Part 2 of Season 4 Episode 3 with Ludovic Zamor: Concert Pianist & Recording Artist

Romantic era, it feels as if this is the upper limits of tonal harmony and at the same time virtuosity. I felt as if this was the upper limit. This is as far as the ceiling goes. And to play those pieces are more entertaining than the rest.

Hello, piano enthusiasts! You're tuned into The Piano Pod with me, Yukimi Song. Today, we're delving deeper into the second installment of this season with the phenomenal Canadian-American pianist and recording artist Ludovic Zamor. In case you missed our captivating conversation in Part 1, where we discussed his latest album, "Amor," and explored the fascinating journey from project inception to release day triumphs, and his path to readiness, returning to the stage after the pandemic. Don't worry, you can catch up on all the excitement on your favorite podcast platform. A warm welcome to all our new listeners! This podcast is your all-access pass to the captivating world of piano. In each episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, I interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the industry. Please rate the show and review it on your favorite podcasting platform because every rating and review will help people find my show. So my friends, here is Part 2 of The Piano Pod Season 4, Episode 3 with Ludovic Zamor. Please enjoy the show.

What is your thought on keeping classical music relevant and thriving in this fast-paced society?

Hmm, that's a very good question. If you want to hear a very short story, Only, I think, like a month and a half ago was the first time, like, one of my random friends from out of town, they were coming to New York and they invited me to go to the Brooklyn Mirage. Are you familiar with the Brooklyn Mirage? Yeah, it's a— and it should actually be like a YouTube video or something, Kazuki goes to the Brooklyn Mirage. But as I went there, I was just so overwhelmed because they had lasers, they had fire, they had all this type of stuff. And it was— at the end of the night, I was reflecting and I was trying to say to myself, wow, you know, this is what we have to compete with as classical musicians because we're taking so much stimulus. And then now what I'm doing is almost as if it's back to the basics, it's back to the roots. And how do I I guess, show people this rich genre? And that's, I guess, something I've been trying to ponder with for a long time. You go to Carnegie Hall, there's no light show, or at least maybe in Zankel Hall, but in Weill Recital Hall or the Stern Auditorium, there's no light show, there's no fire, there's nothing like that. So it becomes a moral question of what can we do? It's something I've been working with for a long time and The answer that I'm coming to is just try and give a very, very pure performance. And hopefully, like you said earlier, maybe they will just be exposed to it and somehow fall in love with it the same way we do.

But who knows? Maybe there comes an opportunity where you have the concert, you know, piano concert with a laser beam, you know.

Maybe.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I got to interview Michael Kekoff as our first episode of this season, and then we talked about Stravinsky. And Stravinsky actually tried to do it, right, with his orchestral work for the— I think it's almost '60-something, so it's pretty late work. And then, but, you know, with the technology, it wasn't possible at the time. But 100 years later, Yale University made it happen. And then there is like a really— yeah, it is even like almost his like Paris score of this orchestral work. He puts the specific color that he wanted to produce, you know.

Yeah.

So who knows, maybe that's something that we can think about, right? Of course. Then you mentioned that why the belief in the meritocracy is liberating. And inspiring. You, you want to talk about that. Will you elaborate on this? What do you mean by that meritocracy?

My dad, he grew up in, uh, he grew up in the Caribbean. It's a very, uh, it's almost like a caste system over there. And when he came over to Canada to practice medicine, he also suffered, you know, I want to say like, especially back then, astronomical levels of racism. And one thing that he learned and he instilled to his children, instilled to me, was after a certain point when you become really, really great at your craft, whether it is medicine, whether it's law, whether it is history or music or performance, after a certain level they don't see a Black doctor, they don't see a Black lawyer, a Black historian, they don't see a Black musician, they just see a musician. So that is what you're supposed to strive towards, where the qualities that you're born with that you have no control over, these things all become irrelevant after your greatness, hence merit. So that's kind of what I try to envision myself, where these qualities, as if, you know, being a person of Black descent or such I don't want that in the narrative. I just want a great musician, a part of the narrative alongside, you know, if you can inspire someone that comes from a similar background, that's great. But my main focus is just to be great, not necessarily fill in the blank and then such.

So not because of your background, let's say. Right. So that's not something that you want to express. So to be equal means you arrived here because you worked hard. Exactly. Right. I totally understand the concept. In that sense, it makes sense. But so while I was listening to your story from the beginning today, it really does make sense. So this meritocracy system works. Right? So whoever has this ambitious and also, you know, work really hard, let's say American dream come true, no? In many ways. But then, you know, the word meritocracy triggered me a little bit because I remember reading books about it before COVID And there's one book is called The Tyranny of Merit. The other one, I don't remember the title of the book, but they were written by, one is written by Harvard professor, the other one is written by Yale law professor. And then there's also, there are plenty of YouTube clips about these books. And then they are on the, you know, TV shows or whatever to promote their books and try to make a point. And then one is Michael Sandel, he's the Harvard philosopher, also the professor, and he argues about this concept of meritocracy. So I think in a nutshell, your father's generation, I assume he is in the middle age right now.

Oh, my dad is in his 80s. He was born in 1941.

Oh my goodness, wow.

Oh yes, he's from a way different generation than I am.

Okay, but even more so then, it does make sense, right? Because they want to break that barrier of color, and that comes with probably the financial background to economic disparity too. I'm not speaking about your father because I don't know, but I assume about this group of, let's say you're from, your generation is coming from, you know, Caribbean. And so then now those people, I'm not talking about your dad, but, you know, who grew up in that era of believing in meritocracy, that system, if you work hard, doesn't matter the color of your skin or background, your economical disparity, you get a chance. And then that's how they grew up. Then your generation, then your generation will raise the next generation. Then they argue that there's a flaw in this meritocracy system because in the end, the— what happened during, let's say, COVID, obviously we saw that huge stark difference between the richest and the poor. That was really one of the things that we noticed. And then guess who was working really hard for us? The, right, workers, right? Essential, yeah, essential workers and delivery people. And so this idea of meritocracy gave us a false sense of, like, for example, for those who succeeded, it gives the sense of false sense of success, right? Because the success actually came from your father's generation. They're the one who thrive, struggle to achieve this, and then we are benefiting from their struggle in many ways. And thus the financial also success to many, many of our generation. And it didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen just because I worked hard, or, you know, my generation, but someone works really hard, but actually it's a generational thing. And then for those folks who don't seem to success, doesn't seem to be successful, then we, do we label them as failure? No way, right?

I would agree with you. Yeah, not at all. Uh, there is, you know, generational wealth or such for some people, and sometimes when they say meritocracy in that way It seems as if they're the people that worked hard. My vision on it is more along the lines of the idea of a meritocracy is almost liberating because I believe in the idea of like almost like extreme ownership. The more I do, the more that you have control over, the more that you have responsibility over, the less of being able to say some things are out of your hands is is powerful in itself. So if you say that everything that is bad that's happening over me, or everything that's good is happening over me, and the more that you're able to say that you have control over, that itself is giving you more power. So if in my case, accepting— being accepted to certain conservatories or programs or winning competitions— not necessarily that I care about competitions anymore, I've I actually have my own philosophy on competitions, but being able to step on a stage and delivering a good performance, getting up to that point, it was not because I come from a certain background. It's because I worked my butt off to get to that stage.

I understand that. I understand the point of view. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me, you just briefly touched on your thoughts on confidence. Competition.

So I'm gonna quote Béla Bartók: competitions are for horses, not for artists. So, and when I was younger, those competitions, not only did they burn me out, but it was almost as if, how do you say that one piece of art is objectively better than another? After a certain degree, you know, you could say such, but sometimes it's very, very difficult to say one thing's objectively better than the other. And it's the way I feel about it now. The idea of competing, it's almost distasteful now.

You know, it's interesting. The way you perceive the word meritocracy is different from mine because you said, you know, you just quoted Bartók and you agree with his vision of music, right? I totally agree. Although I'm guilty, I put my students into competitions because classical music is also becoming, oh, I achieved this medal, I achieved this certificate, and thus I get to go to this school. Right. So that's how— yeah, tell me.

I would say in some cases competition might be good for someone, and especially in their development. Because you're exposing them to other people who are passionate, you're exposing them to where the ceiling is for their age groups, and you're exposing them to different people's repertoire. You know, sometimes in a competition you might hear a piece that you never heard before. I'm like, oh my god, that transcription exists. Oh my god, you know, there are Liszt transcriptions of Schubert. I never knew that. And sometimes some kid on the other side of the planet is playing that in a competition that I might right, open, broaden your horizons. In that sense, a competition is great. It gives a student something to strive towards. Sometimes for some people, unless they don't have the inner drive themselves, they're never going to work. So unless you put a finish line or a goal in front of them, you know, some students might not strive. But at the end of it, I want to say that, you know, competition mindset, especially for a professional artist, it might not be appropriate. Maybe they should be focusing on their own lane, focusing on their own craft and not focus on other people. But for a student, maybe that might be different for her.

So competitions is not everything, right?

Definitely not everything.

How do you find the sense of purpose or mission as a classical musician?

In this world, being a classical musician or a performer, it is a dream come true. It is— it's one of those very, very gratifying jobs because you get to affect people on a large scale every time you perform. And it's one of those jobs that doesn't feel like you're pouring glass into another and pouring it right back, and it's not as if you're going nowhere. So our missions, at least for myself, it is to affect people, whether it is emotionally, whether it's spiritually, whether they have a spiritual experience after it, as if, um, the same way how Bach or Liszt did. Those are goals. But is every performer supposed to feel that way? I'm not sure. Uh, it's tough, but it's very interesting because is every performer supposed to be on a stage maybe after sometimes performers retire, they're supposed to go into editorials or go into teaching, or at least that's where I'm looking at it.

So did I— maybe this is repeating, but what is your thought on our duty or gift as classical musicians to society at large?

It takes years of study to develop the gift. It takes how many different generations of people, just like how I mentioned before, Abraham Stencelar, It felt as if he packed 90 years of knowledge into me. And when you have that responsibility on your shoulders, it's almost as if it's a duty to share that with everybody else. And when you step on a stage, it's that opportune— whether you're streaming it on top of that, but you have 1,000 people in the audience and you have a perfect opportunity opportunity to share what composers wrote and their feelings, and it's almost as if you have a duty to do right by them. I don't even know how to put it. It's, um, I don't want to say like the most important job in the world, of course not, but it's definitely as if you're almost doing like missionary work in a way, kind of.

With all the difficult questions, the last question in the philosophical segment of this podcast would be any advice for young musicians?

I've made my fair or more than fair series of mistakes and I've learned from them. I guess like as a musician, you have a fear in your head. You don't wanna become a diva, you know? And you're afraid of expressing your desires or your wants. And one thing that I always like kept in my head is like, don't become a diva. Don't become a person that asks a lot and exercise patience. But one thing I've learned, especially in the music industry and how dirty it could be, is if you let people, they will waste your time. If you just sit on your hands and you don't, you know, say how things should be, they will just, you know, walk all over you. So my advice to young people especially if you're a musician or a performer, you understand how much practice, how much education it takes to get to where you're going. And the idea of having another person, I guess, gatekeep before your dreams and such— don't let people stand in your way and don't stop yourself from pushing of what you deserve and what you really want.

Wonderful.

Yes, take initiative. Of your— take control of your career, right? Yes. What is next? So, uh, Ludovic Zamor 2.0, or maybe at this point 10.0, I don't know. But what's your next step? What's your next phase in your career?

Actually, I'm working on my— I guess if you want to say the volume 2 of the more— where I'm actually learning a completely separate set of romantic era pieces. And I guess the end-all goal is to play all of these pieces in concert, hopefully 16 pieces all together in one concert, separated by an intermission. Usually before, I played 4 pieces, intermission, 4 pieces. But what I'm going to try and do now, if it's daunting, you know, whatever, but to play 8, intermission, another 8. But that's my end-all goal for now.

Wow, beautiful. Now, If that's the case, are you going to perform at Carnegie?

That is the goal. I'm going to try it before I play all 16. I'm going to try to play this album in Carnegie Hall before.

If that happens, please, please let me know because I would love to attend.

Of course, I'll send tickets.

Yay! I'll definitely be there. Yes, with lots of bouquet of flowers. Yes, I'll be there.

Hey there, TPP family! The Piano Pod is now into our 4th season, and it's all thanks to you. Since 2020, you've been with my journey with the TPP, exploring this burning question: How do we make classical music resonate with today's audience in fresh and captivating ways? 4 years in, and the journey has been nothing short of magical. The Piano Pod isn't just a podcast; It's a movement, a space where pianists, composers, and educators brainstorm, debate, and reimagine classical music's place in our fast-paced world. We're together on a mission to ensure classical music doesn't just survive but thrives in our modern age. But here's the thing: to keep bringing you these insightful biweekly episodes, I need your help. Every bit of support goes into The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, from hosting to high-quality recording tech, and the countless hours behind the scenes. So, do you want to be part of this journey? Click the PayPal link in the show notes or head to thepianopot.com to donate, and as a token of appreciation, I will personally mail you The Piano Pod's snazzy logo sticker. So, hit the subscribe button, spread the word, and let's continue our mission and journey as classical musicians. Now let's continue with the show.

Is there anything else before we go to—

I actually had a question. Um, one thing that I found very, very interesting was your use of AI, and it's, it's almost as if, um, how did you come to that and what are the benefits?

Ah, that's a good question. Yes, I'm actually quite— I don't want to brag, but I'm interested in technology. So let's put it that way. And it's not like I know computer code or anything like that, but I like gadgets. So I think I grew up with these cameras, not camera at me, but, you know, video recording as I growing up. And I think my interest led me one to another and somebody introduced me to this AI. It was one of those Zoom meetings. And I know that somebody else was in the Zoom room. But it's not a person. So I asked this person who is hosting this meeting, I asked him, what is, what in the world is this thing doing? You know, who is that? And he said, oh, that's an AI taking notes for us.

Oh, it's amazing.

Yes, it is.

Do you find personally, like, has there ever been anyone giving you flak because you're a classical musician and then you're on the other side? The really progressive technology, or is it just a welcome combination?

I think, you know, I don't separate my world that way. So I welcome every— because this is who I am. I love something timeless and classic, like classical music, but also in the industry of classical music is evolving too. Where a lot of people now, you know, expressing themselves, you know, through classical music, but in a very different way. As you said, you don't want to— some people don't want to identify themselves as a classical musician with their heritage, right? Like you want to be the classical musicians who love to play romantic piece. That's your identity. But some people identify themselves with their heritage, whether that is Asian or, you know, Caribbean or whatnot. So anyway, but for me, my identity as a musician is this. I have such progressive idea. I welcome all these ideas, and then some of them work really well, some don't, but, you know, but I love— I'm just very, very curious about technology and the AI is going to help my work, especially, you know, daunting tasks like admin work, you know, writing or coming up with, let's say, social media posting ideas. Sometimes I ask ChatGPT, give me 10 different ideas about posting, you know, some interesting, engaging posts about certain things.

What are your thoughts on ChatGPT or any type of AI writing, as if like, um, write me a song as if Beyoncé would write a song? What are your thoughts on, on—

you know, it's interesting because this morning I tried, um, write me a haiku about podcasting, and then AI wrote me a beautiful haiku But I didn't credit myself. I posted on Instagram story, and then I, at the end of the haiku, I said ChatGPT. So, but you know, that's a very legit question. And then I use ChatGPT to really give me some ideas about, let's say, social media posting, or what sort of, there's so many things you can do. With your, you know, when you are doing a lot more creative work, it really helps. However, you know, I listened to one of the podcasts about AI and this lawyer got in trouble because basically he used ChatGPT to come up with, you know, whatever. And, you know, it was not his language, right? So yeah, so I we really have to be careful.

Do you see it as a tool or do you see it as like an intuitive, I guess, separate entity where it's almost like, you said like the lawyer just now, it's almost as if they're cheating or they're plagiarizing, or would you look at it more as if it's a tool that's just a calculator or, you know?

Well, okay, so I think in many technologies there is ups and downs. About, you know, how to, how we use them, right? So for example, even like the rise of internet, people are freaking out, oh, am I going to be able to purchase something online? And then what if somebody stole my credit card information? But no, I mean, there's always the bad people in the way we can use internet can be also bad. There are a lot of predators out there too. I mean, I don't want to talk about something so much dark, talking about things here, but at the same time, we are able to connect this way with internet. I'm able to do podcasts because of the power of internet. I think it's the same thing with AI. Honestly, I have no intention right now or never to use it to, I don't know, cheat. No, no way. And then even through this conversation. Let's say if I ask AI, write me a script of my podcast, I can totally do that. But do people know that I am just reading off of a script? Yes, they do. And I don't want to do that. So you also have to fact-check. Fact-checking is something that we all have to do, whether you use AI or not, or internet almost like, do you believe everything in internet? No. Do you believe everything that's written on Wikipedia? No way. Right.

It's very interesting. Yeah.

But it's not about me. So anyway, but did I answer your question?

Yeah, you did. It's very interesting. One thing that just popped in my head was what if they had AI, I guess, finish Mozart, you know, just— or Chopin died very young in age, have AI write pieces in Chopin style and such. Or it's just— I'm just imagining the possibilities.

Well, yeah, there are lots of possibilities like that.

In terms of, you know, Hollywood is on strike right now, and I'm just wondering whether they're going to really ban that, the use of AI or scriptwriters and the use of writers' rooms and everything like that. Or, uh, I don't know if you're a movie buff, but if you ever watch the movie Dune, one thing that they instilled in that, I guess, uh, dystopian future is certain amounts of technology are not allowed because they're afraid of sentience within artificial intelligence. So I'm just wondering of, especially in art, how far is artificial intelligence going to go.

I know it's, it's a very interesting topic, but also scary too. I totally understand. And, you know, AI takes over everything, then are we disappearing? Are we disappearing from this Earth? But, you know, I don't know.

Uh, is humanity due for extinction? Probably not, because I would say that You can run a computer program to write— to play music, rather, but it will never be the same as a human would because maybe part of the beauty is in the imperfection itself. Maybe part of the beauty is in the wheezing as you're recording the album and you're bit by a spider. Maybe that little bit of humanity is what creates art in itself. Who knows?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then that's the point, right? Yeah. Yeah. I totally believe in humanity and our ability because of imperfection. I think in the end we win. Yeah.

We have to.

Right. I'd like to believe that. Now, before going to the next fun segment, let me just remind my listeners that Ludovic's album Amor is available on all music streaming services, correct?

Correct.

Like Apple?

Apple Music? Well, my distributor, they're still writing the contracts with Apple Music, so it will be released soon.

Okay, so Spotify, Amazon for sure? Correct.

Everything but Apple Music Classical right now.

Got it. And then to learn more about Ludovic's work, please visit rudoviczamor.com, and I will list all the information in the description. So this has been really fun. So before I let you go, uh, we have one more thing to do. It's called The Piano Pod Rapid Fire Questions. And yes, and this is part of the show where I get to ask fun questions to each guest. Now here's a little twist: as silly as these questions may sound, your answers may reveal who you truly are. So are you ready?

I'll try my best.

All right, good answer. So please answer them with the shortest responses possible. No explanation is necessary.

Understood.

All right, question number 1: What is your comfort food?

Burgers. Or no, steak. Steak, rather.

How do you like your coffee?

Black.

Cats or dogs?

Cats.

Sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise.

Summer or winter?

Summer.

Are you a good old paper book user or ebook?

Paper book.

What is your word or words to live by?

Try your best.

I don't know. Great. What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

Discipline.

Discipline. Mm. Yes. I can see that. Why? After that conversation. All right. Name 3 people, 3 people who inspire you living or dead.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, uh, Frédéric Chopin, Marcus Aurelius.

Then name one piece in your current playlist. Uh, doesn't, doesn't have to be classical.

Okay, Autumn Song by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Now, last question. Fill in the blank: Music is blank.

Music is love.

Of course!

Amor!

That's true! Perfect answer! Ding ding ding! You won! So this concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Thank you, Ludwig! For joining my show today and sharing your stories and insights, expertise. You can learn more about him and his amazing work through his website at ludvigzamor.com. You can listen to his album Amor on all major music streaming services except for Apple Music currently, and all the links are listed in the show notes. And thank you to my wonderful audience and fans for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, Please rate and review it on whatever podcasting platform you use. Remember to hit the thumbs up button, to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you are watching this episode on video. Follow TPP on social media to get the latest piano news via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with— Bye everyone, and thank you, Ludwig.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Bye everyone.