Pianofest NYC
alexis rzewski
October 24, 2002 NYTimes
Classical Pianists Rock, in a Manner of Speaking
By ALLAN KOZINN
just below the faint image of a skull and the legend "Rock Hotel
Presents," an advertisement that has appeared around New York and on
the Internet lately promises "the future of classical music, in your
face like never before." Surrounding the skull, the copy reads "New
Music — Extraordinary Programs" and "The Greatest Pianists in
the World — on Their Own Terms."
The subject is the Rock Hotel Pianofest, a two-month series of piano
concerts that begins this weekend and runs through Dec. 14 at a
handful of comparatively small halls around New York City. All told,
it will include about 30 events, from recitals to marathon concerts.
The man behind the festival, and the advertisement, is Chris
Williamson, who describes himself as a semiretired rock promoter with
an abiding interest in classical music. Mr. Williamson has lots of
ideas about how to reconfigure the classical concert world and is
using his festival to test several of them. One is to lure new
listeners to serious programs of traditional and contemporary music
with low ticket prices. (Most seats are going for $10, compared with
traditional prices of $50 and up.) He is also promoting fresh talent
by presenting young pianists as opening acts for their more famous
colleagues.
The bill Mr. Williamson has assembled would be a draw even if it were
presented more conventionally. Earl Wild — at 86, one of the
last great pianists of the Romantic virtuoso school — opens the
series tomorrow evening at the Ethical Culture Society. Also prominent
on the schedule is the young French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who
is offering an all-Satie concert at the Angel Orensantz Foundation on
Nov. 7. Others include poetic individualists like Russell Sherman and
Andrew Rangell, the contemporary music specialists Ursula Oppens and
Roger Woodward, and even a couple of composer-pianists, Philip Glass
and Frederic Rzewski.
The marathon concerts include an all-Scriabin Halloween program by the
Toradze Studio, and the finale, in which 25 young pianists will each
play a short work commissioned for the occasion. Mr. Williamson said
that 65 percent of the tickets for each concert would sell for $10.
The rest are priced up to $40, except Mr. Wild's opening concert,
whose top price is $60.
Mr. Williamson, who is 50 and lives on a houseboat moored at the 79th
Street Boat Basin, concedes that classical music presentation tends to
be more reserved. But he was intent on catching the attention of
potential ticket buyers who are not normally drawn to piano recitals.
Specifically, he wants to reach the listeners who went to the rock,
punk, hardcore, alternative and rap shows he used to present at Irving
Plaza and the Ritz, and before that at Chase Park and the Jane West
Hotel.
"You see that skull in the ad?" Mr. Williamson asked. "I'd put that in
the paper with a date and not even list a band, and we'd sell out."
More unusual than Mr. Williamson's advertising style, though, is his
business model: he is opposed to underwriting concerts with grant
money, a standard approach in the classical music world. Instead he is
covering the costs — everything from hall rentals to flying the
pianists to New York and putting them up — himself. Jon Aaron,
an artists' manager who is the business manager for Pianofest,
estimated that the series would cost about $100,000 — not a lot
for the number of performances offered.
The quirkiness of Mr. Williamson's approach seems not to bother the
pianists. "I saw the ad in the paper," said Mr. Wild, who usually
performs at Carnegie Hall. "You have to give him credit, because what
he's doing takes a lot of guts. There has to be a revitalization of
the piano series. The way it is now, you see the same people playing
over and over, and it's lost its imagination. So maybe this will give
it a bit of a jolt."
Mr. Williamson is no newcomer to classical music. In the early 1970's,
he was a student of the pianist Beveridge Webster at the Juilliard
School. But his interests at the time were veering in other
directions. He began spending his time at Max's Kansas City, the
seminal New York rock club of the era, rather than in the practice
room, and eventually dropped out of Juilliard. After managing Studio
54 from 1977 to 1980, he began presenting shows at Chase Park, a club
in SoHo. His principal interest then was English punk bands, but he
also presented an early show by Madonna.
From there he moved to the ballroom of the Jane West Hotel, where he
presented bands like Bad Brains, Black Flag and Social Distortion, and
to the Ritz, where he offered shows by alternative groups like Sonic
Youth, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. He also promoted shows at Irving
Plaza, and he started a record company, Rock Hotel Records, which was
associated with Profile, a rap label. That put him in touch with the
managers for several rap performers, whom Mr. Williamson presented
downtown at the World, and at Madison Square Garden.
"Then things started drying up," he said. "Companies like Clear
Channel began buying up promoters, but I always wanted to be on my
own. I couldn't see myself in a corporate situation. And all the stuff
coming up — the boy bands, for example — made me nauseous.
So I decided to stop. And I started playing the piano again."
After he got back to playing, Mr. Williamson began presenting
classical music concerts. His first efforts were on behalf of the
pianist Helčne Grimaud, whom he presented for two years, using an
approach to concert posters and fliers similar to the one he has
revived for his pianofest. He took on the all-female Eroica Trio, and
persuaded its members to trade in their gowns for rock 'n' roll
attire, at least for promotional photos.
There were more straightforward productions as well. He presented Mr.
Glass at Lincoln Center. In 1999, to commemorate the 150th anniversary
of Chopin's death, he put on a marathon piano concert at Alice Tully
Hall. And in 2000, he assembled the Tallis Scholars, the Flux Quartet,
the Juilliard Brass Ensemble and Paul McCartney for a concert of works
by John Tavener.
"What came from all this," Mr. Williamson said, "was that I started
thinking, what can I do for the piano? And that led me to think about
when I was in school, and I knew all these kids who had tremendous
talent and not a lot of opportunity. In rock, you form a band and play
every club, everything you can do, and if you get better, you get
asked to open a show for a bigger band, and you play for a larger
audience."
"But it's not that way in classical music," he continued. "A kid goes
to conservatory and practices, and his one shot is to win a
competition. There's no other way for them to be heard, unless a
manager takes a liking to them. So I thought, Why not create something
that happens every year, over a two-month period — 20, 30, 40
recitals, at which young players can open the concerts, just like a
rock band would go out with a headliner?"
In effect, Mr. Williamson's idea is having the tail wag the dog: a
slate of famous pianists, presented at low prices, will bring in
listeners, who will ideally be impressed by unknown young musicians.
The concept clearly appealed to the headliners. Several have invited
their own students to take the opening slots at their recitals, and
the stars' sympathy for the approach has led them to agree to an
unusual financial arrangement: they are forgoing their usual fees and
performing for a percentage of the gate. Of several pianists
contacted, none seemed to find this provision objectionable or even
interesting enough to discuss.
"Listen, my friend," said Jerome Lowenthal, who is playing on Nov. 6.
"I made the assumption when I agreed to do this that there would be no
money at all, and if that assumption turns out to be incorrect, so
much the better. Yes, it's unusual. But we don't play for money. Of
course, we like to get paid, but this is in every way a pleasure for
me."
In addition to having the pianists play for a percentage of the gate,
Mr. Williamson is saving money by presenting his events in nonunion
houses, and having volunteers, including Juilliard students, handling
tasks ranging from ushering to approaching composers with offers of
commissions. Those measures are necessary to keep the ticket prices
low, Mr. Williamson explained.
"I see a couple of problems in the way the classical music business is
run," he said. "One is the subscription business — the belief
that people will want to see whatever is handed to them. The other is
that for institutions to present something wonderful and esoteric, but
to lose money doing it, doesn't really help. If you can bring
something in and work it out so that it turns a buck, then you're
going someplace. We're not relying on grants or sponsors. This is like
rock: you go out and play, and you make money or you lose money."
"I'm going out on a limb because I believe in this," he continued,
"because the classical music demographic is dying out, and the number
of kids out there who can even understand the beauty of a Bach aria is
diminishing."
The pianists are taking Mr. Williamson's theories on trust, but some
think his approach and his enthusiasm may work.
"The whole thing seems a bit dreamy," said Mr. Sherman, whose
contribution to the festival is an all-Beethoven recital on Nov. 15.
"But it's the kind of dream I think seems worth preserving. I don't
think an idea like this would have come out of the normal classical
music industry, but only from someone who approaches it obliquely,
from an angle that bypasses and perhaps surpasses all the staid
conventions."
10/25: **Opening Night Gala**
Earl Wild, with Natasha Paremski
Friday, October 25 – Society Hall at the Society for Ethical
Culture – Order Form
Mr. Wild's Program
Marcello/Wild – Adagio
Beethoven – 32 Variations on an Original Theme
Mendelssohn – Rondo Cappricioso
Chopin –Ballade No. 3
Liszt –Les jeux d'eau a la villa d'este
Paganini/Liszt –Etude No. 2 (La Capricciosa)
Ms. Paremski's Program
Brahms – Sonata No. 2
Stravinsky – Petrouchka Suite
10/26: Boris Berezovsky
Saturday, October 26 – Society Hall – Order Form
10/31: Toradze Studio
Thursday, October 31, 7PM (new time!) – Society Hall –
Order Form
11/2: Alan Feinberg and Lukas Vondracek
Saturday, November 2 – Society Hall – Order Form
New York Recital Debut
11/6: Jerome Lowenthal
Wednesday, November 6 – Society Hall – Order Form
11/7: Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Thursday, November 7 – Angel Orensanz Center – Order Form
11/8: Diane Walsh , with Marie-Hélčne Bčlanger
Friday, November 8 – Society Hall – Order Form
11/13: Cristina Ortiz
Wednesday, November 13 – Society Hall – Order Form
11/15: Russell Sherman
Friday, November 15 – Society Hall – Order Form
11/16: Konstantin Lifschitz
Saturday, November 16 – Society Hall – Order Form
New York Recital Debut
11/17: Berenika Zakrzewska
Sunday, November 17 – Kosciuszko Foundation – Order Form
New York Recital Debut
11/21: Andrew Rangell
Thursday, November 21 – Society Hall – Order Form
11/22: Naida Cole
Friday, November 22 – Society Hall – Order Form
New York Recital Debut
11/23: Gonzalo Rubalcaba
Saturday, November 23 – Society Hall – Order Form
11/24: Amy Dissanayake
Sunday, November 24 – Kosciuszko Foundation – Order Form
11/30: Philip Glass and Dennis Russell Davies
Saturday, November 30 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/3: Dubravka Tomsic
Tuesday, December 3 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/4: Christopher Taylor
Wednesday, December 4 – Angel Orensanz Center – Order Form
12/5: Roger Woodward
Thursday, December 5 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/6: Oxana Yablonskaya, with Speranza Scappucci
Friday, December 6 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/7: Ursula Oppens and Frederic Rzewski
Saturday, December 7 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/11: Sergei Babayan
Wednesday, December 11 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/13: Frederic Chiu, with Hsing-ay Hsu
Friday, December 13 – Society Hall – Order Form
12/14: Super Bowl of Rising Stars
Saturday, December 14 – Location TBA – Order Form
David Olen Baird
wrote:
>http://visionintoart.org/piano.html
>
>October 24, 2002 NYTimes
>Classical Pianists Rock, in a Manner of Speaking
>By ALLAN KOZINN
>
I'm thrilled with this approach. It's time we got the marketing of
great classical music and musicians out of the 19th century.
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David Olen Baird, Composer
mailto:davb...@tfs.net
http://www.tfs.net/~davbaird/
