We’re groupies now! More rhapsodizing from the road!
Dear friends of PPI
Being a professional musician has involved a huge amount of travel since the beginning of time – whether we’re talking court musicians in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Roman traveling entertainers, medieval troubadours or the traveling virtuosi of the Renaissance. Sure, there’s a vast difference between the estimated 10 to 15 mile journey from the Biblical David’s childhood home to the court of King Saul (where young David was purportedly summoned to play the lyre) and the 63,000-odd miles Taylor Swift covered during the Eras Tour, but the bottom line is that musical growth and performance opportunity often means leaving the comfort of one’s home. For some, this was (and still is) thrilling (Mozart famously remarked that “without travel, at least for people from the arts and sciences, one is a miserable creature!”). For others, it’s nothing more than a necessary evil. As Robert Schumann wrote to a friend about a tour of Russia in 1844: “I had to promise the journey to St. Petersburg to Clara in the most solemn manner, else she said she would go alone. Pardon me if I forebear to tell how unwilling I am to leave my quiet home. I never think of it without the utmost sorrow …”
On the side of ambitious travelers, there’s Filippo Gorini, now almost exactly two weeks into his Portland residency, the fourth stop in his ambitious Sonata for 7 Cities project. Feeling a little bit like rhapsodic roadies ourselves, the PPI team has been whisking him around from Eugene to Cannon Beach, from All Classical’s Thursdays@Three to KOIN television’s AM Express (click on the links if you missed the live broadcasts!) Sure, his time in Oregon is anything but stationary, but the ethos behind choosing for a residency over strict concert hall experiences is where the stark difference comes in. Filippo is not just playing the best instruments in the largest halls on the planet, posting about it on social media and taking off to achieve the next “high”. He is also tirelessly bringing music to prisons, to private homes, to schools, to retirement communities, to small towns. He’s teaching, making friends, drinking coffee, eating bagels, hiking, laughing, talking and sharing at a human level – which completely changes how one then perceives the venerated classical repertory he plays.
Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze is no longer only the result of a composer’s creative joy trickling through a talented player’s dexterous fingers (“If I have ever been happy at the piano, it was when I was composing these”, Schumann wrote to his then-fiancée, Clara Wieck) – it is also the expression of living the stark contrasts of a city and a state. Beethoven’s deeply-felt journey into the human psyche in his Sonata no. 31, op. 110 is not only the expression of extreme highs and lows in a genius’s life – it is also the glory of seeing Haystack Rock shrouded in mist, hearing the velocity of Multnomah Falls, breathing in the vista over the Columbia River Gorge from Angel’s Rest. (Or, even more prosaic, sampling a good local beer with a welcoming group of friends!)
Grinning at the glory of Multnomah Falls, beer tasting with Bill Crane at Pelican Brewing, taking in big views with PPI Board member Kristy Moore.
If you want to hear a pianist whose lived sincerity and conviction speaks louder than any crescendo, come hear him live at any of the remaining events on his Oregon schedule. (The Big One is his Lincoln Hall recital on March 22nd, of course – but also catch him in Pendleton this weekend, at ChatterPDX, or with Soundstruck NW on Piano Day.)
Have you been playing Piano Madness? We’ve narrowed it down to the Final Four! Will Scott Joplin's “Maple Leaf Rag” continue to surprise as it goes head-to-head with Debussy's “Claire de Lune”? And who could predict a winner in the head-to-head match of Mozart versus Brahms? Vote now and help decide what Filippo will play on Piano Day!
Have you bought your tickets to our fabulous fundraising gala yet? Come back to the keys!Invite your friends and come soak in some beachy vibes with PPI on Sunday, April 12th!
