I’m very proud that the Palladium is partnering with The Chopin Project to bring an ongoing series of concerts, focused on the great repertoire for the piano. We started with a single concert two years ago, and now we have a four-concert series.
The Chopin Project, a performance and educational effort, was founded by my friend of 25 years, Fred Slutsky, who’s living his dream in semi-retirement by presenting exceptional pianists playing thoughtful programs of Chopin’s works as well as those of his musical forebears, contemporaries, and successors.
Our next performance with Renana Gutman takes place January 13 where she’ll play a program titled “Chasing Chopin.” Her elegant commentary will shine a light into the lives and talents of Chopin, Bach, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Alexander Scriabin. She will transpose their stories and their compositions into an artful web of insight and piano mastery.
For tickets and information on Renana’s concert you can call our box office at 727-822-3590 or follow this link for on-line tickets. You will also check our website for information on upcoming Chopin Project concerts in 2020.
In anticipation of Renana’s performance, I asked Fred to speak about her, with her, and about his passion for his now 12-year old project. Enjoy our conversation below and if you’d like, you can follow this link to a YouTube performance by Renana.
PALLADIUM PAUL: Tell us something about Renana:
Renana Gutman
SLUTSKY: Renana is an exceptional musician. She grew up in Israel. She is at once technically gifted and exceptionally thoughtful and nuanced. Her playing is virtuosic as well as quietly elegant. She is an especially committed musician, respected by her peers (perhaps the grandest tell), and humbled by the greatness of the music she plays, as she is playing it.
(FRED’S INTERVIEW WITH RENANA CONTINUES HERE)
SLUTSKY: What was your inspiration to pursue a career in music?
GUTMAN: A strong, early and abiding love for music. Mozart was my hero. Mozart made me obsessed with music.
SLUTSKY: How old were you when you first heard Mozart?
GUTMAN: My favorite piece as a child was Magic Flute, the opera. I learned the whole opera by heart in Swedish because I watched the Ingmar Bergman movie so many times. I was about 5 years old. I started playing the piano about a year later.
I loved dance before I loved piano. And I loved Chopin’s music before I began the piano. An early memory was practicing at the Ballet bar while Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude was playing.
So, Mozart and Chopin were the forces of my musical genesis.
SLUTSKY: What was the earliest and most memorable concert you attended?
GUTMAN: I was about nine years old when I attended a performance by Daniel Barenboim and Radu Lupu playing Mozart’s Sonata in D Major for two pianos. I remember feeling this was as good as it gets. I thoroughly enjoyed the liveliness of Mozart’s music.
SLUTSKY: What memories do you have of concerts you performed as a child?
GUTMAN: When I was about nine and a half years old, I played a recital in which other wonderful musicians participated. I was exposed for the first time to an environment where I was strongly impressed and inspired by the high caliber of playing. I played two Chopin Mazurkas: B-flat Major which has a dance-like quality; and G Minor, Opus 67, No. 2. which has qualities of melancholy and nostalgia. I could connect immediately with these elements of Chopin’s expression.
A second very meaningful performance occurred when I was about 15 years old. This was the first time I played with an orchestra and significant in itself for this reason. I played the Mozart double concerto
And a third performance occurred a year later when I was about 16. It was my first solo concerto performance. I played Chopin’s E Minor Concerto, one of my favorite pieces to listen to in the whole world and so playing it was a dream come true. Of all the pieces in the piano repertoire, I might be most intimately connected to this work, which I’ve played later in Belgium and elsewhere. I love this piece so much I sometimes play it to relax before going to sleep.
SLUTSKY: What have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?
GUTMAN: Over time of course the influences change but certainly among the most influential sources have been my teachers, including my dance teachers. Certainly my teacher Richard Goode, my students, my colleagues, old recordings of the masters including those of Alfred Cortot and his student, Nina Salzman and others.
Among my early memories before I could play the piano, I remember my sister playing Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp Minor. I just loved it as I danced to it, and I wanted to be able to play it.
SLUTSKY: As a performer, what is your definition of success?
GUTMAN: I give my all to every performance. I strive to tell the story of the music I’m playing without compromise and without holding back. If I sense the audience loves the music itself and if I sense they want to hear it again, I’ve done something good.
SLUTSKY: What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
GUTMAN: That you’re there to tell the story of the music and not your own story; you need to live every note and practice with all the emotional and intellectual engagement that you have in your capacity – just as an actor makes a character his own. To make your highest priority the greatest good of the music. To be in awe of the music you play while you’re playing it.
(NOW BACK TO MY INTERVIEW WITH FRED)
PALLADIUMPAUL: Fred, tell me about your passion for this music and the inspiration for the Chopin Project.
SLUTSKY: I just love sharing the music I love to hear with others – live, in real time. It’s similar to feeling a sense of added excitement when you take a friend to a movie you’ve already seen, loved, and want to see again. The anticipation of your friend’s enjoyment heightens the intensity of your own experience. Sharing a live musical experience has an added benefit: live musical performances of the same titles are always different, so there’s an additional unknown, exciting quality to the experience. If I can produce a thoughtful, themed, and well-balanced program combining a gifted artist’s virtuosity and quiet elegance and share it with like-minded audiences, then I feel fulfilled.
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