explore.”
Talking of exploring more, I asked what the future holds.
“Well, I’m engaged with finishing the Beethoven cycle in the next two academic years, which will keep me busy. I never quite know what is around the corner, but Eastern Michigan University, which has been so incredibly supportive over the years (it has supported each of my CD projects with time or resources) has given me time in the coming year to explore improvisation, leading to my own compositions. This pairs up very naturally with the Beethoven project. It is a new direction for me, which is very exciting. Stay tuned. “
Stay tuned, indeed.
