2014 NMTA Guest Artist: The luckiest people in the world

This week, music teachers from across the state will join together for a sharing of ideas, performances, and premiers. You can read interviews with the guest clinician and commissioned composer here and here, and now, a little bit about the guest performer: Mark Salman.

Salman has performed around the world and “is perhaps best known for his expertise on Beethoven, having performed the complete cycle of the thirty-two piano sonatas on both coasts as well as in 18 broadcasts on KING-FM in Seatttle.” He also has performed recitals celebrating Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin, and Franz Schubert. 

Attendees at the NMTA Conference this year will be treated to Salman’s performance of:

• Mendelssohn's  Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14
• Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 54 in F Major
• Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 101 in A major
• Chopin’s Mazurka in C# minor, Op. 6 #2
• Chopin’s Mazurka in C Major, Op. 24 #2
• Chopin’s Mazurka in C# minor, Op. 50 #3
• Liszt, Czarda Macabre
• Liszt, Valle d’Obermann (which is from his Year of Pilgrimage, First Year, Switzerland)

Salman also shared with LincolnCMN about some of the composers that he has performed the most, the emotion and drama that draw him to the works of Beethoven and Liszt, in particular:

Mark Salman - 2014 NMTA Conference
Guest Artist
photo courtesy of NMTA

“I've always felt very close to the works of Beethoven, and have performed them constantly throughout my life. I've always been drawn to Beethoven's comprehensive world - his music has drama, every range of emotion and is intellectually endlessly fascinating and complex.  Every time I come back to a piece of his music after several years I find I experience it anew, and find many new levels of meaning in it.  

Liszt is a composer that I have also spent a great deal of time with. Although on the surface a very different composer in style from Beethoven, I'm drawn to him for many of the same qualities. His music has everything in life in it, and he was more open to every facet of life experience in its full intensity than any other composer, and performing his music is a wide ranging and intense emotional experience. The intellectual underpinning and complexity of his music is often overlooked, but like Beethoven's works, I find my experience of his music to be fresh and new every time I come back to it.”

Aside from those great composers, some particular teachers and pianists that greatly  influenced Salman were “David Dubal, a professor at Juilliard, from whom I learned a great deal  about how to look at music in the context of other arts and general life experience, and…the opportunity to meet and play for Vladimir Horowitz, in whose presence I felt his connection with the long line of composers and pianists from Rachmaninoff going back to Liszt and Beethoven, and his feeling of duty to always do his very best in recreating the music of these great composers whose traditions he had inherited.”

Salman’s words for teachers everywhere, and especially for the teachers that he’ll be meeting and performing for in a few days at the conference are that they should “tell their students that they are the luckiest people in the world — they are able to live in intimate contact with some of the greatest works of art that humanity has ever produced, and live in daily contact with the great minds that produced these works.”

Let us never forget the privilege of being connected to the great artists who left us the amazing music that never ceases to move us as Salman’s performance is sure to do this week!
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Anton Miller to communicate things 'only expressible through music'

On Saturday, March 16, at 7:30pm, Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra will perform a program entitled “Brahms Meets Beethoven” at the Lied Center. This concert is the first of two remaining concerts in the 2012-2013 season. Tickets are still available by visiting the LSO website.
Anton Miller, longtime concertmaster in the LSO, sat down with this Examiner to talk about Brahms and Beethoven. First off, Miller explained what the title “concertmaster” entails. The concertmaster is “basically the leader of the orchestra—in the history of orchestras, the concertmaster acted as the conductor or could step in to direct the orchestra for the conductor. In short, the concertmaster is a leader, certainly the leader of the strings, making sure all the bowing goes the same way for instance.” Other ways that the concertmaster leads the orchestra today include “translating” and “serving as a conduit” between orchestra and conductor; “in performance,” Miller shared, “my job is to do everything I can to help the conductor get everyone playing together.”
How does Miller accomplish all of this the LSO when he lives in New York and has a busy performing schedule?

“I’ve been doing this for about 25 years now. I come out for rehearsals the week before the performance, and I spend the entire week out in Lincoln. I travel to all kinds of different places, but I’m always there in Lincoln for a week of rehearsals. I always love coming out, and it’s a wonderful place.”

Miller is not only concertmaster but also soloist at this week’s performance. He will be performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major. He has played this concerto about three times before: “The first time was about 20 years ago with the Westfield Symphony in New Jersey, and I’ve played it again a couple times with various smaller orchestras in New York.”
When asked if he had a favorite between Brahms and Beethoven, Miller laughed, and then groaned. “If you held my feet to the fire and MADE me choose, my two favorite composers would be Brahms and Beethoven. If I had kids, it’d be like trying to make me say which of my two kids I liked better.” In the end, he admitted, he would choose Beethoven, who “came first and is probably the greatest composer... If I had to live without one of them (which I would hate to have to do!), it would be Brahms; I just couldn’t do without Beethoven.”
Miller also shared what his goal is when performing. He wants the audience to be “inspired, and that the concert communicates emotions and feelings to the audience. Music is it’s own language. Certain things are only expressible through music.” Miller admitted that he loves performances where he can talk to the audience and tell them what the music is about. In a way, of course, that opens up the doors for the audience to understand what the music is communicating.
To that end, Miller explained a little of what to listen for in the Beethoven work on Saturday:

“This concerto is incredibly beautiful. The first movement is incredibly lyrical and filled with an immense amount of emotion. What I want to do is show that...and get the audience to feel those different types of emotions. Many emotions, a lot of joy and sorrow, come to a head at the end of the first movement.
The slow movement is like a recitation, so soft, and it almost dies away—you feel like the music could last forever in a beautiful way. The last movement is like a dance that’s fun and joyous and a little tongue in cheek. This music lends itself to knowing the feelings.”

Miller has one experience of communicating with music that stands out especially. “I played a concert many years ago in Switzerland for an audience of mentally handicapped people. It was very noisy as I came out on stage, not applause, just chaos. I started playing—and I played for an hour and a half—and there was dead silence the entire time. I knew I was communicating at a high emotional level.”
That memory helped to inspire Miller to always “find something that touches people” as he performs.
“Something that’s beyond what would normally be talked about or communicated.”
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Most popular Classical music of all time

The composer of pieces that are still loved and listened to today such as the Symphony no. 5, Symphony no. 9, Fur Elise, and the Moonlight Sonata. Classical music pieces that pervade movies and pop culture today.

Credits: Public Domain/Wikipedia

A simple web search reveals lists of the “Top 100” pieces of Classical music. Many of these pieces would sound familiar to even those who are not familiar with Classical music. They are pieces such as Beethoven’s “Symphony no. 5,” Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” and Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.” People who want to listen to Classical music in Lincoln, can enjoy these pieces as well on radio or via the web.

Whether or not you recognize the names of those pieces, you have probably heard them many times whether at a wedding, in a movie, or even as a part of pop music.
The first on the list of most popular Classical pieces is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Beethoven wrote this piece in the years 1804-1808. Why is this piece from 200 years ago still so loved and used today? The reason is most likely the rhythm and four-note motif that recurs throughout the piece. “Da-da-da, dum”—even by writing those syllables, the four notes and descending minor third can almost be heard.

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra has taken this piece and given it their own unique touch as did Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band in “A Fifth of Beethoven.” Given a touch of Salsa style in “Beethoven meets Salsa,” these are only a few examples of the dominance of a famous Classical piece of music on many aspects of pop culture.
You don’t have to know anything about Classical music to be moved by the original Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Give it a listen and don’t worry about understanding the rhythms, motives, structure, orchestration, or progressions—simply listen, and be moved.