Part 1 of Season 4 Episode 1: Dr. Michael Kaykov -- Concert Pianist/Recording Artist/Educator

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Hey there, Piano Pod friends and listeners. How was your summer? I missed you. So we're kicking off the first episode of Season 4, and I am your host, Yukimi Song. It feels good to be back in the podcasting groove. I've missed this so much. As much as I enjoyed my break, there's nothing like connecting with all of you, sharing stories, music, and all the piano magic we've got lined up this season. Welcome to all of our first-time listeners and viewers of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City. Whether you're diving deep into a piano career working professionally in the classical music scene, or simply have a passion for piano tunes and a curiosity about its universe, this podcast is your backstage pass. Let me tell you a little bit about The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. It is a one-of-a-kind podcast that delves deep into the fascinating world of classical music with a specific focus on the piano. In a biweekly format, we engage in intriguing discussions with guests breaking exciting new ground in the classical music industry. Our mission is to cultivate a vibrant community that champions fresh perspectives, ensuring that classical music remains alive and resonant in our ever-evolving world. Before getting started, I want to thank you, amazing TPP fans and faithful listeners, for tuning in today. Yay, it's Season 4, thanks to you! Please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or any other podcasting platforms because every rating and review will help people find my show. Kicking off Season 4, I am thrilled to introduce Dr. Michael Kaikoff, an American pianist of international acclaim. Dr. Kaikoff has dazzled audiences worldwide both as a soloist and in collaboration with industry giants including the late 2-time Emmy winner Glenn Roven. Hailing from a lineage of musicians, Dr. Kaikoff began his musical journey at the tender age of 6. His distinguished academic journey led him through prestigious performing arts schools such as Mannes College of Music and Juilliard, studying under maestros like Jerome Rose and Jerome Lowenthal. In 2020, he completed his DMA from the Manhattan School of Music, penning a dissertation on the Scrapping Etchews, a topic on which his expertise has been sought by international publications. But that's not all. Dr. Kaykov's discography is equally impressive. His third album, "Unrivaled," received accolades from Fanfare magazine, celebrating his virtuosity and passion for music. Beyond the stage and studio, he's nurturing the future of music, imparting wisdom at institutions like Virtue Academy and the Church Music School of Music and Art. So dear friends, here we are today to learn about Michael's incredible journey as a pianist, educator, recording artist, focusing on his research on Scrapping and music theory, as well as more practical subjects like how to manage one's career as a pianist. So please stay with me till the end of the episode, as our conversation will lead to a more philosophical discussion later. So let's begin The Piano Pod's first episode of the new season with a guest, Dr. Michael Kaikoff. Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century. Welcome to The Piano Pod, Michael.

Thank you, such a pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for being here today. It means so much. It's such a pleasure to have you as actually the first guest of the new season. And I know we've been connected on the social media for quite some time, and you have been kind enough to liking my post. I guess that's how we keep in touch and stay connected with one another these days, right? Whether that is personal level or professional. So, you know, actually, your name has been in the guest wish list of mine since the get-go.

Nice.

Yeah. Yes. And I can't, I can't believe I'd not— I didn't reach out to you till like really recently to be on my show. So I've been listening to your recordings, and also I read your scholarly, you know, article about Scrabin's idea of tone-color relations. And yes, it's fascinating, interesting. And then, you know, Michael, honestly, I learned so much from your writing, and this is the very reason I do what I do, which is podcasting, because I get to study about, you know, each guest, but also their expertise and wealth of knowledge. We'll talk more about your recordings later in this interview. So let's start with Scrabin, your research. Tell me about the article a little bit.

Yes, well, I have several articles, and I think the one you're referring to is the one on his synesthesia. And the, the, the mapping of colors to different keys. So I mean, the gist of that article— first of all, that idea was presented to me by my thesis advisor, Dr. Green, who helped me get published, and he guided my whole dissertation. He thought, well, maybe you can do something a little bit more practical and actually get, you know, get published with it if you pick a sort of interesting enough topic. So he suggested that, and the, the article, basically the gist of it is the latest consensus is Scrabin may not have had complete synesthesia. And, you know, the, the interesting thing is he may have been inspired by his conversations with, with Rimsky-Korsakov, and he came upon the idea of having like a really rigorous, really rigorous system where he would map different keys. And for Scrabin, he supposedly only felt that major keys may have a color, because as we know, if you look at the overtone series, the actual— the minor third doesn't come there until much, much, much higher in the overtone series. So it was, you know, it was only major keys and only a couple which he felt, you know, are concrete. And, you know, that being said, if you look at all the various archives, including that in the Scrabin Museum, he had several valid complete schemes for colors, and they're all different. So basically, the latest consensus is he might not have had true synesthesia, and that it may have been just a way of trying to kind of formalize some of his, some of his instincts. In that regard. So it's pretty fascinating. So it's kind of the article title should be Scrabble synesthesia debunked. Now the, yeah, and the other interesting thing is if you look at true synesthesia, it may not be consistent across the spectrum. For example, how come all the keys are colors? How come one of them isn't a smell and another key is like some kind of unrelated sensation? You know, if you look at the actual studies of synesthesia, it's usually a completely irrational response. Response that's not in any way consistent.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the whole this time I thought it was the synesthesia issue. So I thought he was in one of those, you know, neurodiverse spectrum or something.

He may have been. I'm not saying it's completely— it was completely an act, but like the way this started was really he was inspired by his conversations with Rimsky-Korsakov, and he did have a couple of keys that he agreed with Rimsky-Korsakov on in terms of like what they represent. I don't want to say anything off the top of my head. You have to like read all the different— because I might get misquoted. You have to read the specifics because they vary across the different sources. Yeah. That being said, later on for the Scrabin sort of final vision for that Mysterium project, it was supposed to encompass, you know, some kind of dance, some kind of projection, some kind of visual aspect to it, including colors and even perfumes. So perfumes, yes, like smell, that was all supposed to be part of his final kind of Mysterium, which never materialized. So in a way, it doesn't really matter whether how complete his synesthesia was, because the way it inspired his, his craft And furthermore, every single late period composition that we have of Scriabin was, was an offshoot of that. Scriabin felt like the massive Mysterium project is just too huge to materialize, so he took a lot of those ideas and he presented them in very compact forms, such as the sonata form, the prelude, the etude. But in the back of his mind, the end goal was this massive You know, Mysterium.

Yeah, very fascinating individual, you know, and a little disturbed, but in many ways—

but that we, we don't know. We don't know how disturbed he was. The, the, uh, the people that knew him said he was extremely organized and he loved to dress up. He loved dressing up. I don't know if that suggests disorganization, you know, some something disorganized.

We don't know.

We don't know. It may have been this, this, uh popular artist persona that people want to cultivate, but he may have been extremely rational, and the music kind of suggests that, like the crystalline clarity of his harmonic writing and textures suggest that he was completely, completely sane.

Wow. You know, maybe he was just way ahead of his time. That's why people described him as like cuckoo. Yes, yes, maybe so, because, you know, um, Because after I read your article, and then so I watched the Prometheus Opus 60 by the famous Yale Symphonic Orchestra, you know, performed in 2010, which is actually the rendition of, I guess, Scriabin's vision. Because yes, at that time when he wrote this piece, it was exactly 100 years ago and he was not able to— technology was not obviously at that level of being able to visualize his vision. You know what I mean?

Yes. They were not able to project colors in real time.

Yeah. Right. Right.

I've seen that Yale, that Yale performance and they were, they were trying to kind of recreate what some of his, some of the indications in his score. Again, we really don't know the specifics, but there's a couple of things that he did indicate in the first edition of the score regarding colors. Yeah.

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Some people have the tendency to associate our feelings whether that is anger or sadness or whatever that is, to associate with certain keys, right? So C major sounds like this, C major represent purity, whatever that is, you know, F sharp minor is this feeling or represent this. But Scrapping is more specific, like every single note has the color, the shade.

Yes, yes. Well, I mean, even from personal experience, I don't have perfect pitch, but I can tell if a piece is played at the incorrect pitch. If we look at recording transfers, and sometimes when something is transferred, well, like in the case of LP, if it's transferred down a semitone or up a semitone, I can recognize something's off. If I look at a piece of music, I can hear it kind of in the original key, but unfortunately I can't tell random notes on the piano. I can't tell what clusters are. So I don't have that kind of perfect pitch at all.

But I guess you can sense, I don't know, maybe through certain vibration, I don't know.

No, I think if you know a piece well enough, if you know a piece well enough and you've always played it in one key, you're going to tell something's off if it's suddenly down a semitone. You know, you hear it. There was a record transfer, I think, of the— I think it was something like the Chopin. Sonata in B-flat minor, and it was up a half step, and it was kind of jarring to listen to.

Very strange.

Very strange. Very strange.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's really start from your beginning of your musical journey. Yeah, I'm curious. You are quite accomplished concert pianist, but there's always the beginning. So tell me about your upbringing. I know you grew up in the musical family, right?

Yes. Both of my parents are musicians. My mother was a, you know, is a concert pianist now. She works as a pianist in New York City. She does a lot of ballet classes, vocal coaching, like really everything, everything except piano teaching. I'm the piano teaching artist in the family. But yeah, so I learned a ton from her. And that's my, it's not just my early training, but every program that I do, I play for her and I, I get advice and I know it's going to be completely unfiltered. And it's something that I can trust because, you know, you need somebody when you, when you publish a commercial album that's going to be listened to repeatedly. You can't unreleased it, you can't withdraw it from the market. So it's just like one of the people that I completely trust to give her unfiltered opinion before I set it down. Absolutely. One of the really, one of the highest trained professionals that I that I know.

Wow, you're lucky. Yeah, that's lucky.

And it's also very tough, obviously. It's very tough.

That makes you a, you know, better pianist every day, each day.

Sure, sure.

And then so you went off to, first of all, started as a college at Mannes and studied with Mr. Jerome Rose. And recently I interviewed someone who studied with Jerome Rose as well. So tell me about the training or the study with him.

Well, under Jerome Rose, basically when it's, it's not just the training, it's also just like life circumstances. So I got to Mannes, and I remember Jerome Rose asked me— I brought in the Chopin Ballade, I brought the Chopin Ballade No. 1, and then I brought him a couple of excerpts, and he thought, he said, well, do you want to do the Chopin competition? I said, you know what, I want to do the Liszt competition, because they were happening at the same time. It was 2010, and he said, well, let's go for it. So I looked at the repertoire list, and I think the summer of— I started preparing, but it took around 2 years, and I learned about 3.5 hours of Liszt's piano works from scratch, including the Sonata in B minor and all of those things. And I wasn't a prodigy in any sense. I didn't have a big repertoire. When I auditioned for Juilliard and Mannes for undergrad, that was the first time I actually had a complete recital program. Under my fingers. So to go from that to suddenly working on 3.5 hours or more of Liszt's music from scratch was like a massive, massive jump. So it's not just the studies with him, but it's also like the circumstances, because I just had to do it, and I had to learn all of that myself. And when I brought the pieces into him, they had to be memorized and in tempo and performance ready., and then he would give me feedback. So in a way, it's a kind of advanced— it's a pretty advanced training. And if you look at even teaching artists like Liszt or Anton Rubinstein, if you'll read Hoffman's memoirs, I mean, right, they would bring in these things already in tempo and kind of performance ready to the master.

You know, you, you, you're humbled by saying, you know, oh, I'm, I'm not a child prodigy or anything, and not at all.

Not at all. Late bloomer, if anything. Really, if— who else? When I was 17, that was really the first time that I had a complete recital program, and I remember the recital program. It was the Bach E Major Preludium and Fugue Book 1, the Beethoven Waldstein, my first like complete Beethoven sonata, extremely tough, like really tough. Uh, Escherabian Etude Opus 65, Number 3. Ironically, that's also one of the etudes I focused on for my theoretical dissertation. So it's like, I really know that piece inside and out, obviously. And I also had the Liszt Mephisto Waltz and the Tchaikovsky Doomka.

That's it.

That's literally— that was— and I worked on that program for over a year, just like trying to get it into shape. And it was tough. So I wasn't a prodigy. Something like below average, below average in terms of speed of development. So not a late bloomer, not like a late starter, but I didn't show anything exemplary, exemplary at all. There were people much, much further along than me when I really wanted to get into this, which is cool. That's how I didn't run out of steam yet.

Well, you know, you know, so you, you don't want to run out of energy. This career is a long shot. It's not just one time you win something and then, you know, disappears. It's really the lifelong career, right?

Yeah, there's also misconception. I had an argument with somebody online and they said that every single great artist was some kind of child prodigy. That's just so— that's false. That's completely false. And the fact that popular culture makes it— there's such a premium on a completely freakish feat that's supposed to somehow come easily, you know what I mean?

Right.

It's— if you read somebody like Samuel Feinberg, for example, one of the first pianists in the Soviet Union to present the 32 Beethoven sonatas. He played the works of all the avant-garde composers. For his graduation concert, he presented all the Bach 48 preludes and fugues and the Rachmaninoff Third, and, you know, all the crazy stuff. And he mentions in his, in his book on pedagogy that he had like a more normal kind of memory where he would just have to sit down and absorb things that are pretty slow pace, and he didn't like to rush it. And he could learn things on demand quickly when needed to, but he preferred like a more kind of normal working pace. So it's not like he could hear a piece of music and reproduce it faultlessly like, like Joseph Hoffman. So it's, you know, so it's just something that I see, at least in the 21st century, such a premium on, on so-called talent and natural ability, where it really shouldn't be the case. It should be a premium on training.

Amen to that. And also, this prodigy or the talent being showcased so much, like almost like a celebrity level of attention, right?

And there's a place for that. I mean, look, you're trying to stand out. And, you know, I did a fair share of competitions, and I didn't really place anywhere. But, you know, I learned from that. It helped me develop. But if you see just from like a marketing standpoint, it's a little bit disturbing because there's always like the latest and greatest, and then gradually it gets replaced by the next, you know, crop of talent. And it's always like really sensationalized. I don't mean that in a bad way, but I think we're just talking about like marketing. So everything has to be sensationalized. Like YouTube, okay, next YouTube video idea. I learned this piece in one day without the piano and then publish it. It has to be something, something centralized. I was reading something online, an interview with a pianist, and she mentioned that she worked as a software engineer, but she had like this kind of freakish talent, and then she memorized the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto in a couple of days and then went to perform it with orchestra. One of my students reached out to me and asked me, like, is this normal? And they said it's not necessarily normal, and it's just the media. I'm not saying her case is not true, it is, but it's just the media trying to make it seem like unless you can learn The Rock 3 in 2 days while not being even a professional, you, you shouldn't be able to do it. I think that's— there's a, there's a broad spectrum of natural abilities, and they all can be, they all can be utilized towards the same end goal. Who cares how long that it— how long it took, and who cares how easy or hard it was, you know?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but there's like the really meaning in, I don't know, working so hard to craft your artistry, right?

So yeah, and you have also, also one, one other kind of small thing. Let's say you, you— let's say you can learn something, but let's say you are in the position to learn something very quickly. And you get the notes down and you have it memorized and performance ready, how much longer does it actually take to finalize the interpretation and to craft that? Much longer. It's still going to be another 4, 6, 8 months, a year, on and off, and then you keep going, you come back to works again and again. Does it really matter? Because it's a masterwork that's going to stay with you your whole life, and you're gonna come back to it again and again. It doesn't matter. Like, you know, in the case of the Liszt Sonata, I learned that in 2010, I put out my commercial recording of it in 2021, I could still come back to it and redo it and have other ideas about it. That can be— it can be better, it can be a lot worse.

Wow, you learned the Liszt Sonata when you were 10?

No, no, 2010.

2010, okay.

I was 20-something. That was when I was preparing for the initial Liszt competition. Yeah, yeah.

So we're going to talk more about this You know, misunderstanding of our career later on. Yes.

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Yeah, tell me more about your study with Mr. Jerome Lowenthal at Juilliard. He is a legend, living legend.

Well, I was at Juilliard for only 2 years for my, for my master's, and the general workflow was very similar. You would have to present something, and he didn't have a hard and fast rule about things being necessarily memorized in tempo. There was some, I friends would tell me they could just bring in the stuff from the score and not prepare at all and read it in the lesson. But it's— Jerome Lowenthal knew when that was the case. They, you know, just— if you think your teacher doesn't know that you're taking the easy way out, don't lie to yourself. You— how are you going to come into a lesson with reading Chopin nocturnes from the score, preparing it like 1 hour before? If you can get away with it, it doesn't mean that you're getting the most value out of your lesson. Absolutely. But I digress. But I just— funny, just a funny thought. But yeah, I had everything. I always brought things in tempo and memorized, and he would give me general sort of interpretive advice. But one thing of his that I really learned a lot from— it seems like a really slight detail— I was playing a passage in a Liszt rhapsody, and he said, you know, if you play it so evenly, if you play the notes matched so evenly in volume, it doesn't sound beautiful anymore. It doesn't matter if you have finger control and evenness. It doesn't matter. It has to be kind of shaped. So that's really— I think that's profound. That's really profound. It's such a minor kind of observation, but I think it has a huge impact.

So then, you know, afterwards, did you go directly to Manhattan's— —school to finish your— okay.

Yes, I did everything in a row. It's like this mad rush where at the end of each— at the end of the degree program, you would kind of audition for the next one. You know, my parents were actually kind of puzzled by that because when they went to school in the Soviet Union, you would finish your degree program, and then that summer, I think, you would audition for the next one. It's so weird that you are You're in March, you're already in— sometimes, no, in the case of prescreening, you are in the September, October area of your last year of school, yet you're auditioning for something else. Isn't that kind of weird? Think about it. I mean, so you're already thinking about the next step where you're actually in the most rigorous year of your program and you're planning ahead for the next thing. Very tough. I don't know why it's like that. Maybe auditions should be held in over the summer.

Yeah, but you did finish Manhattan School of Music and then you got your DMA, correct? Yes. Before continuing this fun episode with Dr. Michael Kaikhoff, let's take a moment to hear from our valued sponsor, Musiq App, whose generous support helps make this podcast possible. Introducing Musiq. Ever heard of it? If carrying heavy sheet music binders drains your energy, this app is your solution. On iPad, iPhone, and web, Museek is a sheet music reader that will revolutionize your music life by creating a tidy library, no more mess. Museek has enchanted 400,000 professional musicians worldwide. With its collaborative features, musicians can share their scores and annotations in real time. Museek is also the best companion for amateur musicians. Museek created its AI to help musicians of all levels in their daily practice. Get a 1-month free trial using the code PIANOPOD23 exclusively for The Piano Pod listeners. Claim your free month with Music today. So you studied with all these famous amazing music schools in the world. After graduating, was your career red carpet ready and everybody is just cheering you and waiting for you to have this big concert career? I bet it was. Not at all.

Not at all. So really? What happened? Well, first of all, first of all, the— if you look at the DMA program, it's 2 years of coursework, then it's something called ABD, all but dissertation. So at that point, you can kind of hang around. I was very fortunate that my third year of doctoral studies, I was able to extend my kind of teaching duties there. So all the way up until 2020, when the pandemic hit, I was teaching some of those keyboard skills classes at the Manhattan School of Music. Very little, just a couple of hours a week, sometimes less, like a symbolic amount if any. But all that time I was, I was teaching and building the experience, working with like a variety of students every single year, which is awesome. That's really the— I think that was the real value, to get a workflow for adult learning, for college education. It was also ended up being very good for the resume because you have a so-called experience kind of teaching in a row. It's not my accomplishment. I was just very lucky to have that, to be able to teach not just required piano but also keyboard skills and harmonization, transposition, things like that, score reading. Yeah, well, and then the pandemic hit and obviously the kind of teaching stopped, actually stopped a little bit before that because the position kind of rotated, but everything went fully remote. And I went to Florida because my parents felt like it's a good idea to maybe escape the pandemic and go there. And there was a, there was a place to stay there, and they ended up spending around 4 months in Florida without really— I had a little keyboard there, but without any piano. And I just sat there writing my dissertation. There was literally nothing else to do, and I was refining the dissertation and going back and forth with my thesis advisor and really correcting every word. It was ridiculous in a good way.

It was so detailed. So by the time you finish your dissertation— so that was actually while you're writing dissertation, it was during pandemic? Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's true that I didn't realize how recent it was. So what's it like to be a concert pianist now? So how are you managing your concert pianist career?

Well, yeah, so I understand. So it's sort of— well, let me tell you how I kind of got to this point and how I came upon the idea of just like self-managing and self-promoting and investing some income into this, because things have to kind of click in place for this to be possible. And I was extremely extremely fortunate. So even when I was in school, all but dissertation, I was applying to various college jobs and just looking like, how am I going to make an income? How am I going to make an income? And if you look at college teaching positions, nobody's going to offer you anything that's even remotely like full-time. It's going to be a part-time, and you're going to be looking into possibly like relocating. And I'm not saying this as a complaint, but you'll be relocating for something like $100 a week. And if you look at the workload that you're gonna get, only a couple of keyboard classes in a community college, which is a very desirable position, very desirable, but you're gonna look at something like, like $100 a week, which is not sustainable. So I was applying to all of those, getting constant rejections, and I thought, you know, what, what can I really do? So I started looking into remote, remote work. That kind of clicked into place, and I started working for two different companies, and then eventually I just settled on, on a Virtue Academy because it just— it's like a more flexible, much more flexible work and scheduling. And I love it because, I mean, do the math for a minute. If you can literally teach from home, you don't have to commute, your schedule is flexible. If something comes up, you can reschedule or move the lesson around. They manage the— I'm not advertising them, but I kind of am, and it's not a paid sponsorship or anything. But they're really like, if you look them up, they have a huge variety of teachers. They have a huge roster of even piano teachers. They have like pages and pages and pages of people that teach for them. So it's great. And in terms of income, it's kind of freelancing. It's not stable, but it's a lot better than applying to just any open college position and really looking desperate. Because when you're desperate for work, I think recruiters can tell. They can tell that you're going to settle for pretty much anything, right? Right. So when you apply to a school, at least the way I— because college employment is still like a long-term goal for me. I'd love to teach in a college setting again. I'd love to. It's really like it's part of my kind of career goal. And I think it's going to open up more doors for performance as well because these things are connected. It's not like a separate. Separate thing. But yeah, so in terms of like advice, I would say just don't apply constantly to any open job, but really research the school and see what you can, you know, where you might want to work at and have real concrete reasons why you might want to relocate there.

Now, how about your concert activities? So after graduation, so that was sort of still in the height of pandemic.

So yes, yeah, almost, almost non-existent. And my friend Jeremy Jordan, also a Juilliard graduate, we kind of connected ironically like during the pandemic. He's— he was also on the faculty of the Harlem School of the Arts, and I kind of remember him in passing from Juilliard, but we never really kind of connected until, until after graduation. Very weird, but just the Juilliard life in a nutshell. You don't really know anybody. He had this little concert series right in his house where he would do streams. So I thought, you know, why not just go over there and stream a lot of the repertoire that I was going to record? So I did, I did multiple streams for him, and that was basically my concert activities that year during the pandemic. And right now I'm kind of pivoting towards just renting out venues and looking at advertising and managing this myself. It's awesome.

Wow, you're managing all these, you know, your concerts by yourself?

Well, by all I mean I'm starting out with just this one in September, but it's the first one that is completely self-funded, that is nonprofit. It's completely free for admissions, and I'm not looking to make any money from it. It's literally just to kind of— it's not even that big of a financial hit if you look at the the tax write-off, that it's a potential tax write-off for this. So it just— I, I think that's, that's also like a valid, valid goal if you're looking at this, because there's people that are concerned about it. They're wondering, how can I make an income from this right away? And if you're looking at doing too many things at once, you're going to be deeply unhappy. You're going to be deeply unhappy. You have to pick one. If you're looking at consistent profits, or are you looking at artistic development and playing how you want, what you want, you know? So just, I would just say, like, if people looking to get into this, like, just go for it. Find an affordable venue. Clever House in New York, very affordable. Rent it, advertise it, go from there. That's, that's, there's nothing more to it than that. And preferably with live streaming, you can build up an audience or small team of people that are going to support you no matter what.

And so tell me about this concert. So unfortunately, this episode will come out after this concert at the Clubhouse in— that's in Hell's Kitchen area of New York City, correct?

Well, it's going to be streamed and archived somewhere, so it's not that much.

Oh, wonderful. Yes. Well, I actually, I will try to be there in person. So I'm very excited about that. It's going to be on September 2nd at 5:00 PM. So tell me about the concert. It's going to be, I think, all Franz Liszt pieces, right? Yes. Yes.

It's an all-Franz Liszt program. And I pitched this program to one of the record labels that I work with, Audiodeck Records. It's kind of— I want to sidetrack here because when I did my first all-Liszt album, I just released it on Bandcamp and Spotify. It was like a totally self-published. You literally just go to a studio, they give you the recorded masters, they give you the video. I edited everything myself, and it was like a very affordable, very low budget thing, but the sound quality was great. So I used that, and I found this record label, Odrodek, which was special because they take submissions, and these submissions are judged by a team of people who are actually already recording artists for Odrodek. So right now, I actually judge some of their, some of the stuff that comes in, and it's all done completely anonymously. So I, I sent them the, the materials from my first self-published list album, and they approved this second, the second release that I kind of done through them. So this, this upcoming thing is going to be my third oldest album, but it's only my second commercial album with Audra Deck. The program was picked first of all because these works are really underrepresented. They're easier to pitch. Nobody's going to— you need a very good reason if you want to record, you know, Chopin 24 Preludes, 2nd Sonata, and 3rd Sonata, things that have been recorded 100 times, right, every year. I'm not saying that in a bad way. You just— it's a little bit less unique just from the fact that it's been done so, so many times, right, versus something like this where there's only a handful of commercial recordings available. So it got accepted. The proposal got accepted, like, through an anonymous kind of judgment thing, and I'm fortunate to do it.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. So tell me the list of pieces that you'll be, uh, recording and also performing at the concert as well, because they are— they're the same, they're the same, they're exactly the same, and probably in the same order.

As you know, what you play live in one setting might— should— it might be better to order it a little bit differently than on an album where the first track has to like completely grab you because you assume that the listener may not make it past the first track. I don't mean that like in a demeaning way. It's a very different listening to something at home on a kind of a passive— Right, right. Absolutely. It's a different medium. It's a different medium entirely. Absolutely. So the ordering on the album is going to be different. But for the recital, I'm going to start out with the Handel Liszt Sarabande and Chaconne transcription, which is rare, very rare, one of his last compositions in that kind of style. So that's the first one. Then I have the Impromptu in F-sharp major, very beautiful late work. It's well known. Vladimir Horowitz recorded it way back in the 1885, 1985, I believe, 1985, yeah. Then I have the Takáta, which is a rare, really rare, rare piece. And there's a couple of add-ons to it that Liszt sort of, he revised it towards the end of his life. It's unclear when it was composed, but probably in the 1870s. So the last decade, last decade of his life. And then the very last Hungarian Rhapsody, the Rhapsody No. 19.

Wow, that's awesome. Yes.

That's the first half. It's great. The funny thing about that piece, it's a transcription. It's actually a transcription. So it's based on motifs by other Hungarian composers. We can't really find the originals, but it's not like a— it's not original material. It's really a transcription. And that's kind of the first half. Second half is the Csárdas Makábar. Again, one of those like extremely, extremely virtuosic pieces that he wrote towards the end of his life. When people think late Liszt, they may not associate it with like extreme piano feats, but that piece is pretty extreme, full of tremolos and all sorts of things. Very tough, very tough. It's sort of like the late Liszt equivalent of the Grand Galop Chromatique, I would say, something like that. So, Chartiers Macabres, then I will do the Trauer-Vorspiel und Trauermarsch. So it's a late, kind of late, late composition. Very interesting. I wasn't really aware of it before I kind of picked it. It's pretty awesome. They have the Mephisto Pulka and the third Mephisto Waltz.

Now, third, third. Oh, that's rare. That's rare. That's rare. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he—

third Mephisto Waltz and Mephisto Pulka. So interesting thing about Mephisto Waltzes, Liszt has a total of 4, but number 4 never really got completely finished. Yeah, there really isn't like a consensus. Leslie Howard found some more like additional drafts that Liszt did of that Fourth Mephisto Waltz, so he kind of combined it into one version, but it never got finished. So the Fourth Mephisto Waltz never got done. That's why it's not on my, on my list. Yeah, well, and then the Mephisto Polka and the Tchaikovsky Polonaise from the Evgeny Onegin, composed the same year as the, as the Handel. So it's like an arc, it's like an arc. Start with the transcription and with the transcription.

Wow, that's gonna be amazing. I can't wait to actually hear you perform all these pieces live on September 2nd. And then also the album will be probably available sometime next year, you said?

Yeah, it'll be done before the end of the year. It will be recorded definitely before the end of the year. I have the recording sessions booked and, and planned. It's— I'm going to record it actually in New York City It's Skillman Music in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, yes, yes, yes. Which is a well-known studio, probably the most affordable solution right now that's still going to give you a very good sound that's obviously worthy of a commercial release. I like doing these things under a reasonable budget.

And they're self-funded? Yes. Wonderful. Now, so, you know, we've been communicating back and forth to prepare for this interview, you know, and then in one of the, I think, emails you mentioned that, you you only started grinding your own album projects and really diving deep into recording and playing what you want and how you want after a certain age. So playing all list program for your upcoming concert and then the, you know, album, is that what you mean by playing what you want and how you want?

Yes. Well, if you— my first album, like my first all list album was something that I've done basically as I was coming out of school, as I was finishing up the doctoral. So I only really started playing and thinking about these things after graduating. I think the school mentality and the idea that you're going to pick a sort of well-known selection that everybody plays and you're going to present those for a competition and hopefully win and get a management, that may not be the most— you can try that. But it may not be the, the best kind of path. You also have to do something on the side where you, you have to think about things like, is this, is this kind of rare enough? Is it going to contribute something to a label? It kind of gets somebody on board with this sort of repertoire. And why am I, why am I playing it? Why am I— you know, if you pick something like Chopin Four Scherzos that I did last year, why would you play those? I did it, but why would you do it? Arthur Rubinstein recorded all 4 Scherzos in 1932. Right now it's 2023. I mean, you know, why? You have to answer that if you're going to work on something really standard.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Being a freelancer and then, you know, self-funding and then you are also managing your career, I think. But a lot of us pianists are that way. But, you know, with the Accessibility in technology, and you'll be able to do if you are willing to do this, take this path.

No, yes, absolutely. You have to, you have to be completely behind it, and then you can't back down. Once you go for it, you go for it. You know something? When I started investing my own money into this, I started playing better. Really, it's like a really bad thing to say, but it's like, no, when your own money is on the line, you are absolutely going to prepare to your best ability. There's no— you're going to look at every detail, and you can't unreleased a record. You can't, like, unreleased it. Once it's out, it's out. It's up to you to present your, your, your best version of it.

Yeah, but in many ways, you can create your pathway, right? Your, your career. This is, this is your brand. You as Michael Kakov, that's, that's the brand. So nobody is going to tell you, you know, what to wear how you present yourself, yes, to what sort of repertoire to prepare, but you can create your thing and you can create your audience as well, right?

Yes, and you can also, you know, you can take as much as you want on any project. You can always extend the deadline to a certain, to a certain limit, of course. It's, it's so awesome.

That concludes the first half of this fun episode of The Piano Pod with The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, concert pianist, recording artist, and educator from New York City. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcasting platform. You can also watch this episode on The Piano Pod's YouTube channel. And don't forget to follow The Piano Pod on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. The links are listed in the show notes. Tune in next Tuesday, September 12th at 8 PM to hear the rest of the interview with Dr. Michael Kekoff.

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