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Welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod, here, tradition meets innovation. We bridge the timeless beauty of the piano with the dynamic pulse of today's world. I am your host, Yukimi Song.
Wow, it's hard to believe that we're already on the 15th episode of the season. Time flies, doesn't it? I just wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of our faithful listeners and viewers. Without your support and love, this show wouldn't be possible. So thank you.
Each season seems to have its own unique trend or theme based on the guests we have on the show and also based on what's happening around us at that time.
Last season, for example, we talked a lot about audience engagement, but season four, which is currently underway, has become a celebration of creativity. It's been amazing to see how many imaginative and innovative people there are in the classical music world, and our guest today is a perfect example of that.
I'm excited to introduce Danny Holt, a pianist, percussionist, composer and producer. You might remember Dr. Michael Coomrod from a few episodes back. He's a former faculty member at the Interlochen Arts Academy.
Well, he recommended that I get in touch with Danny Holt, and I'm so glad he did. I checked out Danny's videos and was really blown away by his repertoire range from traditional Mozart pieces to contemporary music and even hidden gems from 200 years ago.
And his piano percussion project is just incredible. I have never seen anything like it. The way he plays both instruments simultaneously is mind boggling.
So before inviting him on the show, let me just read Danny's bio very quickly. Praised as phenomenal by the esteemed music critic Alan Rich and celebrated as one of the local heroes of the Los Angeles music scene by LACDB.com, pianist Danny Holt has captivated audiences worldwide.
From the prestigious stages of Carnegie Hall and the Walt Disney Concert Hall to the cozy corners of clubs, art galleries, churches and private residences, Danny embodies the true spirit of a performer, always in search for a piano and an audience, no matter where they may be.
Danny's artistic journey is marked by a diversity of collaborations that span the spectrum of the musical world. His shared the stage with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Blumen Group, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and more.
His dedication to his craft has earned him fellowships at renowned music institutes, such as the Wild Music Institute at Carnegie Hall and the New England Conservatory's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice.
Danny's passion doesn't stop at avant-garde contemporary music. He is equally fervent about bringing to light obscure piano works from the 18th and 19th centuries, delighting audiences with his performances of rarely heard compositions and sharing the intriguing stories of lesser-known composers.
His discography, which includes the recent solo album, piano music of Mike Garson, among other solo chamber and orchestral works, showcases his eclectic tastes and is published by labels such as UNOVA Recordings, New World Recordings, Deutsche Grammophon, and more.
Danny's academic credentials are as impressive as his musical achievements, with degrees from the California Institute of the Arts, Hampshire College, Smith College, and Interlochen Arts Academy.
Before we dive in, a warm welcome to new listeners and a big thank you to our faithful TPP fans. Don't forget to rate and review the show on your favorite podcasting platform.
Dear TPP fans and listeners, I am thrilled to welcome today's guest to start our conversation. So join us as we dive into the world of Danny Holt, exploring the depths of his musical explorations and the stories behind his illustrious career. Please enjoy the show.
You are listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
Here we are with today's guest, pianist, percussionist, composer and producer Danny Holt. Welcome Danny to the PianoPod. Thank you for being here today. Yay.
Hello. Thanks for having me.
You're truly a multifaceted musician. I mean, from being the traditional classical solo pianist who also plays avant-garde music and of course, such an accomplished percussionist and combining the two piano and percussion, I watched your video clips on your YouTube channel performing
David Johnson's Antares, Revenge and then many others. And then you also wear a producer hat for this long studying concert series in the West Coast. Looks like in the middle of nowhere, like a desert.
It's quite beautiful. And as well as you are a recording artist and composer, but I want to start our conversation with your recording of Mike Garson's homage to Chopin and Godosky. His piece and your performance really truly blew me away.
Wow. What a great performance. And then watched your interview also with Mike Garson. I think he did a little bit of an interview session, right? Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.
Yeah. And then he's a very interesting and fascinating artist. I never knew of him. I shame on me. And then I'm learning a lot by doing this interview and in very interesting and I would love to eventually interview him too.
But I love the fact that the piece is sort of the proof that classical music world is not stale or plateau, but actually very much alive and constantly evolving. So tell us about the piece and then composer.
Yeah, well, like you, I had not heard of Mike Garson. He does have a loyal following, but he's not exactly a household name. Really interesting character. And actually the story of how we met is kind of fun.
Years ago, you know, it's funny at the beginning of our interview, you were very patient with me as I overcame some technological hurdles. I am I am not very good with technology.
But one rare example of when I was actually an early adopter of a new technology is in 2004 I started using a product called the music pad. This is before iPads and before tablets were mainstream company called freehand system said created a piece of hardware and software specifically for reading music.
They called it the music pad. Even in 2004 this piece of hardware looked outdated. It was it was really large and clunky it was like, it was like three quarters of an inch or an inch thick, and this you know the screen wasn't quite this full size of, you know, a standard
page of a music score and it was, it had its glitches but it did basically work. And I was using it quite a bit in particular for these really wild David Lang pieces that I was performing and recording pieces that would be virtually impossible to memorize.
And the only other solution would be to do the whole the you know contemporary music cliche of having like a giant like poster board with these pages reduced down to 50% taped together or something. So, the music pad was a helpful tool.
Mike and I met through music pad because I was speaking with folks at the company, trying to help them increase awareness about their product and I was saying like well hey you know for music like this like in a contemporary classical music world there are a lot of applications
for this product I'd love to help you kind of gain some awareness.
I was interested in doing some kind of presentation at CalArts where I was in grad school at the time. And I told them I said you know, coming into a music school a conservatory you know doing some kind of like product demonstration or sales pitch isn't really like the right
vibe. But if you have like an artist who happens to use the music pad if we could bring in as a guest artist that might work. Anyways, this is way more information than you need and you can edit this all down later but suffice it to say, Mike
and I first met when I facilitated his visit to campus to CalArts as a guest artist. And he walked up to me and he I mean he looks like a total rock star he's like, I might be wrong about this but what I remember is it seemed like he was like, you know, decked out
in like all leather sunglasses, looked like a total rock star comes in, and I'm like shaking his hand and you know saying hey I'm Danny Holt I'm the one who arranged this visit thank you so much for being here. And as he's shaking my hand he says, Danny Holt.
Hey, you're an amazing pianist man. And I was like, surely you must be thinking of someone else because at that point I was still in grad school and I couldn't think of any reason why he would have heard of me even though I you know I had started my professional
performing career. And it turns out that four or five years before that.
Mike had been the judge for this Yamaha competition, but I ended up winning. But it was one of these competitions where you just sent in a recording. So it was we had never met in person he'd never heard me play in person but he'd heard my recordings, and he remembered
that he had sent me and he had filed this away. He remembered like yeah this Danny Holt kid I think that that guy might, he might get my music. And so sure enough like the universe brought us together and then I heard some of his music.
And the very first time I heard my Garson's music, I became completely transfixed. I am a pretty intuitive musician in some ways. And when I hear a piece of music that I really like you know that really speaks to me like it's, I have that kind of immediate visceral
reaction, and that's what Mike's music was like and in fact the very first come to think of it the very first piece of Mike's music that I heard was his homage to Chopin and Godot's key.
What I didn't realize at the time is that the recording I was listening to was not.
Well, it was his performance played on a disc laver by a computer at a faster tempo than he had originally played it.
Yeah, so it really it blew my mind I mean the piece blew my mind but that what I was hearing blew my mind too because I was like, oh my god, I can't believe this is moving that fast.
But I felt a little bit better about it once I got to know him and got to understand his process and realized that what I was hearing was actually, and I can, I can take a step back and explain this in case some of your listeners aren't familiar with the technology.
So, a disc laver is Yamaha's product that's been around since the 80s, that allows you to have a real piano, an acoustic piano not a keyboard or digital piano.
And in Mike's case, a beautiful Yamaha concert grand. Actually, that was a very interesting piano too. It was a one of a kind prototype.
It was like a ghost piano, it had no serial number.
And he had saved this piano from the dreaded piano crusher, which I didn't know there was such a thing but apparently piano manufacturers when they make these kind of one off prototypes once they've kind of figured out whatever they wanted to figure out they usually they destroy them, which is as pianists, it's like horrifying.
So, so he had, he had convinced the Yamaha to save this beautiful nine foot concert grand from the piano crusher.
And it was in the 80s, and it had what was then the cutting edge technology installed on it that allows you to play on a beautiful piano, and it's connected to a computer so through MIDI musical instrument digital interface through MIDI it can send and receive.
And so when he was a kid he had the classical training, and then he became a jazz pianist. And then, you know, to the extent that people know Mike Carson it's usually because of his association with David Bowie, but he really just fell into that world when he was in his I think in his 20s
on David Bowie's first American tour like before he was a really well known figure. Mike started working with him and then worked with him for decades, but he really just kind of fell into it.
He thought of himself as like a rock and roll pianist, but that's kind of the world that he ended up inhabiting for decades, but I mean he so he has that classical not jazz training, and he is a truly masterful improviser, I mean I've watched him, and it's, it's frightening.
And so, many years ago he embarked on this experiment to kind of push himself as an improviser and as a composer, he realized that when he tried to compose, you know the like old fashioned way the normal way like with a pencil and staff paper that that process
didn't work for him, but he was an exceptionally good improviser and he recognized the potential there so he used his improvisational prowess and the discolour as a tool and really developed and fine tuned to this compositional process that was improvisatory.
And so he, he plays in real time. So he's improvising but he's also improvising at a slightly slower tempo than what he's actually imagining the piece to be at, which to me is fascinating because I'm not much of an improviser but when I do improvise so much of my improvisation,
gesture and everything depends on tempo, he can he can have in mind a certain tempo but then actually be creating the piece at a slightly slower tempo. Well that makes sense because it gives him just a little bit more time for those ideas to unfold.
Not to mention a lot of his music is insanely virtuosic so it means he can play it a little slower.
So that compositional process improvising and using the discolour is something that he spent, you know, a good 10 years really refining and then he's continued doing it since then, but what he usually did is he would just have the computer play back his original
performance and just jack the tempo up to the fast tempo that he really liked. So that first recording that I heard of that piece was the computer playing the piece much faster than he had played it at this like breakneck speed which is really like mind boggling.
If you haven't heard it or if you can't find it online, I can send you that recording.
That would be great. Yeah, I was it is tumbling. But once you start working with the discolour you can like now I totally hear it like if I hear a recording that's a discolour, I can hear the weird little imperfections, and especially with a piece like that that's so fast I can hear things
Oh yeah I know like a real person is not playing that. This Chopin and Godowsky piece. I think it's the inspiration was coming from Opus 25, number 12 Chopin's Ocean right? Yeah, but also, you know, Godowsky has this wonderful series of etudes like deconstructing and combining
and expanding on Chopin's etudes. And so there's a famous one where he yeah he takes that really active right hand part and flips it around, inverts it and puts it in the left hand, and Mike was basically like, screw those guys, I can do both hands, you know, just as crazy.
That was kind of the idea. But to be able to master and recorded it's also was is incredible. Then, also you have this album Piano Music of Mike Garson, which was released two years ago, 2022 right.
And so not only the inspirations from classical composers like Chopin, Eligeti, Ives, Prokofiev, but also there are a lot of references to pop rock icons and of course, obviously, David Bowie, you mentioned and Keith Emerson, who was the keyboardist, famous keyboardist from 70s 80s.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I actually love the piece tribute to Keith Emerson that you played in that. Yeah. And then also, yeah, that's a wild one. Yeah. And then what is this now to not etude but now to Yeah, that's just I mean, it's kind of funny at a certain point.
I mean, Mike has, I forget the number. I mean, he's he's insanely prolific, although he'll be the first to tell you that, you know, not every piece is great, you know, because he's because his compositional processes and propository, and he's not particularly interested in going back and editing things, sometimes he does.
And in fact, we've developed a rapport where like, he's, he sends me something and I just give him my like, unvarnished opinion and you know, I'll just kind of flat out tell him like, Yeah, well, it kind of reminds me that other piece you did, but that one was better or you know, well, you know, this feels good, but it feels a little undeveloped, or like there was one piece recently that I'm actually going to start learning.
It's his jazz variations on one of the Schumann scenes from childhood. And I remember telling him that the ending felt kind of abrupt, and he and he went back and he expanded the ending, which was great.
So it's fun to have that kind of, you know, dynamic relationship with a composer but in general, he just does it once and that's kind of it and then he's less interested in going back and like tweaking or refining things and more interested in just moving on to whatever the next thing is.
So because of that he's got thousands of pieces you know most of which are miniatures. And at a certain point he just started running out of titles.
I think for a while it was like improv one improv two and he got through like hundreds of those and then, and then he did a whole series of, you know, nocturnes and ballads and you know, so that the now tudes though I think he did actually set out to write a series of essentially etudes, improvised etudes
in, if not every key certainly many, many keys, and I selected, you know, out of the thousands of pieces for this album I selected that the pieces that spoke to me and a lot of them like you mentioned are the pieces that are kind of that reference other composers or other musicians.
And then yeah the now tudes I really liked them but I didn't I didn't feel compelled to record the complete set so I just kind of put together a shorter set of the ones that kind of spoke to me but yeah those are essentially the little etudes.
And one of the reasons I recorded the album is that, although a few other pianists had played some of Mike's music over the years, and maybe recorded a few individual pieces no one had ever recorded an album of this music so Mike had put out some self released CDs of his works
and what it actually was the disclavier, you know the computer playing on the disclavier reproducing his original performance, but at his desired tempo. And it's not the same as someone living with the music for months and years and really delving into it and making it their own
and then so that's what I really wanted to do I really wanted to pick a collection of his pieces that spoke to me, and that felt like it kind of made sense as an album and and record that album, so that the world could, you know, hear his music because like you said you know he's
definitely not a household name, and he's got so many other pieces. You know his dream is that you know someday when he's long gone, hopefully that his music will live on and that, and that there will be lots of other pianists who will decide to.
Yeah, because I enjoyed listening and I don't know if I can ever master his pieces but you know I would love to try. Some of them aren't that hard but yeah a lot of his music is.
I mean he's a monster pianist himself. So a lot of them are very virtuosic especially because the tempos that he ideally wants are really really fast. I mean, like back to the good off ski Chopin, etude I mean, I wish I could play it faster.
Sometimes in live performance I'll play it a little faster than I did in the recording, and I basically take the risk of sacrificing accuracy for visceral excitement and live performance you know.
That's what live performance is all about right and there's like a little bit of fun and excitement that comes along. Yeah, so for all our listeners and viewers out there I highly recommend exploring Danny's solo album, piano music of Mike Garson, it's vibrant
and enjoyable collection of piano compositions by you know Mr. Garson which captivates anyone who gives it a listen. You can find it on all major music streaming services platforms I think that's the best way and then don't miss out on this musical jam.
So, Danny I want to talk more about you as a pianist and so you, I think you noted that the lockdown during pandemic marked a significant turning point for you as an artist shifting from a focus on, you know college university level teaching to deeper commitment to your
performing arts career with an emphasis on more captivating programs. So, everybody had this sort of like a wake up moment during the pandemic time and as difficult as it was, I think we were going through the same thing, all at the same time which was a really completely
unique experience for human species I think. Anyway, and so what sparked this realization besides having to have this, you know luxury of lockdown, but what else sparked this.
Yeah, well it was definitely you know I think we have, of course the pandemic is still going on, I always, it's a little weird to me when people talk about the pandemic in the past tense, I think when we do that it's just a casual way of referring to 2020 and most of 2021 when
we're really really most severely impacted, but I do think it's important to remember that the pandemic is still going on and it is still affecting our lives, but I think we've had enough time and enough space now from that initial period especially the whole year of 2020
that it's easier for me now to look back and see the transformation that kind of like inner transformation that was taking place, because at the time, I was just really really depressed, which was a new experience for me, I am a very high energy optimistic bubbly bouncing
off the walls with energy personality, as is a lot of the music that I enjoy playing. And I don't think I've ever really experienced depression like that, like the kind of classic depression symptoms of like, not even being able to get out of bed like not even be able to find the
energy to do that. And it was, it was devastating to be robbed of the opportunity to connect with live audiences through music. And, you know, all of us watched our concert calendars just evaporate in front of our eyes and you know we were as performing artists we were some of the
first people impacted in those, at least in the states it was like, it was, you know, March 2020 really is when things started getting impacted. I know in other parts of the world it was even sooner, you know, because all of our public events started getting canceled,
and we were also some of the last to be able to resume our kind of normal activities and I'm only just now in 2023 2024 getting closer to resuming a normal concert schedule but even still, a lot of my work is being impacted by logistics around,
thankfully, not, you know, massive coven outbreaks but still just always keeping in mind the possibility that there could be an unexpected wave or someone involved in this project could get coven, how would we handle that what you know what's the balance that we take
between coven precautions and, you know, doing things the way that we normally would etc etc so it's all still there but anyways, the hardest part for me about 2020 and 2021 that time period in particular was not being able to perform, and it was interesting
because I realized just how intensely that affected me. I'd always known that I was a performer first and foremost, I'd always always juggled performing and teaching and you know wearing lots of different hats, but I've always been really passionate about performance.
And I think what that experience early on in the pandemic really crystallized really clarified for me is that that is for me that is the essential thing. I need to be in a room with other people making music, you know whether that's performing with an audience,
whether it's making chamber music with other people, but it's that live in person, real interaction. And as a performer. Now that I'm out performing again more widely. I always have, I always talk with my audience it's always a very informal.
My performance style is very, it's very informal and so I'm always having a conversation with the audience. And I've started actually taking a few minutes out of the concert program to explicitly thank the audience and acknowledge them and make sure that they understand
I'm getting emotional. Make sure they understand that they are a crucial part of what's happening, you know, I mean because you're a pianist so you understand it's like we spend so much of our lives, sitting at the piano, yes by ourselves, practicing.
Yes, and I am more of an extrovert I definitely I get energy from being around other people. And so, to me all of that, that huge investment of time and energy, all that time I spend alone at home at the piano practicing over, you know, months to prepare for a tour,
sometimes for you know one particular concert. That's all in service of and toward the goal of connecting with other people. And in live performance there's like this electrical energy in the room.
And you know there's a different, there's a different feeling a different vibe at every concert, you know, and it depends on the piano and it depends on the space and it depends on the people and it depends on the weather and it depends on the mood, and all of that, you know, plays into it.
And, and obviously I try to kind of make the most out of every situation because sometimes the piano is not ideal or sometimes maybe there's like a weird vibe from the audience or maybe the, maybe the acoustics of the space aren't great and you know as a performer you have to
make the most out of whatever but you hope for every once in a while these wonderful situations where at least a few of those variables are kind of like on fire. And, and yeah, so there's just, it's a performing live is just so different from from practice thing.
And I realized that that's really what I need and that's what I crave. It's not about like ego and being in the spotlight it's really it's really about that, that real human connection.
And as I said it's about that kind of, it's difficult to articulate but there is some kind of there's a there's a feeling that you get in the moment performing with a live audience and that and that that energy that's kind of feeding back and forth, but then it's also just, you know, that
the actual real interaction that takes place with people after the concert where someone comes up and says, Can I hug you. You know, I just lost my spouse and that last piece you played you to move me and you know people sharing like genuine stories of how your music has
affected them. It's those things that I, that I missed when performing live wasn't impossible. And we were chatting a little bit earlier about technology and how I'm kind of a Luddite and I'm kind of, I have a lot of anxiety and fear and frustration around
technology and having to keep up with constantly changing standards and different apps and all this stuff. And I tried really hard in that early part of the pandemic when it was clear that it was going to be a while before we'd be able to resume live performances.
I tried really hard to embrace the idea of using technology as a way to connect with people. And I just, I just couldn't get there. I, I had very practical concerns about audio and video quality of live streaming, living somewhere at the time where I didn't have the
most reliable internet connection and knowing that you know even if you do everything right on your end, that if the person who's streaming something doesn't have the best connection, you know, and I just, you know, things like that made it difficult for me to get excited about.
And the fact that even though there are some ways to do a live stream concert and have some kind of you know interaction with people like typing things in the chat.
Yeah, yeah. This is different. Yeah, it's not the same. It's not the same. And I think early in 2020, when we were all so hungry for community and so like starved for connecting with people through music or other you know arts.
I think people were more forgiving and kind of like, okay, well this is imperfect but it's better than nothing. And I think also at that time a lot of us were thinking, well this has got it, this is gonna, this is only going to last for a month or something like that.
And it was hard for most of us to conceive that the pandemic would cause the kinds of disruptions that it actually did. So yeah, I just I really struggled during that time because I just couldn't bring myself to, to be in charge of all that technology to be responsible
for all that technology to be constantly worrying about all the different things that can go wrong with the technology, not knowing for sure if people were going to hear me and my piano the way that it was meant to be heard.
And most importantly, fundamentally just recording a video or live streaming a concert in your home alone. It's just it's just not the same. So, the first part of the pandemic.
Those couple of years that that was the hardest thing for me you know not to mention I was teaching a lot of the time to and just teaching online. I know some people enjoy it and some people enjoy like taking classes online, it's just not for me.
I was glad that I was still able to connect with my students, you know, I was glad that we were able to keep working together, but I found teaching online to be incredibly frustrating.
Now, can you elaborate on what you said about live performance.
I mean, there's a way, you know, just being there in front of the audience and you also feel something feedback, not verbally, but you feel something from the audience, while you're performing or even just a little afterwards, not just applaud or anything.
Can you elaborate because those are the things I think you missed the most about performing it like you said it's not about me but it's the interaction but not literal, you know, verbal interaction but something.
I think at my best in live performance, when I am thoroughly prepared. I really know the piece, and I'm not like getting in my own way that I've quieted those inner voices that are saying, Oh, is that enough for an F sharp that's coming up and oh I know.
And then there comes that really hard part that I mess up sometimes. If I, if I know that if I'm prepared enough and I'm in a mental state where I'm not having those kinds of voices in my head distracting me from performance, and especially if I'm performing on a really
good piano that allows me to do what I want. And if the energy in the room is right, you know under all of those ideal circumstances, I will have occasionally and it doesn't happen often, but I will occasionally have like transcendent moments.
You know you hear people talk about kind of like near death experiences where they're like floating above their body. Yeah, so for me, it's like that it's like I am in the moment I am playing but I'm also observing myself from above, and I'm like watching myself
playing and I'm like wait is that me like how am I doing that like I don't know what's happening right now. That's amazing.
So, I live for those kinds of transcendent moments in live performance and if it only happens like once a year or once every couple years you know that's good enough for me but I guess I am in a way maybe I should talk to my therapist about this.
Maybe it's an addiction almost.
It's a great addiction.
But yeah, it's just, there's something special about investing the amount of time and energy that we invest as performers in learning a piece of music thoroughly and then sharing it with an audience to finally be able to share it with an audience.
And, like I said before, just knowing that in at least some small ways for at least a few people in the audience, you'll be affecting them in some meaningful way.
And I think you know back to what we were talking about before in terms of how the experience early on in the pandemic shaped me I think I was having some kind of like existential crises, wondering like, wait, should I be doing something different with my life like this,
this being, well first of all like am I ever going to be able to perform again, because there were, that was a legitimate concern. Oh my god I didn't ever be able to perform again.
But also just wondering like, should I be doing something with my life that has more meaning, like something more concrete. Should I be like, I don't know, should I be working in public health?
Should I be teaching middle schoolers critical thinking skills? Working to like bolster our democracy?
Like you know there are all these things I was thinking like maybe being a musician like isn't the thing.
Every time I would have those thoughts, you know, at least at this point in my life, you know I'm kind of like mid career you know I, I realize, no I'm not going to actually, I'm not going to actually go back to the drawing board and start a completely new career.
That's not what I'm supposed to do.
And I, and I do believe, although it may not be the same as other professions that are, that have a more like tangible and practical effect on the world, I do believe that live performance is meaningful and brings joy and beauty to people's lives and so I have to believe that.
But back to your question and again it's really hard to articulate but things happen in live performance for me that very very rarely happen when I'm practicing alone.
And so I think there is something about, you know sometimes my students will ask me like, do you get nervous when you go up on stage to perform and of course the answer is yeah sure I still get nervous.
This is not the same as when I was younger you know when I was younger I would sometimes be like literally shaking and I like I guess with those voices in my head sometimes it just be like this constant like, you know, chatter of self doubt that's a constant distraction and, you know, worried about making memory slips and, you know, of course you get to a certain point once you practice performing enough, you know you have to practice to learn music you also have to practice performing.
And, you know, after you've been doing it for years and decades, you get to the point where sure you know you have nerves but they don't affect you as much, and you make yeah your nerves cause you to make some mistakes but you get better at recovering from those mistakes and masking those mistakes and, you know, so I do still get, I do still get nervous, but it's more the nervous excitement of like, oh I'm finally getting to share this music that I've been working on for months with an audience.
And hopefully, hopefully the that kind of nervous excitement I can channel it in live performance, and there's and I'm feeling like an energy from the audience which sometimes is actually like, sometimes there are like visual or audible cues I will sometimes like see people like kind of like sitting forward in their seat or hear people like reacting
to like an especially exciting moment. And I love that by the way I think so much of, you know, the kind of mainstream classical music world the expectation is that you sit as an audience member that you know, and quiet.
It wasn't always like that you know, the audiences used to be really rambunctious.
I actually love it when I when I can actually see and hear the audience's engagement but anyways yeah I feed off of that and that that combined with whatever kind of nervous excitement I'm already feeling will often inspire me in the moment to do something to take it to take a risk
to do something maybe that I don't normally do. And so those are examples of some of the things that happen live performance for me that are different than just practicing what is what I spend most of my time doing.
And no wonder you don't like to perform live stream right because that just added pressure to like make sure everything is working it's always, always even like doing this in podcast using these technology makes me really nervous, that's more nerve wracking
than actual interview itself. Right. So, yeah.
So, you know, live stream is like it's kind of this weird in between between live performance and recording, because I really try to keep the two separate, because I do think, even though the whole business and economy of recorded music has changed in so many ways in the last decade,
last couple decades.
I mean, it's all separate conversation but I do still, I do still want to record, especially albums I mean like every album I put out has like a very specific reason for being in a very specific programmatic focus.
It's not just like a random collection of tracks you know. So, when I record, I really want to focus on being in a certain mindset, and I am trying to, I'm trying to use the medium of recording to capture an exciting performance.
There are different expectations you know because technology allows us to essentially make like a perfect recording.
There is an expectation that that recordings will be very very accurate, etc. Whereas in live performance audiences understand that this is this is something that's happening just once right now and, you know, it may not be technically totally perfect but the, but the visceral energy and
the spirit of it is what we're really here for. So I really try to keep those two things separate and I think that's one of the reasons why I like a live stream concert feels weird to me because it's like it's not a recording, but it's not really a live concert, either.
And you know, unfortunately what that meant is that I really just had to, like as an artist I really have like no outlet for a couple years, which was pretty, which was pretty sad but it did give me time to to reflect on things and so you know now that I'm
now that we're past the point where, you know, the pandemic is affecting us as severely as it did in 2020 and 2021. Now I am in a place where I can live every day with that clear priority that like okay, you know, I'm an artist, and my, my first priority is preparing for live performances
and connecting with audiences through live performance.
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So you just briefly mentioned about captivating programs like so how do you choose your repertoire?
Yeah, well, you know, for years, I've been, I mean, decades. I've been making really unusual repertoire choices.
When I was younger, you know, like, like you said at the outset, I mean, I do wear a lot of different hats. I am a pianist, first and foremost, and always have them.
But when I was younger, I was a composer and that was for a while I would say being a composer and a pianist were like pretty equal parts of my artistic identity.
Now that I don't wear my composer hat as often. But as a composer is like discipline, high school at interlochen. I was really interested in experimental music and and just generally interested in 20th century music, you know, I was total like
most music students I was like totally obsessed with the Rite of Spring and you know I was a percussionist too so I was I was more involved in like orchestral repertoire than a lot of pianists tend to be so yeah I was really into, you know, the planets and
you know, I loved Carmina Burana and the Rite of Spring and you know I loved Bartok and, and then I got really into John Cage and experimental music and and kind of blurring and bursting the barriers between different genres and different artistic disciplines
and performance art pieces that involved actors and dancers and different kinds of musicians and I was just really really interested in, it was this kind of like playful experimentation and really interested in stream of consciousness creativity, and then doing these
really absurdist things, and then, and then stepping back and observing like how people would make how the audience would would kind of find their own meaning and these things that were mostly meaningless. And so, pretty early on, you know, even when I was still a high school
student, I was really not interested in just playing the same old repertoire, and I'm very grateful that I had teachers who were open minded enough to allow me to break free of that mold.
So, you know, to be clear, I do have a solid straightforward classical background.
But there are some pretty huge gaps in my repertoire.
I've never been that interested in playing Bach on modern piano, for instance. So, one of the other, one of the things we may not have mentioned is I'm very passionate about historical performance practice and performing on period instruments.
So I, I've always felt like if I'm going to play Bach, I'd rather play Bach on the harpsichord or on a clavichord or learn to play the organ. I just don't, I don't really want to play that music on the piano.
I've done enough of it. I know how to do it. I can teach it if I need to, but it's definitely not my passion. It's definitely not my area of expertise.
Same thing with like, you think of kind of a traditional classical piano training like the Beethoven sonatas are core. I've played a few Beethoven sonatas, but just a few, you know.
And again there, it's like, it's a pain in the butt to play Beethoven on a modern piano. It makes so much more sense when you, if you have a chance to play that on a beautiful modern replica of a forte piano.
Oh my gosh. I mean, it's just, I mean, musically, it's, to me, it just makes so much more sense and it sounds better, but also technically it's just so much easier.
So I just, again, it's just like, I just don't, I don't want to put in all that extra effort, especially if I'm playing on some heavy clunky New York Steinway that's got a mushy sound. It's just, it's just not the right instrument for that music.
So anyways, I'm just kind of mentioning these as examples of how I've kind of like, I did enough of that stuff early on in my education to kind of, you know, to know it. But it was very clear even as a teenager that I, that I wanted to play more 20th century music and contemporary music and experimental music.
So thankfully I had teachers like Michael Coonrod who you've interviewed, who were open minded enough to allow me to do that exploration, while still keeping a pretty solid grounding in, you know, the more standard repertoire.
So anyways, as always, I'm giving you the long winded answer to your question, but even as a high school music student at Interlochen Arts Academy, I was making unusual repertoire choices, exploring a lot of 20th century music and experimental music.
And as you know, moving forward, I eventually got to a point where for about a decade when I was in grad school and then in the early part of my professional career, I basically didn't play music from before 1900.
I mostly played music that was composed for me. So collaborations with living composers, or I was playing 20th century music.
And I did that for a really simple reason. That's the music that most excited me. But also looking at the culture of mainstream classical music. It's just really strange that there's this, there's basically like a century of music that's largely neglected.
And, you know, so not only is there a focus on mostly music of the 18th and 19th centuries, but there's the whole canon and it really focuses on just a handful of composers, and then we tend to play the same pieces by those composers.
And you know what, there is absolutely value in hearing three different pianists interpret the same Beethoven sonata. Great. But when I think about what I want to do with my time and my energy, I just look around and I see, okay, there are enough people doing that stuff.
You know, there are enough people playing Chopin etudes and ballads and I've never really been that excited about that music anyway. It's fine. Let those people play that music.
I know I'll be the happiest version of myself and I'll be the most effective performer if I'm playing music that I am totally fired up about. But first and foremost, that's important.
I don't want to play music that I'm not really passionate about. But I also, I step back and I look at what's going on around me and I asked like how can I make a contribution to the classical music world here in the 21st century.
And, you know, amazingly, there's so much music from the past few centuries, that just has been totally forgotten. I've, you know, interestingly, it's 20th, 21st century technology that's made it easier to find that music.
You know, I spent hours, countless hours, you know, on IMSLP, you know, tracking down obscure music that oftentimes, you know, isn't in print anymore and you know, you might not even find in some of the best music libraries, but thankfully, like someone's got it somewhere and they've uploaded it.
So I've really enjoyed kind of discovering lesser known composers, and you know if we're talking about piano repertoire so we're talking mostly about you know 19th century composers. Like I said, for about a decade I made a decision that I was only going to play 20th century and new music.
And then at a certain point I decided, you know, it's been a while I think I might be ready to start playing some old music again. And so that's when I started becoming more interested in, you know, finding the more obscure works by well known composers.
I mean like 25 years ago I did a program of obscure music by Mozart. So I've always been interested in doing that kind of thing but combining like the obscure works by the well known composers and then shining a spotlight on lesser known composers.
That's allowed me to create really interesting concert programs where, like recently I did a program. I have a project called the Sonatina Project.
And it's actually started in the pandemic, because I thought well I can use this time when I can't perform to start researching repertoire and exploring repertoire and doing lots of sight reading and start thinking about program ideas for when I can perform again.
And at one point I was thinking about the Sonatina Project being a YouTube project where I would like record a new Sonatina every week and then have like a behind the scenes video and stuff like that.
And it was just too much. Like I said before, it was just too much for me to think about making all those videos and I'm not a content creator. I'm a performer.
I'm a performer and I record albums but I'm not, I'm not someone who's like trying to constantly churn out videos for YouTube or social media.
Although I do kind of the bare minimum to just kind of like put myself out there.
Now originally the Sonatina Project was conceived of as something that could be a video project that I could execute during the pandemic. Didn't do that, but I did develop this extensive database of Sonatina's, which are you know pieces that were mostly written as like pedagogical tools and not necessarily
meant as pieces that you would perform. But as we get into the 20th century, there are some really cool Sonatina's that are definitely not like easy student pieces. Anyways, so now I have like, I could do like at least 10 different programs of Sonatina's or albums someday if I wanted to.
But starting last fall I finally put together a program that was kind of a historical survey starting with Clementi and Diabelli. So some late 18th century Sonatina's going up through the early 21st century.
Oh wow.
Historical overview.
But now I remember the reason I brought this up is that I look at the printed program for that, and the most well known composer on that program was Bartok.
And so even like avid classical music fans who came to the concert would be looking at this program being like, they look at these names like, who are these people?
And so I love being able to make a contribution that way by reminding people that you know okay great you know yeah we all love Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, whatever. Great. There's nothing wrong with that music but there are plenty of people playing that music and recording that music.
You know sometimes if I feel like I have something to say about that music, I'm going to play it too. But right now I'm more excited about showing people this other music that is, it's not an unfamiliar style of music, you know, it's like, like Theodore Kirchner is one of my new favorite composers.
And when I found Kirchner's music it was like I discovered like this hidden like treasure trove of late Brahms. I love late Brahms.
And now there's like all this other music that's like stylistically very similar that I'm really excited about exploring. And you know composers like Theodore Kirchner, Stephen Heller, you know they were all contemporaries of and friends with, you know, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, etc.
But for whatever reason they kind of fell into obscurity. And I think a lot of it for those two particular composers a lot of it is that they didn't tend to write large scale works, like Kirchner in particular is really a master of miniatures.
So, he's got just so many sets of miniatures that, you know, don't even necessarily need to be performed as one complete set.
You can kind of like pick and choose and make a suite of Kirchner's music. I think there's a little bit of a bias in mainstream classical music culture toward like the big masterpieces, you know, I really enjoy curating programs that highlight your works by well known composers,
shine in the spotlight on some lesser known composers, and definitely include some 20th century and contemporary music. So, sometimes I do programs with a very specific focus or theme.
But in general, what I find right now is doing an eclectic mixed program like that is really effective. And without a doubt, when I think maybe I'm being a little too risky like programming a piece that's a little too adventurous,
or like focusing too much on lesser known composers, without a doubt the feedback I get from the audience afterwards is, wow, I'm so glad you played, you know, these composers that I've never heard of or I'm so glad you played that contemporary piece I didn't think I liked contemporary music, you know,
so again, back to our larger conversation about, you know, the vitality of live performance. So a lot of it really comes down to just actually having real conversations with the people who you shared that experience with afterwards.
I want to continue our conversation, you as a pianist but also want to move on to percussionist is that okay because eventually I want to get to the your piano and percussion project.
But before that I want to just explore a little bit about you being a percussionist so I watched a video clip from your youth, you're like seven years old. Oh my gosh, did you watch the video of me playing the drum with that.
So cute. You really do your research. Oh, I do. And Honda song on on on the drone. That was so adorable. I was really into cars.
You're doing the drums and you're already so so good and they're singing it made up a song of singing at the same I had no idea what I was doing. Once I forgot about this. Yeah, so that's, that's one of the few videos from my childhood that I actually posted on my YouTube channel because I thought it was so precious.
And once when I was teaching at CalArts years ago, I came into the classroom, and my students started singing that song.
I was just telling my students yesterday that, you know, we're all smart in different ways, and some of us find certain things easier than others, or more intuitive than others some of us have to work harder to figure out certain things or develop certain skills.
There were definitely certain things about music that just came very intuitively to me. And I do think rhythm has always been one of those things. And thank goodness for that because
we as classical music educators are not very good at teaching rhythm. Oh yeah, I know. It's kind of glossed over.
And for the students who really don't have an intuitive sense of rhythm, it becomes a problem pretty quickly. And I don't know about you but I've also had experiences where like, I'll be teaching a student, especially if it's a student who like they had a previous teacher before
and they're still kind of new to me. And then I'll suddenly realize like, oh, you don't actually understand rhythm. You're like, you're, you're, you're pretty good at kind of faking it.
You don't really understand. Anyways, yeah, I do think that I always had a pretty good intuitive understanding of rhythm, and also on a more sophisticated level like timing and rubato and music.
And so I think it's not surprising that when I had the opportunity to play percussion that I, not only that I jumped on that but it just, I just picked it up really quickly. And what it was is actually, I think I was in like seventh or eighth grade, and I had like a study
hall in the library, and the band director, who knew me because I played piano in the jazz ensemble. Although I should say I am not and have never been a jazz pianist this is like middle school jazz ensemble where like they write out all the notes.
I was playing jazz.
If you can call it jazz. So she knew me because of that.
She walked by me in the library and she stopped and said, Oh, hey, Danny, have you ever thought about playing percussion, you know we need some percussionist in the band and I was like, well, that sounds like fun.
And then like a couple of weeks later I was like the section leader.
And I appreciate that she kind of plucked me out of that study hall because the ones that started playing percussion it's just, I got, I got really into it. And, you know, she, like a good middle school band director she was able to teach me the basics, and then
eventually a year or two later I was able to find a wonderful teacher.
He was a retired LA studio musician, which as a percussionist is a really fun and interesting job because you go to work, and especially back then like in the day you know that that work has dried up to some extent, but you know decades ago when he was in the
scene is he tell me you know I'd show up one day and I'd be playing timpani in an orchestra and show up another day I'd be playing you know timbales and some kind of Latin ensemble you know especially as a percussionist you have to have a very diverse skill set.
And then later Richie Lepore, and he taught me how to be an orchestral percussionist in this little back room in a music store in Western Massachusetts, where we had a drum set with mutes on all the drums and the symbols.
And then there was just enough room in the room where if you turn around from the drum set there was a vibraphone there.
And yet he somehow taught me how to be like an architectural timpanist and a quest role percussionist, he was a genius teacher.
And I realized that by the time I came to him for a percussion lessons I would have been like eighth or ninth grade, but I was already a pretty serious music student, and I already like understood music pretty well like I didn't need to be taught the basics.
And so he challenged me he gave me like little composition assignments every week and so okay this week I want you to write 16 bars only using, you know the kick drum and the hi hat and the ride symbol and the floor Tom, and you have to, you know, change the time signature
at least four times, and you need to use you know these times like you would give me these like really clever compositional assignments that would help me be a better percussionist and also kind of develop my compositional chops.
I'm so grateful to Richie, and so lucky that I happened to find him like I said he just happened to be the guy who was teaching drums and percussion at this little music store.
You know I've had so many experiences like that where I've just been in the right place at the right time and found you know the right teacher. So yeah so I picked up percussion pretty quickly.
And then when I when I went to high school at interlock and for my sophomore junior senior years, I was definitely still first and foremost a pianist and a composer, but I still found some ways to play percussion.
But I knew I was never on track to become like a professional you know orchestral percussionist, and there are huge limitations to my percussion technique. Well first of all I don't play percussion a lot these days.
So I'm my chops are a little rusty.
But also like, I never got to the point where I did like virtuosic formality marimba solos or anything like that. And honestly it's just like it never really interested me it's like I'm, I can play the piano like why would I play a lot of that repertoire is kind of lame anyway.
I was like I was a really good tympanist I was a really good orchestral percussionist played lots of fun music and you know percussion ensemble. But yeah, fast forward a few years later you know I definitely got to the point where percussion was really on the back burner.
And I knew I wasn't going to have a career as a percussionist, first and foremost, but it was a valuable skill that I had developed, but I wasn't really doing anything with it.
And then I was at, I was really I was really lucky to be there at the first two summers of the bang on a can summer music Institute, bang on a can is this wonderful, you know new music organization that's been around since the 90s in New York, and they created this summer music
Institute where we took over the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art for a couple weeks in July. It was so fun. And I was there as a pianist but I think they knew that I was a percussionist.
And so David Kassan the percussionist in the bang on a can all stars their ensemble. He had arranged a piece by one of the bang on a can composers Michael Gordon.
And he asked me to play keyboard and also with one of my feet to play a kick drum from a drum set.
And I did that. And it was so much fun. I was like, oh, this is immensely satisfying.
Now, it doesn't take extensive percussion training to do something like that. I mean, like, you know, any, any decent pianist could or a decent percussionist with like, you know, basic piano chops could have done what I did, but I did have this like light bulb over the head moment.
And I had this vision of myself sitting at a piano surrounded by percussion instruments. And so I started thinking about. I started thinking more about this and trying to figure out like what could I actually do, practically speaking like how many different foot pedals
could I have down there and what different instruments could I play with foot pedals. If I take the music desk off the piano what instruments could I fit right there that I could actually reach and play what other instruments could I have within reach could have something
like hanging down from above, and I developed this basic setup.
And, and then I just approached a group of composers with this crazy idea and I said, I know this seems kind of nuts but like you know I'm a pianist and I also play percussion and I think it would be really fun to try to find some creative ways to integrate them.
You know I think this, that I call it the piano percussion project I think the piano percussion project also speaks to my desire to always like push myself beyond what I already know I'm capable of, and also to collaborate with other musicians and work together
to like finding something new, you know, and I mean it's not entirely unprecedented there are definitely composers who have called on pianists to play some percussion instruments at the same time but to my knowledge, until I started doing this around
2000, I guess the very first pieces were in like 2003 2004 but then I really launched into it with full force in 2009. And now there have been, I think more than 30 pieces written for me at this point that that use variations of this solo piano percussion setup.
And to my knowledge until I started doing it no one else had ever done anything that extensive. And it was really, it blew me away the, the ideas that composers came up with.
There are a lot of logistics that have to be worked out, sometimes composers have an idea that seems like a really cool idea, but there's like one little logistical thing they didn't really think of, like, like a classic mistake a classic mistake they make is even some of the best
composers I've worked with have made this mistake, where they get excited about like all these different foot pedals I've got they can play different instruments, but then they forget that, like the way that they're writing for the piano, even though they might not have been thinking
about it they they they really were probably imagining that it also had some some sustained pedal.
It's like, I only have so many feet. Sometimes, sometimes I can get creative I can play like I can like have the ball of my foot on the sustain pedal of the piano and play like a foot pedal for percussion instrument with my heel or vice versa like sometimes I can do stuff like that.
Anyways, it's just, we don't need to go. Yeah, but it's quite acrobatic I, it's not not only lovely to listen to but also it's quite enjoyable, just watching you. Yeah, all sorts of things, because you have this concert grand.
And then the drum set is on the right side and then there's a gong and then the, what is it, the Glockenspiel, Glockenspiel, something like that on the piano where usually the music stand is, and I watched that whole nine minute of Antwerp's Revenge by David Johnson.
Well, you know that the initial stages of learning a piano percussion piece involves a lot of very careful planning and choreography.
And so I've found, I mean some of the pieces are quite complex and I have not memorized them but I've found that some of them I end up memorizing them just kind of by mistake, kind of out of necessity, because I have to be in so many different places at once and sometimes it's a matter of like, very quickly
playing something on the piano with this hand and then picking up this mallet and holding it in just the right way to go hit this instrument and then putting it down so that I can play the piano again, or figuring out a way to keep the mallet in my hand while I play something on the piano because I have to very quickly go over this instrument, you know, or figuring out like okay well the composer notated it this way and suggested I do this with my left hand but actually it makes more sense for me to do that with my right hand so then I have to kind of reconfigure this other, you know, other aspects of the passage.
So there's a lot of incredibly painstaking work that goes into the initial stages of figuring out the choreography and then it really is just about, I mean you know how to practice.
It's about lots of slow, careful, repetitive practice of, I mean, oh my god there are passages of music that I have spent hundreds of hours practicing, just to do something that takes like a second or a fraction of a second.
Yeah, in fact, you know, you mentioned that it is kind of a visual spectacle and for years now you know I've got all this repertoire, you know, it could easily be like a double album if I wanted to do that, but like, who wants that?
No one needs that.
Because it is such a visual spectacle, I've decided that what I want to do, like the next incarnation of the piano percussion project is, I really want to make some great looking videos of these pieces, professionally done videos with multiple camera angles and everything
because even in live performance, people are always coming up to me afterwards like, how did you make that one sound like I couldn't see what you're doing with your foot and you know, because the setup is so elaborate and depending on where you're sitting like a lot of the drums and percussion instruments are obscuring my hands and my feet so people can't always see what I'm doing.
So, it's one thing to hear it, but it's a whole, it's a whole different thing to actually see.
Yeah, yeah.
The piano percussion video that I'm most excited about is a piece by Sean Fryer called Chrysalis.
And we, not only is it one of the most genius pieces I think.
Why, let me take a step back and say that the most successful piano percussion pieces are the ones where the composer really puts very careful thought into exactly which instruments to use, and creating a particular sound world using the piano and percussion and really understanding like, having a concept of like how the piano and percussion instruments are relating to one another.
And this was one of those pieces, very very successful piece but I'm also particularly excited about the video because I think we used seven cameras and like 13 microphones or something like that.
So, when it's all done and mixed when the audio is all mixed and when the video is edited, it's going to be an experience of my solo piano percussion unlike anything so far because like most of the videos I have are like, you know, just a static camera from a live concert.
And like I said you miss out on a lot that way.
I mean, like I said it's been really, really interesting to see how different composers have responded to this idea and that's why I do really want to make more professional really good looking good sounding recordings of these pieces, so that people can really experience them the way they're, you know, meant to be experienced, because
it's, yeah, like you said it's it's it's it's interesting to watch me do all this stuff to see all that choreography. But like, it's also just really fascinating to hear how different composers took the idea and really ran with it. And that's that's the kind of thing I love doing I like being kind of an instigator it's like
here's my concept. Here's what I think I can do now. Let's, let's see what you come up with. So yeah, it's been it's been a really fun project.
We're going to start the podcast with a guest, Danny Holt, a virtuosic pianist, percussionist, composer and producer. If you enjoy the episode, please rate and review us on your favorite podcasting platform. You can also watch this episode on the Piano Pods YouTube channel.
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