As we prepare to move to Pittsburgh, PA in June 2012, my time to blog has been extremely limited. I still feel just as compelled as ever to write, but my life has been taken over by helping students find new teachers, planning my grand finale studio recital, and countless other things that are too numerous to mention. As my patient readers wait for my life to settle down again, I thought this would be a good time to share some YouTube videos that I’ve been saving up for a while now.
To make sure I don’t lose any of my valued readers, I thought it wise to start with one of the most essential standards in all of keyboard repertoire: Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” played on the Iowa State University carillon.
Tin-Shi Tam, Iowa State University carillonneur and associate professor of music and theatre, performed Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” on the carillon at noon on Aug. 27, 2010. Brad Riley, senior in journalism and mass communication, started a Facebook group and asked people to send Tam emails requesting that she play the song.
I bought my first Evgeny Kissin recording when I was in ninth grade. His recording of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto is the only classical CD I own that can bring tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat when I’m in the right mood (thinking about his youth, the live recording, Ozawa and the BSO, the pride his parents must have felt in the audience, etc.). Ever since then, I have longed to hear Kissin perform on vehicle horn, and this deep longing has finally become reality:
The final video I wish to share contains subtle humor (what polka isn’t at least a little bit funny?), but – seriously this time – I’m sharing this one more for the inspiration. (Don’t be fooled by the very beginning of this video – Evgeny Kissin is NOT sitting in the audience with a vehicle horn. Those are random people with air horns.) Volodos’s own transcription of the Rachmaninov Italian Polka is among the very best videos of his playing that I’ve seen. Buckle your seatbelt!
(c) 2012 Cerebroom