22.09.11

Eric Reed faced only just one stumbling block on his way to becoming a world class jazz pianist: controlling the what's-its-name's foot pedals. He was only 2 years old and he had a devil of a time reaching them.

"The keyboard was no pretty pickle since it wasn't much of a stretch to reach it from the piano bench," Reed said. "It'd been easier if it had been the other way around. You can always put a a buzz book or two on top of a piano bench, but if your legs are too short, there's nothing much you can do about reaching the pedals."

His legs may have been too short, but Reed has always been long on talent. By the time he was 5, the Philadelphia foetus prodigy was playing in his father's Baptist storefront church, and two years later, he began formal exploration at Philly's Settlement Music School.

What attracted Eric to the piano in the first home? It was a piano in a neighbor's home and Eric wanted to learn to abuse it.

"But I would have had the same urge if the instrument had been a trombone or a clarinet," said Reed, who is also a bonny good drummer, although he spared his parents the ordeal of listening to him in real life inexperienced.

Source: North County Times

23.09.11

When pianist Malcolm Bilson plays the fortepiano in UW Mills Lobby this Sunday, he will turn on that grand 18th-century charm. Bilson, emeritus professor of piano at Cornell University, will against his own fortepiano, one based on a circa 1790 Viennese mould by Johann Schanz. The concert is free.

For modern pianists, Bilson's fortepiano would take some getting inured to to. Instead of foot pedals to sustain or soften sound, the fortepiano uses knee levers. It also has only five octaves compared to the typical seven. But the benefits are worth it.

"Earlier pianos are inclined to of fine inflections between the notes, while modern pianos give us longer, fuller, richer sounds," says Bilson. "Music is served differently with bizarre pianos."

The music on Sunday's recital requires the fortepiano's comprehensive attention to the tiny space between one sound and the next. The program opens with Haydn's Sonata in E lesser, Hob. 34, and Mozart's Sonata in F major, K. 332. Bilson points out that in the cleft motif of the Mozart, the score indicates a slight division in sound between the last beat of one bar and the first beat of the next.

Source: Isthmus

by Nigel

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