Q:
JAPANESE BASEBALL - KABUKI - CONNECTING TO LISTENERS
As
mentioned before, I love baseball, and I am always profoundly
impressed by artistry in any venue. To see the immortal
Ichiro Suzuki warming up before his turn at bat, or to watch
the sizzling slider of Kei Igawa, is to be impressed by
the ability of the human body to transcend itself. So, I
suppose, I feel when I view the great kabuki theatre of
Kyoto. The acting, dancing and incredible music of that
experience leaves no doubt upon the viewer that you are
sharing a rare kind of precision and artistic achievement.
How can anyone fail to be impressed to see such things?
I’m
not sure these extra-musical loves give me an extra edge
when “connecting with my audience,” but it sure
makes for interesting conversation. And when I do step to
the front of the podium to talk to my audience, usually
to provide some historic or personal insight into the music
I’m about to play, it’s helpful to have a rich
variety of analogies in your pocket. Many people do not
know a lot about classical music -- they are, alas, rather
scared of it, and feel they do not have the necessary education
to understand it. Many decades of snobbish performance practices
by the classical music business have contributed to that
unfortunate perception. Often I have to chat with the folks
in the seats, to inform them about what it is that I do,
and why it’s OK for them to relax and approach the
music on their own terms. Then they are able to share in
the music on the best of terms. Listeners often come to
my concerts with preconceived notions of what a classical
music recital SHOULD be -- long, a little dull, and good
for you (like castor oil or vegetables). When I start a
story by mentioning something so vastly removed from music
as, say, pinball, they are wrenched out of their perceptions
and forced to reconsider what the evening is all about.
Mozart and Beethoven were human beings too, and what they
have to tell us AS human beings is what the audience is
there to share -- not just to dress up, sip wine and look
sophisticated.
 |
| Sara:
My favorite forms of chamber music are with Dancers
and Motion Pictures. Shortly before I joined the piano
faculty of the University of British Columbia I was
invited to become Music Director of the Mark Morris
Dance Group -- a great honor which I hated to turn
down. Morris is, of course, one of the world's greatest
choreographers, and his troupe consists of incredible
artists. This is one of them, Maile Okamura, sharing
airs and champagne with me at a reception given for
us by the Governer of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia
|
Q: NEW
MUSIC
Again
you mention a long list of composers and collaborators whom
I have known and/or whose music I have played. Comparing
any of them as creative artists is a bit like ranking apples
and oranges, so I can’t really tell you which of them
was the most enjoyable to work with. There is one gentleman
on that list whose music I will never play again, because
of his abhorrent personal rudeness quite apart from his
musical gifts -- I’ll be polite and not mention his
name. I never imagined that, when I underwent gender transition,
that any fellow musical artists would turn away from me.
But they did, many more of them than I ever anticipated.
Anyway, that fellow is on the list and I still put him there
because I am proud of the good job I did playing his very
difficult music.
Certainly
I can say, sadly, that Nori Nke Aka is the person from that
list I miss the most. He was a brilliant artist -- Nigerian-born,
trained as an opera singer at the Eastman School, an amazing
dancer, choreographer and story-teller, also to my astonishment
a gifted painter. One of his last sketches, of a Nigerian
tribal woman, adorns my studio. He mailed it to me with
a heartbreaking letter in the last months of his life. Nori
and I collaborated on some ingenious stage presentations
of Portuguese songs by Villa-Lobos, which incorporated some
of his folk story-telling and wild dance around the piano.
I have never forgotten those times. I think of Nori as a
Schubert of our time -- he was that gifted, with such a
level of genius. And sadly, like Schubert, he left us young,
at age 47 from stomach cancer. I think not one day goes
by that I do not think of him, and it’s been five
years since he passed away. Many New Yorkers remember his
concerts there, and I pray that some day a DVD of his work
will be released. He was an important man.
Q:
FILM MUSIC
It’s
probably from my mother that I inherited a love of the movies.
She was quite passionate about them as a child and I think
she spent much of her childhood in the local darkened movie
houses of Baltimore (where I grew up). Naturally I gravitated
early on to the music underscoring the old films we watched
on television. Miklos Rozsa was one of the first composers
whose name I learned from film credits, and shortly after,
Bernard Herrmann. Anyone can attest to the power of their
music, and how integral a part it plays in the movies they
scored. These men are, in my estimation, very important
composers of the 20th century.
|
"Buechner
has it all -- intelligence, integrity, and all-encompassing
technical prowess." (Tim Page, The New York Times)
"
this was clearly pianist Sara Davis Buechner's shining
moment. She leapt and swayed and bobbed through this
concerto as if riding a bucking bronco....an entertaining
romp tailor-made for the virtuoso. The standing ovation
for Buechner was well-earned." (Peter Bates,
Boston Fine Arts Reviews)
"Buechner's performance had a beauty that might
have taken even Mozart's breath away." (Joseph
Banno, The Washington Post)
"This performance had everything - style, technique,
taste and originality...each work was carefully chosen
and struck a fine balance between accessibility and
sophistication...Buechner made every phrase an event,
placed every voice as if setting crystal on crushed
velvet, and calculated every tempo fluctuation with
keen dramatic timing." (Philip Kennicott, New
York Newsday)
"There
was old-fashioned grandeur in Buechner's performance,
a sweep that pianists like Rudolf Serkin Used to summon....extraordinary
lyric playing." (Ron Emery, The Albany Times-Union)
"Buechner brought effortless technique and a
lyrically fluid interpretive approach." (Alex
Ross, The New York Times)
"Buechner
is one of those rare ones who obviously has won her
imposing list of major awards for the right reasons.
She plays the piano lovingly, the tone and phrasing
beguiling and grateful, the facility fluent. Her musicality
was persuasive as she shaped this music of quiet but
deep-thought passion with its flickering play of feelings
.... A very satisfying and elevating performance."
(Robert Commanday, The San Francisco Chronicle)
"Buechner's
brilliant performance was a reading that Rachmaninoff
himself would have relished." (The Milwaukee
Journal) |
As I
began to become curious about movies and their history,
of course I read about and watched silent movies. Even as
a teenager I liked to play LP recordings while watching
Chaplin shorts on my 8mm movie projector (a much-begged-for
10th birthday present). As an adult I was given the opportunity
to play music for some silent movies and I enjoy doing so
tremendously. Clearly I was born too late. Had I been a
child of the late 19th century instead of the 20th, I would
no doubt have made a fine profession of being a movie theatre
pit pianist.
