Yes, I fled classical music news. My interest gradually went down until I figured these news were in fact having a negative impact on my mood. News have become a long list of bankruptcies, alarmist titles, epic fails, disasters, concerns about the future of classical music. Well, if I was an adept of conspiracy theories I could have easily thought a mogul somewhere wanted all the classical music related people to commit suicide so he can definitely get rid of our noisy art.

In the course of the 3 last years, I have been reading the same thing over and over : classical music is endangered, everything in this business goes wrong. Booh, that sounds scary. Let’s spend the next 30 seconds trying to understand all this. Why such a statement? Everyone has an explanation: today’s composers are unable to write beautiful classical music like in the past, audience is aging and declining, classical music world is too stuffy and so on… Well, discussing the validity of these arguments would be indeed a lot of fun. But more important than an endless subjective fight is to notice that the heavy criticism basically led nowhere, except to a schism and an increasing number of worried and depressed people in the world of classical music.

Have you ever wondered why people like classical music? Maybe, because it makes them disconnect with their problems, bring them a little joy and happiness. Classical Music changed my life to the point I couldn’t live without it. It helped me go through difficult times in my life. And I believe it can do so for other people. But I’m also pretty sure it wouldn’t have had this effect on me if I had been overloaded with a huge amount of negative news. I guess I would have run away if it has simply reflected the cruel world we’re living in.

Sure the classical music business is not a heaven. It has its issues, everyone knows it, even the audience. Like everyone else in this business I struggle every day. I should say: Like everyone in any business I struggle every day. But that’s not important. The point is that no matter how tough my work can be, no matter the problems I encounter, I will be forever thankful I can play the piano, I will be forever grateful for the life I’m living. No matter what, classical music is a positive experience.

A long time ago, I acted in plays as a hobby and I learned one of the most important lessons: what happens backstage stays backstage. Especially the downsides. Endlessly publicly pointing out problems is not even the beginning of a solution. Endlessly being angry and vindictive is harmful. Endlessly predicting a revolution is tiring. Endlessly blaming others for our own failure is useless. All of this is counterproductive.

I’m happy. Truly happy. I want this happiness to be contagious. I want my love of classical music to be contagious. And I want to make my audiences even happier than I am using the only way I know to do so: playing music.

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The 2011 season will be so exciting! First of all I am proud to announce the recording of my first solo CD: an album planned since months, about which I thought a lot. For my first album, true to myself, I decided to promote and trust the young American composer Michael Mranti who particularly interested me. I have therefore commissioned a work for solo piano, written to fit among the other works of the program.

This album is built like a journey through the night of three leading composers of the twentieth century and a young composer of our time. The four groups of works reflect and revisit the nocturnal imagery: reassuring or terrifying illuminations (lightning, candles, moonlight), sound and olfactory perceptions of twilight (the forest, the birds at night) and spectral presences (Scarbo, Ondine) enrich the magical world of darkness which Messiaen, Carter, Mranti and Ravel knew perfectly how to set to music, each in a very different and personal way.

Another project close to my heart: the launch of a festival dedicated to keyboard instruments. Initiated in 2010, this project should take place at the end of spring 2012 in France. I was lucky enough to meet last year highly motivated people ready to invest time in this great project and put it on track, as well as magnificent performers supporting the operation and enriching our programming. I sincerely hope, despite this is pretty bad times for cultural funding, the festival will find motivated partners to let us provide the best possible conditions for the audience and the performers.

Last but not least, I always wanted to write a book about my experience as a pianist and music in general. You already know that I like sharing my thoughts and views, but for a long time now, I have been having a true desire to compile and complete several of my texts still unpublished in a form more substantial than the “simple” article. So I took my courage in both hands and the writing started in 2010 is on track. That process will continue throughout 2011 and I hope to publish this book in conjunction with my first album.

Hard work, great projects, 2011 will really be a great year!

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To sum up, Sandow talks about two concerts he heard in Washington: Janine Jansen playing the Sibelius concerto with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and one of the ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra). Both took place at the Kennedy Center.

According to him, both concerts were “dismaying”. Too much technical focus (???) and not enough or an overflow of emotion respectively for ECCO and the violinist. He therefore decreed that classical performances need to be reinvigorated [...] because there’s something somewhat impersonal about them.

Besides the fact that Sandow based his article on two isolated concerts to define basic assumptions extended to all interpreters, he did not mention an essential parameter: The search for emotional truth and accurate emotion is a lifetime work for an interpreter. Criticized interpreters are relatively young and need time to develop their skills towards perfection. But their potential is enormous, and with time they will reach a certain perfection.

Deviating slightly from the discussion, I would like to draw your attention on an underlying problem. Today the world is going faster and faster, are we still able to wait for an artistic maturity that requires time to fully develop? Are we still able to judge an artist as “still evolving” and not as a finished product once he is on stage? I pose the question without being able to answer it…

Sandow raises an important point in his article: Interpreter’s focus on technical perfection of performances. But isn’t it finally healthy? I mean, by the hope of a technically perfect performance, we express our need to free ourselves from technical requirements to better express our artistic soul. Technical freedom is then a first step towards freedom of expression. I think this focus, sometimes excessive, is just a necessary transition to mastery for the young performer. This focus on the technical side of things surely evolves towards artistic perfection in its time.

It is not fair to ignore external factors that may have influenced the interpretation during these concerts. Were they tired? Did the acoustics of the hall suggest them to adjust their interpretation? Did Jansen find that the hall was sounding flat and decided, to compensate, to overplay things that evening?

To conclude, I do not think that classical music is in need of a rebirth. We should stop thinking of performers like machines able to play perfectly every evening. Each concert is an adventure having good and bad sides. The quality of an interpretation depends on so many parameters not related to the musician that sometimes the conditions are not met and don’t lead to an optimal performance. But more importantly, being an interpreter is a lifetime training: we must let time takes its course and never forget that we are in a context of constant evolution towards a delicate balance.

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Leafing through my history of the twentieth century, I could find at least three significant anniversaries. Perhaps a centennial is any less impressive than a bicentennial, but in 1910 were born Samuel Barber and Pierre Schaeffer, for example, and also died Mily Balakirev. Wouldn’t these people be enough significant in the history of music to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their birth or death? Or is it easier and more mainstream to decree that we should celebrate a composer already known to all and played a lot?

For 2010, I invite you to (re?) discover the work of these three illustrious personages. I already spoke about Pierre Schaeffer in details in an article about the musique concrète, but let me remind you what he basically did. Pierre Schaeffer has deeply changed the perception of sound and influenced all the music of the second half of the twentieth century. Father of music concrete, he used for the first time electronics as an interpreter. His theory of musical objects is a real jewel and his work has fundamentally influenced a whole generation of revolutionary composers: Stockhausen, Nono, Berio among others (let’s thank here Donaueschingen) or more directly Henry or Mâche. Other composers used his approach to move toward areas still unknown: Messiaen and his work Timbres – Durées (First work to implement spatial slicing performed on three tape trays), Varèse and Déserts, the first work combining acoustic instruments (in this case an orchestra) and tape, and even Boulez with his symphonie mécanique in 1955.

Samuel Barber has been considered by many as one of the most important American composers of the twentieth century. You certainly know his famous Adagio for Strings, but if it has somewhat overshadowed the rest of the work, we should go dig a little deeper. As a pianist, I focused on scores for my instrument and I learnt that Barber studied piano at the Curtis Institute, and payed homage to this instrument many times during his career. You should listen to his sonata or Piano Concerto, true masterpieces too little played today. Try also his fabulous excursions.

Finally, the last name of my list, Mily Balakirev, who died in 1910, is a central figure of Russian musical life. Islamey will certainly remind something to pianists… Balakirev extended and developped the thought of Glinka : Glinka had transmitted to Balakirev his strong nationalism and convinced him of the need for Russia to have a school independent from those of Europe. In 1857, after Glinka’s death, he founded one of the most important group of composers during the Romantic period: the Five. Balakirev met 4 other like-minded composers to reach his aim: Cui, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky. Struggling against academic education of composers, his magnetism and personality inspired his comrades to improbable heights of musical creativity.

I let you gather and listen to tracks and wish you a marvelous time with three composers not as media-friendly as Chopin, but who also could mark the year 2010.

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