They’re tickling the ivories all over town
Public gets a chance to play as Grammy winner kicks off TSO’s Piano Extravaganza
The loudspeaker at Union Station was blaring train arrivals in both official languages, but Emanuel Ax wasn’t the least bit flustered.
“Thirty-five years ago, I played at a student university centre where there were announcements like, ‘Gary Benjamin, go to the phone.’ So I’m OK,” the Grammy-winning pianist told the crowd before launching into a Debussy composition.
Ax, who moved to Winnipeg from Poland as a child, is a titan on the world concert circuit.
He was playing one of five pianos dotted about the city Wednesday in a midday program that had him hopping from one venue to the next to perform free mini-concerts.
He welcomed the public to try their hands on the swanky black Steinways donated for the “Pianos in the City” event, which kicked off the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s 10-day RBC Piano Extravaganza.
One of the first volunteers Wednesday was Peter Hong, a Grade 9 student at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute and a music student at the Royal Conservatory.
His dad, who works downtown, was able to pop over and hear him play Schumann’s “Intermezzo.” “He said I did a good job,” Hong said..
Yael Kostrinsky, a University of Toronto music major who played some Brahms, said, “It was a bit hard to hear myself in such a big space. I didn’t expect that.”
Music teacher Sergei Pavlov played a number of tunes and even worked as page turner for Ax and American classical pianist Orion Weiss while they performed a four-handed tune by Mozart.
Throughout the three-hour program at Union, which began at 11 a.m., Weiss filled in the gaps between public volunteers.
Ax, who is curating the piano festival, spoke earlier about the ubiquity of the piano in the world of music.
“The piano is part and parcel of pretty much all musical experiences,” he said.
Choirs and ballets practise with them, often filling in for an entire orchestra at rehearsals.
“Most composers — Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Schubert — use the piano.”
There’s hardly a school, community centre, church hall or civic meeting place that doesn’t posses this multikeyed instrument, he pointed out. “It’s also a nice piece of furniture.” Until Feb. 14 as part of the festival, pianists will perform at numerous locations throughout the city, including the TSO’s home at Roy Thomson Hall, the Royal Conservatory and the Richard Bradshaw Theatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
Jim Anagnoson, dean of the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, who is performing as part of the Anagnoson & Kinton piano duo with Leslie Kinton, remembers his fascination with the piano in his family home. It was a Chickering upright — the kind Glenn Gould played — “a gorgeous piano.”
Now, as dean at Glenn Gould, he sees many promising pianists hone their skills. One is Jan Lisiecki. The 19-year-old started playing the piano at age 5 when a preschool teacher suggested he learn music.
“Something came into my life in an incredibly natural way,” says Calgarian Lisiecki. “It grew into something unexpected and a nice journey for sure.”
“Pianos are the universal symbol of music; pianos are easy to play,” said Coco Ma, 14.
“But, at the same time, it is most difficult. You use two hands and they are doing two different things.”
When Stewart Goodyear was 3, his parents gave him a toy piano for Christmas.
“I was immediately playing it, I was drawn. I was improvising my own music,” he said.
“For me, life began playing the piano. It was my way of communicating with people. It is my way of expressing love. “Go to tso.ca for more information about the Piano Extravaganza.