May 2012
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April 2012
4 posts
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“Music is not here to make us forget about life. It’s also here to teach us...”
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February 2012
1 post
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January 2012
2 posts
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"Art is trying to remind you of what there is to...
“The first idea is that art should be for art’s sake - a ridiculous idea - an idea that art should live in a hermetic bubble and should not try to do anything with this troubled world. I couldn’t disagree more. The other thing that we believe is that art shouldn’t explain itself, that artists shouldn’t say what they’re up to, because if they said it, it might...
December 2011
1 post
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November 2011
6 posts
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Victor Borge: The Funniest Man In The World
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people” - Victor Borge
This rare documentary reveals the unknown side of one of the most innovative and influential concert artists of the 20th century. One of Victor Borge’s achievements was the difficult, almost impossible, task of combining classical music with a different discipline. Mr. Borge introduced an element of...
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October 2011
33 posts
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WQXR's Classical Comedy Contest at Caroline's on...
The word is out: WQXR - the nation’s most listened-to classical radio station - invited me to perform at Classical Comedy Contest as part of the New York Comedy Festival.
The event will take place at the legendary club Caroline’s on Broadway in front of the live audience and celebrity judges: Peter Schickele of PDQ Bach, comedian Robert Klein, IMG’s Charles Hamlen and opera...
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“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back… People are...”
– Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
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“Try that yourself sometime: take something (or someone) you love, and - in your...”
– - “I love stuff you never see” by Teller
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“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know...”
– - Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
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On the verge of magic, mystery and science.
“Let us first understand what we mean by the word magic. Magic is a mystery and we call a thing a mystery because we do not understand it. There are two magics and many mysteries which are not magical but what I wish to refer to now are those that come under the head of magic! There are two kinds of magics. I say magics in order to simplify what I mean. One kind is created by man, wherein he...
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“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is...”
– - Primo Levi, “Survival in Auschwitz”
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Walt Disney on the importance of interdisciplinary...
“What young artists need is a school where they can learn a variety of skills, a place where there is cross-pollination. The remarkable thing that’s taking place in almost every field of endeavor is an accelerating rate of dynamic growth and change. The arts, which have historically symbolized the advance of human progress, must match this growth if they are going to maintain their value...
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“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a...”
– - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A letter to a young poet: go into yourself.
“Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life...
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What defines the language of music?
I was always fascinated with Leonard Bernstein’s interdisciplinary spirit. He himself claimed that “the best way to know a thing is in the context of another discipline.”
In 1973, he gave a series of 6 lectures at his alma mater – Harvard University – entitled “The Unanswered Question”. The purpose of those lectures was not so much to answer all the questions we might have, but to understand...
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“Out of clutter, find simplicity;
From discord, find harmony;
In the middle of...”
– - Albert Einstein’s Three Rules of Work
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A life in the arts - notes from John Adam's...
American composer John Adams gave an insightful testimony of the meaning behind one’s life in the arts during his commencement speech at the Juilliard School last month. I’m sharing with you my notes, but please read this truly wonderful speech in its entirety at Nonesuch website.
The Uselessness Of The Arts The wonderful, astonishing truth is that the arts are utterly useless. You can’t eat...
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"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,...
Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare...
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“The wonders of magic seem to prove that happiness is born of ignorance, but when...”
– - Karl Germain, American Magician
Several years ago, I read an excellent interview on the neuroscience of magic. In the interview conducted by Jonah Lehrer for WIRED magazine, Teller (of Penn & Teller) reveals the true purpose behind the art of magic:
“People take reality for...
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"Freedom involves attention and awareness and...
Reading and writing about commencement speeches reminds me about my own graduation 4 weeks from today. One of the recent talks I read was given by the late David Foster Wallace.
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then...
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"Have the courage to follow your heart and...
I recently rewatched Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. I utterly enjoyed it because Jobs describes life in such a simple yet vivid and expressive manner. I hope you will take time to watch the speech in its entirety; here are my 3 favorite parts:
1. You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will...
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Krystian Zimerman's take on the issues of digital...
According to Zimerman, music is not an audio experience; music is more than audio. He argues that contemporary digital recording so clearly transmits the sounds that you can’t hear the music anymore. And music is not only sound. We are using the sound to create music, but music is organizing people’s emotions in time, it’s the story you’re telling using sound. So by working on a better sound in...
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In pursuit of universalism: Kieslowski on...
Over the weekend, I watched a brilliant interview with legendary filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. I was struck by the depth and the simplicity of his philosophy. Like a good student I listened carefully and took notes. The video below is the first of 6 parts available on YouTube:
Universal language of emotion The script is governed by its own rules, it isn’t dependent on the country. It has to...
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On being present
This is a short clip from a theater masterclass that voice and acting coach Patsy Rodenburg gave in NYC a few years ago. I have seen it for the first time when TED featured it on its main website. Listen to her two stories on the importance of theater and the importance of actors in today’s society.
“Being present, being in a moment, being engaged, being connected (…) And as an actor, a...
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Why do we prefer live performance?
I recently read an intriguing article by marketing guru Seth Godin who points out three simple reasons why do we prefer live performance and consequently would pay five or ten times more to see a concert rather than purchase the recording:
- There are people around you, fellow travelers, magnetic energy, shared joy.
- Something might go wrong. The artist is like a tightrope walker, taking big...
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Paderewski Piano Concerto
My debut with Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of JoAnn Falletta (May of 2008). Recording from NPR’s Performance Today.