Jeffrey Siegel’s Keyboard Conversations

Appreciating the classical piano repertoire is like appreciating anything else: it helps to know something. That’s where Jeffrey Siegel and his Keyboard Conversations come in. For 20 years he has brought these concerts-cum-lectures to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it is easy to see why he continues to attract throngs. His assured musicianship and deft, amusingly pointed commentary are edifying to novitiates, entertaining to veterans.

Read the full article: Let’s talk piano: Jeffrey Siegel and his Keyboard Conversations (TheDailyPage.com)

Van Cliburn receives four standing ovations: Concert review

Betty Webb in Get Out Arizona reviews Van Cliburn’s recent performance at the Symphony Hall in Phoenix.

his impassioned rendering of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 brought him four — count ’em, four — standing ovations, along with an audience-wide chorus of screams, whistles, yodels and hollers.

That’s because the audience wouldn’t let him go until he’d performed three encores — snippets from Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Schumann.

Read the full review: Van Cliburn brings Symphony Hall crowd to its feet� 4 times

Works for Piano Duo: Concert review

Martin Ball in The Australian reviews “Team of Pianists: Works for Piano Duo” in Melbourne last week.

PIANO duets are the ugly duckling of pianistic performance, loved by their composers and performers, but generally spurned by audiences in favour of the more brilliant solo repertoire. Piano duets are rarely heard on our concert stages, and duos such as the Labeque Sisters are the exception that proves the rule.

In the right hands, of course, piano duets can blossom into beautiful works of art. The venue is important too, as these pieces are much more at home in the intimacy of a drawing-room soiree. Just imagine the premiere of Brahms’s Variations on a theme by Haydn for two pianos, played by Brahms himself and Clara Schumann, to friends in the salon at home.

Read the full review: Piano duet just delivers

Yamaha CLP-F01 Clavinova keyboard features and reviews

Yamaha introduces its stunning CLP-F01 Clavinova electric piano, a gorgeous-looking instrument following in a long line of Clavinova quality.

The all-important specifications:

• 88 real-wood keys
• Hard, medium, soft, and fixed touch sensitivity
• Three-level AWM Stereo Sampling technology
• 30 banks of sampled sounds
• Sustain Sampling
• Key-Off Sampling
• 64 notes polyphony
• 14 voices with 2 variations on each:
  • Grand Piano 1, 2, 3
  • Electric Piano 1, 2
  • Harpsichord, Vibraphone, Church Organ, Jazz Organ, Strings, Choir, Guitar/Clav, Wood Bass, Electric Bass
• Effects: Reverb, Effect, Brilliance
• Recording: Two tracks, three songs (max. 9400 notes)
• Memory storage: Internal flash memory
• Pedals: Damper (with half-pedal effect), Soft, Sostenuto
• In/Out Jacks: AUX IN, AUX OUT (L/L+R, R), AUX OUT (L, R; LEVEL FIXED), MIDI (IN, OUT, THRU), TO HOST, PHONES (2)
• Amplification: 40 W x 2
• Speaker system: 16 cm x 2, 5 cm x 2 (6-3/8″ x 2, 2″ x 2)
• Available finishes: Polished orange, polished ebony, polished blue, polished red
• Dimensions (WxDxH): 1427 mm x 400 mm x 995 mm
• Weight: 71kg

Whilst it’s not always easy to tell how much doctoring of demonstration songs has taken place, the previews on the official website sound promising.

• Piano 1 is a bright and clear acoustic piano with a good dynamic range.
• Piano 2 has an extra brightness/sparkle (some might say metallic) quality that provides enough variance from Piano 1 to stand out on its own
• Electric Pianos 1 & 2 are fairly standard affairs (one clean, the other slightly distorted) that do the job. The demo appears to force a few notes which sound quite harsh, but this may be by design and will vary with playing style.
• The Harpsichord is good, though the demo has a little too much reverb for my liking. On this and the organs, fixed keyboard velocity will be most useful.
• Knowing that the full range of a pipe organ will never be achieved on a standard keyboard, the Yamaha does a convincing job of the ‘basics’.
• The jazz organ is lively, but don’t go looking for the Wurlitzer.
• The last five voices sound fairly good on the demo, but I suspect in reality will suffer the way most voices like these do on digital pianos. Playing a realistic guitar or bass on keys is not easy, and the choir sound will likely be of limited appeal.

Don’t expect to use the Clavinova as a sophisticated MIDI controller. It’s a digital piano of the highest quality in both sound and workmanship, and is just as important as a piece of furniture.

A worthy addition to the Clavinova range.

Elton John plays present and past in triumphant three hour live show

ChartAttack has written a review of Elton John’s fine live performance at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

Fans were treated to three hours of virtuoso musical performance, including tracks from his current album Peachtree Road—accompanied by eight-piece choir “The Voice of Atlanta”—and then took the audience back to his ‘classics’ including a ten-minute rendition of Rocket Man, and Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word which he dedicated to the late Ray Charles.

After battling drugs and alcohol for many years, John admitted to the crowd that it was no wonder none of his relationships worked. Now, the only drug he’s addicted to is his Canadian partner. John dedicated “My Elusive Drug” from Peachtree Road to the love of his life.

Read the full article: LIVE: Elton John Takes Trip Down Memory Lane

Tori Amos live in Chicago: Positive Review

The Illinois Entertainer writes a positive review of Tori Amos’ concerts at the Millennium Park, Chicago.

The article concludes;

Yet even with these shortcomings, there’s still something remarkably engaging about listening to Amos sing stories throughout her highly ethereal repertoire. Even after a decade and a half making music, she remains unpredictable and ambitious despite many of her peers having long since fizzled. Even more amazing is the fact that Amos is putting on significantly different concerts each night of this tour. Rather than riding out rote song orders, she’s mixing, matching, adding, and subtracting each and every engagement, keeping diehards on the edges of their seats. And that dynamic, along with her aforementioned abilities to fill a place as sizable as Millennium Park, indicates a thriving future to go as far in any direction this songstress chooses to stroll.

Read the full article: Tori Amos 8/31

Paik Kun-woo recording complete works of Beethoven

Paik Kun-woo���”seeker of truth on the keyboard��?”���has added his name to the small list of master pianists who have or are recording the complete works of Beethoven with major record labels.

Park Je-sung (Music columnist) writes:

Idiosyncratic and Creative

People can listen to a creative, idiosyncratic and historical playing of Beethoven’s sonatas through his albums. Paik Kun-woo translates the music language of the West into Korea’s unique internal world and music language in his albums.

Read the full article: Perfect Paik Kun-woo��?

Music for Airports by Bang On A Can

Brian Eno’s Music for Airports became a cult classic since its conception in 1978, and New York’s ‘Bang On A Can‘ decided to create a version that could be performed live.

The idea to do ”Music for Airports” came from Michael Gordon, one of Bang on a Can’s composers.

”Eno’s music was carefully crafted, but his intention was to create something that would remain in the background,” Gordon said. ”In that respect, he failed — the music is more interesting than that.”

MIT’s Evan Ziporyn, composer and clarinetist, recalled that after the first live performance, in New York’s Lincoln Center, someone came up to him and said he had listened to the album every night for three years.

Artists in other fields were particularly attracted to the record. Composer David Lang remembered, ”It was on the heavy rotation list in every painter’s studio — you could listen to it and still keep working.”

Read the full article: Background music brought to the fore

Bruce Hornsby returns to the keys in piano-centered album “Halcyon Days”

Hornsby‘s current CD, “Halcyon Days,” won’t generate such diametrically opposed reactions. In fact, for fans of the CDs that preceded “Big Swing Face,” it will sound like the return of an old, familiar friend.

“This is actually the first record where every song is a piano song,” Hornsby said. “I know that sounds odd, but … I’ve always had one or two accordion songs or electric piano, Wurlitzer or just synthesizer songs. This is the first time where I’ve made a record where every song is about the piano.”

Read the full interview and review: Hornsby back at the keys

Osorio plays Spanish piano music

Channing Gray writes a review over at Projo.com about Federico Osorio who played a selection of Spanish and German piano music at the Newport Music Festival.

Osorio, a balding man in a business suit, opened his program with three sonatas by the Spanish Baroque composer Padre Antonio Soler, ticklish little pieces that require fleet fingers, a delicate touch, and sound an awful lot like the one-movement sonatas of Scarlatti. Osorio had to scramble at one point, when the music almost ran away from him. But otherwise these were flawless readings that were full of charm and grace.

The only drawback was the overly live sound, which either came from the hall, or a heavy pedal foot. At times the playing sounded muddy.

But Osorio’s real gift is with the Spanish romantics. The set of Spanish dances by Granados, especially the dreamy Chopin-esque second one, were delicious, full of elegance and warmth. The third one had a sort of left-hand figure that sounded like a strumming guitar.

The big offering on the program was the eight-movement Spanish Suite by Isaac Albeniz, a work of many moods and colors. Osorio put lots of kick in the jazzy opening, then dropped back into an atmospheric reading of the second movement, one that takes its cue from Debussy.

Read the full review (registration required): Review: Savor the flavor of Osorio’s piano stylings

« Previous Page — Next Page »