Pedja Muzijevic: Live at Tippet Rise
Right off the bat, three of Domenico Scarlatti’s 555 sonatas offer an 18th century musical depiction of a turbulent drama, heartfelt operatic duet, and a cheeky chase, all in the space of eight minutes. Talk about efficiency!
Pianist Pedja Muzijevic
Highly Biased Thoughts on the Program Sometimes programs seem like a dinner with an appetizer, main dish, and a dessert, and sometimes they resemble a series of small dishes at a tapas bar. This program is definitely the latter. But make no mistake: Small dishes do not mean small flavors.
We then go to the new world—both as in the United States and the new world of sound-making in Henry Cowell’s Aeolian Harp. Our friends playing string instruments got to make unorthodox sounds on their instruments—plucking the strings, making the sound with the wooden part of their bow, playing behind the bridge, etc.—starting in the 17th century. We only got to reach inside the piano in the 20th century. So when Henry Cowell asks us to strum and pluck the strings, we finally felt like the cool kids! Let’s go back to Spain and the music of Enrique Granados. Spain, you might say? But that guy, Scarlatti, wasn’t he Italian?
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Sort of. Scarlatti was born in Naples, but spent most of his life as the music instructor of the Portuguese princess, and later on Spanish queen, Maria Barbara. Granados wrote his epic piano cycle Goyescas between 1909 and 1912, and it consists of six works full of pathos and passion inspired by drawings and paintings by Francisco Goya. I play the second work in the cycle, “Conversation at the Window.” We can’t really speak about Spanish composers of this period without mentioning Paris. But wait! We just got to Spain. I know, I know… Granados, like so many other Spanish composers of the time, studied in Paris, which takes us to the music of Erik Satie and Claude Debussy in this program. The moment I think of music in Paris in the early 20th century, I can’t help but think about the salon of Princesse de Polignac (born Winnaretta Singer, the heiress of the Singer sewing machine fortune). So much of this music got its private first perfor-
mance, or avant-premières, there (including Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse from this program). Next up—John Cage! You just never know what you will get with Cage. And that’s so much fun! It could be the most original sounds coming out of a piano with screws and bolts placed between strings, it could be a radio or a blender, silence or lack of silence. Or it could be In a Landscape—one of the most serene nocturnes ever written. When I first entered Tippet Rise and saw those (as advertised!) big skies, Cage’s In a Landscape was the first music that came to my mind. Time to go back to Europe. Germany in the 1830s, to be a bit more precise. I first learned Schumann’s Carnaval in 1982 and have played it on and off ever since. I never get tired of this procession of finely defined characters, book-cased with a grand overture and even grander final march. Some of these characters are real, some are imagined, but, hey, what is actually real? It’s a piano concert, after all.
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The Piano
Tippet Rise is many things. It is a 12,000-acre working ranch. It has awe-inspiring land sculptures.It has one of the most perfect chamber music halls anywhere. It is also an unofficial kingdom of pianos. There are 11 Steinway grand pianos at Tippet Rise and three Steinway concert grands with four different sounds in the concert hall in thw Olivier Music Barn. Huh, you say? Well. One of the pianos—we call it by its serial number, CD–18—has two different actions…New York and Hamburg action. Since piano action consists of keys and hammers and piano sound is created when hammers meet the strings, that piano has two completely different sounds It is that particular piano, made in 1940, with New York action in it that I played in this concert. Most of us pianists don’t travel with our own pianos. As you may have guessed, it’s kind of
impractical. That means that we play on different pianos all the time. Many concert halls have only one concert grand, and I’ve trained myself to instantly fall in love with it. It’s just easier that way. Some places have more than one piano, and then you have to select and commit to one of them. That’s hard! I first played at Tippet Rise in 2017. I tried all the pianos in the hall, and CD-18 and I didn’t hit it off. I laid my hands on it and, well, it just didn’t work out. I ended up playing a New York Steinway we call Seraphina. She is a distinguished lady of a certain age (born in 1897…don’t judge me for revealing a lady’s age) and exquisite elegance. When I came back in 2018, I was looking forward to hanging out with Seraphina again. All the pianos were prepared for the selection by our amazing piano technician, Mike Toia, so I felt obliged to try them all again.
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And then the unexpected happened! I started playing CD-18 with the New York action and couldn’t stop. So that’s the piano I play in this recording. What piano did I play in 2019, you might wonder? Patience, patience….
The Event
This program was recorded in concert on July 13, 2018, at the Olivier Music Barn at Tippet Rise Arts Center. It contains the freshest and most heartfelt mishaps and wrong notes I could offer on that particular day. They happened then, there and never again. That’s the beauty of live performance. I promise to make all new mistakes next time.
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Friday, July 13, 2018, 6:30 PM The Olivier Music Barn Pedja Muzijevic, piano DOMENICO SCARLATTI: Sonata in F Minor, K. 519 Sonata in C-sharp Minor, K. 247 Sonata in F Major, K. 17 HARRY COWELL: Aeolian Harp ENRIQUE GRANADOS: “Coloquio en la Reja” (Conversation at the Window) from Goyescas ERIK SATIE: Les trois valses distinguées du précieux dégoûté (Three Distinguished Waltzes of a Jaded Dandy) CLAUDE DEBUSSY: L’isle joyeuse INTERMISSION JOHN CAGE: In a Landscape ROBERT SCHUMANN: Carnaval, Op. 9 Préambule – Pierrot – Arlequin – Valse noble – Eusebius – Florestan – Coquette – Réplique – Papillons – A.S.C.H.-S.C.H.A (Lettres dansantes) – Chiarina – Chopin – Estrella – Reconnaissance – Pantalon et Colombine – Valse Allemande – Paganini – Aveu – Promenade – Pause – Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins 9 Live at Tippet Rise
Pianist Pedja Muzijevic
has defined his career with creative programming, unusual combinations of new and old music, and lasting collaborations with artists and ensembles. Pedja’s symphonic engagements include performances with the Atlanta Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica in Montevideo, Residentie Orkest in The Hague, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Shinsei Nihon Orchestra in Tokyo, and Zagreb Philharmonic. He has played solo recitals at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Mostly Mozart Festival Little Night Music series, 92Y and The Frick Collection in New York, Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, MI, Terrace Theater at Kennedy Center, Dumbarton Oaks, the Phillips Collection and National Gallery in Washington, DC,
for Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, and Honens Festival in Calgary, Toronto Summer Music, Music in the Morning in Vancouver, McGill University in Montreal, Casals Hall and Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile, Da Camera of Houston, for Arizona Friends of Chamber Music in Tucson, Lane Series at University of Vermont, Spoleto Festival USA, Bay Chamber Concerts, Aldeburgh Festival in Great Britain, and many others. His Carnegie Hall concerto debut playing Mozart Concerto K. 503 with Oberlin Symphony and Robert Spano was recorded live and has been released on the Oberlin Music label. His festival appearances include Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, Ravinia, Tippet Rise Arts Center in Montana, Ottawa Chamberfest, Verbier Festival Unlimited series, Orchestra of St. Luke’s Bach Festival and Lincoln Center’s
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Mostly Mozart and White Light festivals in New York, Bay Chamber Concerts in Maine, Moab Music Festival and Maverick Concerts in Woodstock. Pedja’s interdisciplinary projects include touring with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the White Oak Dance Project throughout the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia and with Simon Keenlyside in Trisha Brown’s staged version of Schubert’s Winterreise at Lincoln Center in New York, Barbican in London, La Monnaie in Brussels, Opera National de Paris, as well as Holland, Lucerne, and Melbourne festivals. In 2018 he premiered Framing Time— collaboration with dancer/choreographer Cesc Gelabert and lighting designer Burke Brown on music of Morton Feldman for Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in New York and consequently performed it in Leverkusen, Germany and Barcelona, Spain and in 2019, he performed with Heginbotham Dance in a dance theater
work called Herz Schmerz, based on texts by Robert Walser. Combining his two passions, music and food, Pedja performed works by Ravel and Mussorgsky followed by a multicourse dinner prepared by chef David Bouley in his Test Kitchen in New York. Pedja’s solo recordings include Haydn Dialogues (live recording of a recital program of four Haydn sonatas interspersed with works by Jonathan Berger, John Cage, and Morton Feldman) and Sonatas and Other Interludes (juxtaposing Sonatas and Interludes by John Cage with composers ranging from W. F. Bach and D. Scarlatti to F. Liszt and R. Schumann). His discography also includes the aforementioned Mozart Piano Concerto K. 503 with Oberlin Symphony and Robert Spano, recorded in concert at Carnegie Hall, and two CDs on 18th and 19th century fortepianos—a Schumann Salon and Mozart and Beethoven Quintets for piano and woodwinds.
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Pedja Muzijevic was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and studied piano with Vladimir Krpan at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. He came to the United States in 1984 to continue his education at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Juilliard School in New York. His mentors included pianists Joseph Kalichstein and Jerome Lowenthal and harpsichordist Albert Fuller. Pedja is the artistic administrator at Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, artistic advisor to Tippet Rise Arts Center in Montana, and he also directs a residency at the Banff Centre in Canada called Concert in 21st Century. In all these roles he looks at the concert experience, both in programming and presentation, and questions what we can do to make it more relevant today. He lives in New York City and, in his free time, he enjoys cooking for friends and seeing performances in all disciplines. Pedja Muzijevic 12
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Technical Specifications Recorded Live on: July 13, 2018 Recording Engineers: Monte Nickles, Jim Ruberto, Philip Tock Sound Editor: Jim Ruberto Mixed and Mastered by: Monte Nickles Performer: Pedja Muzijevic Piano: CD-18 Recorded in Auro3D format for immersive playback mixed down to stereo in 32bit 384kHz DXD. Microphones used: Main array: Left: DPA 4041a Right: DPA 4041a Center: DPA 4041a Sur L: DPA 4041a Sur R: DPA 4041a Height FL: DPA 4006a with 50mm APE Height FR: DPA 4006a with 50mm APE
Height RL: DPA 4006a with 50mm APE Height RR: DPA 4006a with 50mm APE Spot Microphones: DPA 4006a’s inside piano DPA 4006a’s as tail side ORTF Microphone preamps: Grace M802's Converters: Merging Technology’s HAPI and HORUS with Premium converter cards DAW: Merging Technology’s Pyramix
Flip Book Design and Layout: Craig M. White Photography: Erik Petersen, Emily Rund Text: Pedja Muzijevic Pianist: Pedja Muzijevic
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On Friday, April 10th, Pedja Muzijevic’s solo piano recital, performed at Tippet Rise Art Center in the Olivier Music barn on July 13, 2018, was live streamed!
Enjoy this film, which features additional commentary from Pedja and Tippet Rise co-founder, Peter Halstead. tippetrise.org/films/pedja-muzijevic-tippet-rise-art-center-july-13-2018
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Pedja Muzijevic: Live at Tippet Rise