Season 2, Episode 8: Lowell Liebermann--Composer & Steinway Artist

Happy New Year 2022 and welcome back to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. And Happy New Year everyone, I am Clara Zhang. We took a month of hiatus and we're so happy to be back. Clara, how was your holiday break?

Oh, it was wonderful.

Thank you, Yukimi.

I, uh, you know, I didn't go anywhere this time, so I did an online remote meditation retreat, silent meditation retreat.

Wow, 10 days. Oh my gosh, how was it?

It was amazing. It was really something I needed, and you know, everything is so crazy outside, right?

So it was, it was great. I really had a great time. Thank you.

How was yours?

Oh, it was great. Florida? Yeah. Yes, I spent my holidays with my family members, and I got to see my niece and nephew. They are very small, so we had a great time, and the temperature throughout the time was like in 60s and 70s, and it was just so nice to get away from this cold temperature. For sure, for sure. But it's good to be back. It's good to be back. Welcome back.

Thank you.

So for anyone listening or watching our show for the first time, welcome. And Clara and I are both classical pianists and piano teachers from New York City. This podcast is for anyone who plays the piano for fun, loves listening to the piano music, or for someone who is currently pursuing a career in piano or works in the industry professionally. Professionally or who is simply curious about the world of piano music. In each episode, we interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the music, music industry. Before getting started, we want to thank our listeners for tuning in. Please rate our show or review on Apple Podcasts because every rating and review will help people find our show. For this episode, we invited Mr. Lowell Lieberman, one of the most leading, highly regarded composers of our time. He is my hero. Clara, when we first launched our show back in August 2020, I thought to myself, if one of these days I could invite— I could interview Mr. Lieberman, I'd say this podcast is a success. That's right. Well, well, well, he's here. Oh my gosh, I can't believe this. I'm a big fan of his compositions, especially his piano solo pieces.

I was learning some pieces this weekend of him.

Oh my God, I cannot believe, you know, it's like one of those moments. Yes, yes. So let's get the show started, shall we? For sure, yes, let's do it.

You're listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where we talk to the brightest minds in in the industry about how they're bringing the piano into the 21st century.

We are excited to introduce our guest of Episode 8, Dr. Lowell Lieberman, one of America's most frequently performed and recorded composers, and he is also a multiple award recipient. He has written over 140 works in all genres, several of which have become standard repertoires such as Sonata for Flute and Piano and Gargoyles for Solo Piano. Dr. Lieberman has been commissioned by many ensembles and instrumentalists, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Emerson String Quartet, and flutist Sir James Galway. Dr. Lieberman is a Steinway artist who has also written an extensive amount of piano solo and ensemble music. Last year, he released his debut solo piano album, Personal Demons under the Steinway Sons label. The repertoire includes his compositions and works by Busoni, Liszt, and Czech composer Kálabáč. Dr. Lieberman currently serves as a distinguished composition faculty member and head of the composition department at Mannes School of Music, where he founded the Mannes American Composers Ensemble devoted to performing works of living American composers. So, Mr. Lieberman, we are so honored to have you today, and thank you for joining.

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure, and please call me Lowell.

Okay, I will do that. Thank you so much. Now, I'm so excited because I've been the biggest fan, and in fact, several years ago, I was looking for Nocturnes because I was planning to do all Nocturne recital, which hasn't happened yet, But a friend of mine introduced me, "Oh, you should listen to Lowell Lieberman, and he is incredible. His pieces, piano pieces, are so great." And then he let me borrow his CD of Gargoyles, and it just blew my mind. I was like, "Wow, what in the world is this?" And so I started to research, doing research about your repertoire, you know, compositions, and then I found nocturnes. Then the first nocturne of yours I heard was Number 5. And I absolutely love it. It's just you have this such a gift of melody, very, very lyrical and mysterious and so sensitive. So I still— that's one of my favorites so far, and I plan to perform. I have been practicing. So, and I didn't realize it was dedicated to Adele Marcus. Actually, it's a small world. We just interviewed Jeffrey Beagle.

Ah, yes.

And he told me, told us about how spectacular this Adele Marcus was as a pianist and piano teacher. So can you tell us a little bit about the background?

Well, I didn't know her that well, actually. It was strange because we actually lived in the same building. Right near Lincoln Center for a while. And we also shared the same birthday, February 22nd.

Oh my goodness.

And, you know, I just knew her just, you know, through friends who were either studying with her. I did sit in on one or two of her lessons, which she liked to do as kind of master classes. Then when she died, I was actually approached to write this nocturne in memory of her. And, you know, I said, sure, I, you know, I'd be happy to. I remember the premiere, I believe, was on February 22nd, on her birthday. And I had some other gig where I couldn't go to the premiere. So that was one of my premieres that I had to miss. Yeah, but it's strange because after the first Nocturne, the second Nocturne was commissioned by Young Concert Artists in memory of Stefan de Groot, who was a pianist who had recently died. And after that, almost all of the Nocturnes ended up being dedicated in the memory of somebody. So it almost became like a curse.

Wow, really?

Yeah. But I want to talk to you more about the Nocturnes later because it's such an extensive work for you because it's, you know, starting from late '80s and then going into pretty recent that you composed. So I just want to know, you know, what really— what was the reason behind it that you had such an expensive time of composing Nocturne. So we'll get to it later. But—

Okay.

Yeah. But first of all, we just want to know your childhood. What was your childhood like? What was your— how were you exposed to music, art, literature?

My childhood that I remember was in Forest Hills, which we moved to when I was about 3. And from when I was born until I was 3, uh, we actually lived on the Upper East Side, but I don't remember any of that, in Manhattan. So I am a Manhattan native. My mother, who is of German extraction, always had this belief that music should be part of one's education, so she forced my brother and I to take piano lessons beginning— I was about 8 years old, which is a little bit late these days, you know. A lot of kids start when they're 4 or 5. I started when I was 8, and, um, the lessons unfortunately were with a little old lady who lived a couple of doors down, and she was a terrible teacher.

Oh no.

I don't know if you ever saw the TV comedy All in the Family, but she was almost the spitting image of Edith Bunker with that high kind of screechy voice. And she just, she was not a good teacher. And I really hated the piano lessons.

Oh no.

Because also she had really bad breath and she would sing in my face while I was trying to play. So, and the other thing was that she brought me up with these horrible piano courses. You know, I remember there was this John W. Schaum course and there were these exercises called A Dozen a Day. And even as an 8, 9-year-old kid, I felt that these were very condescending and that they were horrible music. Which I believe is true. And so I remember begging her to be allowed to play real music. And what I meant by real music was like the Bach Anna Magdalena Notebook or the Schumann Album for the Young. So that went on for a while and I didn't make any great progress as a pianist, but almost from the very moment that I touched keyboard, I started making up my own melodies and little pieces.

Wow.

Right from the age of 8, 8 or 9. So then when I think that lasted a couple of years and then we switched from the little old lady who lived two doors down to the little old lady who lived across the street. And that was a very, very different situation because this was a woman in her 80s. Her name was Ada Sohn. And she had been a concert pianist at the turn of the century, and she was a Leschetitsky student. She knew Joseph Hoffman. She met Paderewski. She even dated George Gershwin a couple of times.

Wow.

And she was this very tiny, you know, wrinkled woman. She kind of looked like Yoda with arthritically swollen deformed knuckles and hands, but she would sit down at her Steinway baby grand piano and bash through the Tausig transcription of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor. And I was sold. I fell in love with music. What was supposed to be a half-hour piano lesson would end up being 4 or 5 hours until my mother would call and say, "Could you please send him home for dinner?" Because she would talk about art, she would talk about literature, she'd talk about all kinds of things. When I was about 13, for some reason— oh, and I should also mention that in our house, it was almost exclusively classical music that was listened to. And neither of my parents were professional musicians. My mother loved, I don't know if you remember or know, Switched-On Bach.

I've heard of it.

Which was Walter Carlos doing Bach on the synthesizer. And this was one of the first kind of big crossover classical hits. And they're really remarkable performances. They're very musical. They're wonderful. And I fell in love with Bach. As a result of that. And then when I was about 13, I just kind of spontaneously announced to my parents that I wanted to be a composer. To this day, I have no idea what made me that sure, but I knew that's what I wanted to do. And we were at the time moving from Forest Hills to Chappaqua. My parents, actually it was mainly my mother who was in charge of those kind of things, set about looking for a piano teacher, composition teacher, and we found both in Ruth Schoenthal, who was a very good pianist, composer, a Hindemith pupil. And so I took both piano and composition with her and ended up going to Juilliard, where I studied with David Diamond and then later Percy Ketty, took piano lessons with Jacob Lateiner and ended up doing all 3 degrees at Juilliard. And by the time I graduated, I was pretty much working full-time on commissions.

And that's amazing.

Here we are now. I mean, you know, I haven't quite looked back, you know, since.

You've been having too much fun.

All these It sounds like stereotypical, like someone who has this gift of something. Like you're saying, oh, I just did this and then I went to Juilliard, like nothing. But it's usually, you know, people work so hard, but even still then they can't get it.

Well, you know, it's very funny because actually my first love was art. And I had this incredible art teacher in kindergarten at PS 101 in Forest Hills, who each week, each week she would introduce us to a different artist, whether it was Van Gogh or Mondrian or Rembrandt or whoever. And we would then spend the rest of the class copying one of his, one of their paintings. And I really fell in love with art and I was very good at it. And it always felt much more natural to me than the piano playing or the music. And I think in a way that's why I went into the music, because it was more of a challenge. The art seemed to be very, you know, easy. And so that's actually, you know, once the music took on, I dropped the art totally. And now I've come back to it again. Wow. And I'm starting again with that, more as a hobby, of course, than anything else.

But you said you're taking some lessons this afternoon?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In academic, you know, drawing, figure drawing, and very, very kind of concentrated, detailed.

Are these classes online?

Yes, yes, they are.

That makes Everything's so much easier.

Wow.

That's amazing, really, when you have all this experience and you keep on exploring more, you know? And that's—

Well, I think it's so important. I mean, this is something that a lot of my teachers have emphasized, especially David Diamond, who— I mean, he was kind of crazy in many ways. And there were good things and bad things. But one of the great things was that he was always telling us books to read, giving us books to read, talking about art, talking about all kinds of things. And I think as a musician, you need that kind of life experience and cultural experience to—

Absolutely.

—to just be a complete person, you know, complete artist.

Now that you're telling me you were more into art, I mean, art came more naturally. However, you know, you are such an accomplished pianist as well. So once you met this teacher, did you like devote yourself in practicing? Like practicing as a— of course everybody has to practice hours and hours, but I'm talking about, were you so obsessed in such a way that you spend your, you know, young adulthood or even your youth in just practice rooms or?

A lot, a lot. I mean, at that age, I wasn't quite in school, you know, that had practice rooms. So it was at home practicing. And I do have to say that it took me years to shed a lot of the bad habits that I acquired during those years. And I should say that my second teacher, Ada Sohn, although she gave me this gift of music, was a terrible teacher for just technique because she did this very strange thing. And I've often wondered about it, that she would play the piano, something very simple, like, let's say, you know, the Mozart C Major Piano Sonata. Da da da da. Yeah. And she'd playing and it would be beautiful. And she'd say, "Now try and take my arms away from the keyboard while I'm playing." And it would be like an iron statue. And she taught me that no matter how softly you're playing, you have to be always pressing into the keys with as much strength as you can. Which of course is a terrible destructive thing. And I always wondered what was the root of that. And the only thing I could imagine is that since she was studying as a little girl in the late 19th century, I'm sure that some of that was the way they viewed women as being the weaker sex. And maybe the teachers felt they had— the female students had to overcompensate by doing something like that. And of course, it's the exact opposite of what you want to do as a pianist. Right. And then unfortunately, my second teacher, Ruth Schoenthal, made me practice Hanon 3 times a day, fortissimo with high fingers. So, so basically I was taught to bang the hell out of the piano, and it took a long, long, long time to rid myself of that. Wow. Um, so I really had some, some very destructive teaching that I, I felt I needed to undo, and that was a long, long, slow process. Wow.

Yeah, I think anybody has the similar stories, you know. That's why I decided to be a teacher, because I want to give my students something, you know, better and always, you know, more progressive idea instead of just Hanging on to tradition or old ideas. Yeah.

Well, also, I mean, one comes across— it's funny, it's both, I think, mostly piano and voice, but I suppose a lot of other instruments where you run into these teachers who have one fixed idea of how it should all be, hand position, everything. And everyone's hand is different. Different. And what works for one pianist in terms of hand position is terrible for another person depending on how their bone structure is and all kinds of things.

Size and— yes, exactly. Yes, I would say that.

You know, so I think as a teacher, and this is something I do with my composition students, I don't try and impose my view of aesthetics. I try and help them develop what they want, you know, what they want to be as an artist or a composer.

Then as a young pianist, when you were younger, what pieces or composers you were drawn to? You know, which composer or composition motivated you to be a better pianist, and eventually that would lead to being a composer?

Well, I mean, I always loved Bach. You know, it's funny, I was— Me too. —from the earliest age drawn to Bach and Beethoven. And I don't really remember in those earliest days who else, you know, I would name. But certainly by the time I got to Juilliard as a composer, I mean, I felt my big influences were Bach, Beethoven, late Liszt, Busoni, Frank Martin, Shostakovich, Forêt, you know, there were a whole bunch. Nowadays, if somebody asks who my influences are, that's really difficult because I feel now more that everything you hear becomes an influence, whether negative or positive, that you take from all kinds of things, you know, and you're influenced, you know, even a car passing in the street blaring music. Right. You know, either you like it or you hate it, and that informs how you write your music. Wow. So it's more difficult for me to say nowadays who my influences are. You know, very often, I mean, a lot of critics play the game of naming influences, and you know, they often end up naming composers that I really am not that interested in. So that's always kind of amusing.

Hmm, interesting. I guess, yes, but I guess living your life, that influence comes naturally and that becomes your music or brand, I guess.

Well, it's like, you know, it's like, I suppose, cooking. I mean, I'm a very enthusiastic amateur cook and, you know, you go through phases where all of a sudden you go on, you know, You kind of grow up doing Italian and French cooking and stuff like that, but then all of a sudden you discover different Asian cuisines or you discover Portuguese cuisine and you incorporate those, you incorporate those spices. Then you find yourself making some dish and throwing in a little bit of that spice, which normally doesn't go in it, you know? And I kind of think composition is, is a bit like that.

You know, with your composition career. But let's start from Juilliard. How was the experience at Juilliard? I remember for myself, I came, you know, as you were asking about this beautiful photo, painting of Clara Schumann, I came here not knowing I was going to move here. I came here on tour, and then the next thing you know, they drop us off at Juilliard, and we were like, they chose like 10 pianists from China and they played 10 concerts in 12 days. And it was just in the art museums. It was kind of cool in a way. But it was funny. And I was like, is this the Juilliard or Juilliard? Because at that time, it's like Juilliard is kind of like heaven. Now, of course, I'm from Tianjin and there's a Juilliard opened up in my city. Right. We actually have some guests lining up. And so that's quite exciting. But at that time, So for you, what, what age did you go into Juilliard? I'm curious.

I was, um, 18, um, and I, I was the youngest, uh, student in the composition department at that point. It was a very, very small department, and it was very competitive to get into. Yeah. Um, but that was true of the entire school. I mean, Juilliard today is a very different school. Than it was back then, because then it was a conservatory, which is basically a vocational school, and it was built around the students being able to practice or compose and have their lessons. And everything else was kind of considered secondary. The other classes, everything was really— and for instance, the thing was the students then were treated more like they were already professionals who were giving concerts, who were doing things. So if somebody needed to take a month off because they were doing a European tour, they'd go to the dean's office and they'd get a note that said, "You can miss classes for a month." Right.

Oh my gosh.

Parents, parents, parents were not allowed past the lobby. At any point, at any point, you know. And then, uh, it was actually when, when Joseph Polisi took over as president of Juilliard, they made it join the accredited colleges thing, which, um, mandated certain academic things. Um, so it, it's now much more in the model of what we'd think of as a liberal arts how it is like today, right? Collegiate thing. One of the unfortunate things about that is that I constantly hear complaints from students that they don't have time to practice. They don't have time to compose because they're writing all these papers. They have all these other classes. And I remember Peter Menon saying, now this is kind of a harsh thing and it's kind of a controversial thing to say. He would say that reading Moby Dick will not make somebody a better second violinist in an orchestra. Now, the thing is, on, on the face of that, I disagree profoundly, but underneath there is a bit of a truth where I found that the really, the really talented students, the real musicians and artists would read Moby Dick on their own, would get these other things on their own. And that was the thing about the program, that it was loose enough to give somebody the freedom to, you know, explore other things. And, you know, there were no dorms in those days. You had to live in New York City on your own. You had to find a place. And I found that it forced the students to be a lot more mature, a lot more quicker. More independent in a way too. More independent. And so it was just a very, very different time, a very different atmosphere. Yeah. And I think certain things were lost because, you know, a lot of schools seem to be taking the attitude, a lot of conservatories, that, okay, we can't count on this musician getting a second violin position. And so we have to ensure that they're diverse enough that, you know, that they can do this, they can do that, they can do this. And that's kind of a watering down of what they're there to do. You know, I, when I was at Juilliard, I composed morning, noon, and night, or practiced, and that was about it. You know, again, it was very different times. I was lucky enough that I didn't have to hold down 3 jobs in order to pay for tuition because I was— True. I was on full tuition for the entire time I was at Juilliard. Very few schools are doing that these days.

And especially Juilliard don't have that at all anymore, right? For many, many years. Yes.

And students have to hold down multiple jobs just to put themselves through school, and then they still end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Right. Exactly.

You know, so, um, You know, I went to a conservatory when I was, uh, well, 11 in China, so in the pre-college division. Also, it was already— I think that, you know, because there were so little schools in China that they built it in such a way, you know, Julia is kind of like how we want to build our schools over there, right? So, right, right, living in the dorms and all of this, and there's just a lot of practicing. I don't know, it was, um I mean, I survived to take care of the piano, but it was very hard. So I decided to move to Kansas. You know, it's like I could play with the cows, I guess, if I wanted to. Very different world. But I'm grateful. But I hear a lot of musicians saying how tough it is, you know, surviving these years. Yeah.

You know, the other thing that was very different in those days, I think, is that I mean, I think things were very different the way the students treated each other because, you know, one certainly had friends at Juilliard, but professionally there was a tremendous sense of competition, and students were not supportive of each other. They tended to be a little bit more on the catty side, and this is something that I find to be very different today, when I see a lot of the students being much, much more supportive and kind of forming little groups with each other and helping each other and performing each other's music and, and supporting their colleagues in a way that was not so much the case back then. It was a lot more cutthroat.

I see. So things are changing, and that's—

I think so, you know.

That's very positive. Yeah. And I want to ask what was the most challenging of becoming a composer? But it seems like you had it so— seems easy. You know, it's just, you just become a composer.

No, it wasn't easy because the thing about composing is, you know, when you're a composer, your income comes from basically 3 sources. The first one is commission fees. When somebody pays you to write a piece of music. And then there are royalties, there are performance royalties, and there are recording, you know, recording mechanical royalties. Before, you know, the commission fees are something one can never count on because you never know when the next commission is coming. I was very lucky that the commissions were frequent enough that I I mean, just a handful of my pieces were written without commissions, but the royalties from the other things only start accruing once you have a big enough catalog and frequent enough performances that that income starts coming in. So for the first several years after graduating from Juilliard, even though I was constantly busy, It was a challenge. And, you know, I lived off my credit cards often and built up a lot of debt until I could pay it off. I would get another commission payment or something. That went on for quite a long time, you know, and there were scary moments. There were a lot of moments where I thought, you know, this is not working. Am I going to have to give this up? Yeah. Wow. But, you know, this is something I do tell my students. You don't become a composer because you think it's a cool thing to do or because you think you'll become rich and famous doing it. You become a composer because you have to, because you can't imagine doing anything else. And I really think it's those composers and possibly other musicians who don't give up who find a way of making it work that eventually get that success. So it's, it's, it can be brutal. It can be a brutal life, you know. Oh my goodness.

But you tough it through and—

Yeah, well, you know, here we are.

We are definitely benefiting from all your wonderful work. So out of all that, what do you feel like the most fulfilling part of being a composer? At what point did you feel, hmm?

Well, the most fulfilling part is when you have, you know, some big performance, the premiere, whether it's an opera or a ballet or a symphony or a piano concerto. Of course, recordings are very fulfilling. All those things, those moments are very short-lived because that happens and you get up the next morning and it's like, well, now what do I do? That's, that's over. You know, there's never— it's funny. I think this is true of everybody in this kind of profession. When you're there at the moment and there is the applause, you're on a little bit of a high and you somehow expect there to be some kind of reverberation afterwards. But you get home, you go to sleep, you wake up in the morning and there's dead silence, you know, because that, that kind of thing doesn't come with you. You know, it doesn't travel with you. So, you know, it's on to the next project. And it's really funny, but because I'm— when I'm writing, it's, it's very intense. It's like morning until night. It's not necessarily pleasant because it's, it's difficult, concentrated work and there's a lot of anxiety involved. Whenever I finish this piece, there's this moment of bliss where I say, I'm done. I can take the next 2, 3 weeks off and just do what I want. You know, and I always have these fantasies of, I don't know, going to museums, going shopping, you know, just doing whatever is fun or something. And kind of that lasts for a few hours, maybe a day. And then it's like, what do I do with myself? I don't know what to do.

I need to write another piece, right? It's fun, you know, it's really just, um, it's actually quite amazing to hear from your experience of living through all of this, right? Like, you know, going to Juilliard and making it and worrying about it in the beginning, and then eventually— now I want to ask one almost a little gossipy question since I did grew up in China and we heard, um, is this called, uh, the romance Etude and Blessing for Piano Four Hands. Did you compose that for Long Long and Gina's Alice wedding? Is that— Yes, yes. Oh my goodness, did you actually play for their wedding?

That was commissioned by Steinway as a wedding present.

Wow, that is so nice.

Alice Redlinger, right? It was presented to them in Paris. Their wedding, of course, was at Versailles, and it was presented to them by Steinway the day after the wedding. Wow. And no, to my knowledge, they have not played it. Played it? Oh, okay.

We were wondering. Maybe they are playing.

You know, I saw them in some Chinese reality TV shows, and so they were always encouraging each other.

You know, this may sound incredible, but I am more often than not the last person to find out about a performance of my music.

Oh wow, really?

Because people, if it's published, people just perform it. They don't tell me, you know, even if it's a performance in New York. I, I've often found out about performances right in New York that I could have gone to that nobody bothered telling me about. Either they think I'm dead already, or, you know, they just assume that, you know, I'm too busy or something. And performers should never assume that. Always let the composer know when you're doing a work of theirs. Right. We know.

So, if it's Yukimi and I performing, you have to be notified.

Even with orchestra pieces, my opera. I found out by accident that somebody was doing my opera, you know. You know, so that's a little bit of a strange feeling when your work has this life that's beyond you, that doesn't include you. Right.

So speaking of that, so life, you know, the music becomes— your composition becomes just its own thing, right? So one of the pieces that I first heard was the Gargoyles, and then seems like that took off. Like, you know, you gave birth, but you know, the piece just went off. And so what it's like, I mean, it's an incredible piece, but now it's the standard repertoire for pianists, and all the young pianists are so eager to play that piece, and it's been played by so many recording artists. And then you are you get to listen to them on CDs and on Spotify, everything. What do you think of that? What's that kind of feel?

I think it's great. I'm very happy. You know, there are also certain strange feelings associated with something like that. I mean, for example, my friend and fellow colleague at Mannes, Pavlina Dukovska, came back from China from doing a a competition or a festival or something and said that, well, first of all, that it is one of the most performed piano pieces in China. Oh, wow. You know, like every student ends up playing it at one time or another, but that also there was a pirate Chinese edition of the music where the title was— the title The title was mistranslated as "Water Falling Off of Roof Tiles." Oh no. Things like that. When one comes across things like that, the Gargoyles, I mean, there've been many occasions where I just discover online a new recording of it that I didn't know about. I mean, it's been recorded something like 30 times already.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But it's an incredible piece and really everybody, everybody wants to play it. So then you, um, you produced your solo debut album last year, right? The album is called Personal Demons. And then you actually recorded the suite. I mean, the whole entire piece. And what made you want to revisit?

Well, I've been a frustrated performer almost my entire career, and I have performed in chamber music quite a bit, but I've not done— I've done almost no solo performing because, you know, like I said before, when I'm composing, it's very intense and I basically have to just keep composing until the piece is done. It doesn't work for me to practice other music while I'm composing, to interrupt that and occupy my head with other music. So I would have to limit my piano practicing and playing to breaks in between composing. Which meant I would have to get my chops up very quickly and learn pieces very quickly. And so I limited it to chamber music where I could have the music in front of me. So I had been wanting for a long time to do more solo playing, to record a solo album. I had started making plans, but then when the pandemic hit, I had just finished two, two commissions and all of my upcoming commissions were either canceled or indefinitely postponed. So I just had this stretch of what I knew was going to be at least a year in front of me with nothing to write. And I thought, okay, this is the time for me to get back to the piano and to record this album I always wanted to record. And so I basically practiced morning, noon, and night for 9 months and then drove. I drove with my partner to Michigan from New York to Michigan to the— That's a long drive. Yeah, to the studio of Sergei Kvitko, who's a wonderful pianist himself and engineer and photographer, and recorded it in his studio. And the funny thing was the original album was just supposed to be Gargoyles, The Cabalotch Preludes, Totentanz, and Fantasie Camperpuntistico. And once he started editing it, we realized that it was about 2 minutes too long to fit on a CD, and there was nothing I felt I could remove. So we, we both decided that the only way to go was to add some more pieces and make it a 2-CD set. So I added the, uh, the Schubert, and I added my apparitions. Yes. And I added my 10th Nocturne. Now, the Gargoyles was very, very interesting and scary for me because I had never learned them.

I had never played them. Really?

And yeah, because, you know, when you compose a piece, you can kind of, as a pianist, you can kind of play it, you know, as you're writing it. But to learn a piece as a performer is a totally different thing because that is 95% muscle memory. Mm. Yes, of course. And so when I learn my own music, I have to take extra pains to learn it even more carefully than when I'm learning somebody else's music. Because as a composer, you think you know it better than you actually do. As a performer. So there was that issue. But then there was also the issue of Yu-Ju Wang has played it. Yes. It's on YouTube. Stephen Huff played it and recorded it. I mean, all these wonderful— and there were at that point, let's say, 25 different recordings. I had to make sure that mine could at least stand in that company. The very top of that company. So that was very intimidating for me. Um, it was a big challenge, but I thought, you know, someone could say, well, then why do it? Um, I think pianists are interested to hear a document of the composer playing it and what his thoughts on the tempi are and, you know, all of those kind of things. So I also thought, for my debut piano CD, everyone's going to be curious to hear, or at least every pianist who's played them is going to be curious to hear the composer play Gargoyles. So, you know, that, that I kind of put for that reason. The rest of the repertoire were just pieces that have meant a lot to me throughout my career and I feel influenced me and pieces that I just really wanted to record because I love them.

Yeah, and you included Nocturne No. 10, which is also one of my favorites too. So I want to talk a little bit more about nocturnes. And as we talked at the beginning, you know, you— basically the time span extends in 24, 25 years because I did some research. And I'm just curious, you composed sonatas, and I'm— No. 3 sonata is my favorite, and But this nocturne has been such a, I don't know, almost like a, as a composer, lifelong composition. So do you know the reason? Yes.

I mean, I've always been, first of all, attracted to the genre. It actually started out not with Chopin's nocturnes, but with the John Field nocturnes. Okay. Yes. And I was very interested to read that Samuel Barber said the same about his nocturnes. That it was more influenced by John Field than by Chopin. And, you know, it's funny because my appreciation of Chopin was something that didn't come until much later. I just— something in me didn't click with Chopin when I was, you know, in my early years. And that came much, much later. I, you know, I do have this side of me that is kind of attracted to some of the more melancholic or dark— Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. Nice. —things. And so, you know, the nocturne is kind of a natural thing with that. And there— but there's also a much more kind of pragmatic explanation, which is that if someone approaches me and they say, we want a short piano piece, 5, no more than 7 minutes, That's a tricky thing. It's actually difficult to do something as a composer in a short piece. And the Nocturne lends itself very easily to that. So at one point after I wrote the first couple of Nocturnes, I thought, oh, I want to do 12 of these. I'm going to do one in each key. And, you know, whenever I get a commission for a short piece, it'll be a nocturne. At some point I repeated the key center, so I kind of blew up my own plan there. And then somehow when I got to Nocturne number 10, I said, this is it, I've— this is all— I've said everything I want to. And then I actually did end up writing one more nocturne after that.

Yes. 11. Absolutely gorgeous.

Nocturne number 10 was, was very interesting because my first opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was commissioned and premiered by the Monte Carlo Opera. Mm-hmm. And as a result of that, I became good friends with the director of the Monte Carlo Opera, whose name was John Mordler, and he ended up hiring my partner as a pianist for some of their productions later on. And, you know, when he would be working in Monte Carlo, I would, you know, get a plane ticket and visit him for some of that time, and we'd have a, you know, nice time in Monte Carlo. He was in Monte Carlo working on a production of The Medium by Giancarlo Menotti that was being directed— that was being directed by Minotti's adopted son Chip. And Minotti came over with Chip to help oversee the production, and Minotti died in Monte Carlo. Oh! And I, I had already bought a ticket to visit William that weekend. William, my partner. And I got a phone call from the director of the opera there, who knew I was going to come, he said, uh, Saturday is the memorial for, uh, Giancarlo Menotti at the Opera House, the memorial concert. Would you be willing to write a short piece and play it at the memorial? And I said, of course, I'd be honored to. Um, and I had met Menotti, and he was very nice, very, very supportive. "Um, so I was happy to do that. I hung up the phone and I realized, wait a second, this is Wednesday. I'm leaving on Friday morning. I, I can't possibly write a piece." So I, I called him back and I said, "John, you know, I'm so sorry, but I, I spoke too quickly. There's no way I can write a piece in that amount of time. Is it okay if I pick something already written appropriate and played? And I was thinking maybe the first Nocturne or second Nocturne, whatever. And he said, sure, lol, I understand. So I went and picked a few pieces off the shelf and took them to the piano, and I just all of a sudden got a little idea. I just kind of played some open fifths, and in 3 hours I had written the 10th Nocturne in one in one sitting of 3 hours. So I called him back, I said, "John, I wrote a piece." Um, and that then, I was playing it on Saturday in front of this kind of gala crowd, and I had, you know, one day to practice it, which I was very nervous about. I get to the airport and my flight was canceled. Oh my goodness. And the flight was supposed to get me in to Monte Carlo that morning, the Saturday morning, where I would be able to go to the hotel, rest, eat something, you know, dress, whatnot, to make the, the dress rehearsal with the concert immediately following. My flight was canceled and it was rescheduled for the evening flight. So, and I ended up— it didn't pay for me to go back home and come back, so I just waited at the airport. I get to Monte Carlo. I was absolutely exhausted. I didn't sleep on the plane, and I, I got in where they had to drive me directly to the dress rehearsal, and then I had to run, you know, to the hotel to change, literally 15 minutes, and run right back for the concert. I was so tired and so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open, and And, you know, they said, okay, it's your turn. And I kind of stumbled on stage. I was by that point so tired and so not caring and just that I don't think I ever played anything better in my life. I was so relaxed and every shade of piano and pianissimo and pianississimo just came out beautifully. And, you know, Oh, naftali. Just one of those weird things. Wow. But I, I know, I know pianists who have had to step in at the last minute and do something just like that, but it'd be like playing a Brahms concerto in Hong Kong, and I don't know how they do that, you know. I just don't know. This was a 5-minute piece.

Some pianists have to do that for a whole concerto or Yeah, it's the ultimate test for a musician. So your musicianship really comes through, I think, in moments like that.

Or it's just good luck.

They say good luck doesn't just come only for the prepared ones, right? Well, oh my goodness. So thank you so much. This is just such an amazing conversation. I'm just so inspired. And, well, we were curious of the pandemic life during this. And then we talked a little bit how, you know, you did the recording. And so how did that affect your career in any way or—

Well, well, yeah, I mean, performances stopped, commissions were put on hold. There was something— this is going to sound terrible, but there was something terribly relaxing about it, that there was all of a sudden no pressure, right? It almost felt like this is the way life should be, just not, not all of this outside buzz and whatnot. And, you know, I'm very lucky and very grateful that we are in a house with a backyard. We had our, you know, our Phoebus, our dog. Yes. Um, I had students who had to spend the whole year in a 300-square-foot studio, you know, and, and, um, you know, it's, it's different. So, you know, one, one should count one's blessings, you know, that one has. I, I did a lot of cooking, you know. I'm a very enthusiastic chef, amateur chef, as I think I mentioned already. And so I, I was cooking for us every night trying out new recipes, you know, baking, doing all kinds of things. At its— at the height of things, I realized that I had gone up about 25 pounds. Same. Don't tell anybody. I managed to lose almost all of that weight. And then in the past maybe 6 months, I put it all back. On again. So I need to now start being strict again about my diet and, you know, cutting out alcohol and stuff, which is a huge weight gain thing. Um, so it's, you know, it's back and forth, but we are surviving, and thankfully we are still here and, uh, maintain our health. So, but really, the— I mean, for me, the saving grace, I think, was recording that album and the practicing because it gave me a goal and a very intense goal that I could just submerge myself in. Right. And one of the reasons I'm enjoying the piano playing and the recording so much is that composition, composing, as I said before, there's an— there's always an element of anxiety to it. You are creating something out of nothing and you don't quite know a lot of the time where it's going or how it's going to turn out. So there's, there's constant anxiety for me with the composing. There's none of that with the piano playing because you practice, you do your work, it gets better. You work with the metronome, you do that. And I'm also playing other people's music that I love. So for me, there's no downside to that. So that, that really saved me. It did light a certain fire where now I don't want to stop doing the recording. So as you know, coming out with my second album on Steinway, which is piano music of a contemporary composer, David Hackbridge Johnson. That's right. I'm planning a third recording, which I'm practicing for. Wow.

So, so yeah, I would— we would like to know more about your latest project. So First one, you produced Personal Demons on the Steinway and Sons label we just talked about, and which is available on all music streaming services, plus you can purchase the CD on Amazon. And you also have another album that was released in November, last November, Frankenstein Ballet.

Yes, the orchestral score to my ballet on On Frankenstein was released in a magnificent recording on Reference Recordings with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and Martin West conducting. And that's just sonically, it's such a beautifully produced recording. I'm very happy with that.

That's just the audio only, not the video. But okay. Now, what it's like to— I'm just very curious what it's like to compose for ballet music? Um, do you work with a choreographer and then talk in detail, or you have this already musical idea and just, here is my music?

This was very challenging because the— this was the choreographer's idea to do a ballet on Frankenstein. Um, it was not my idea, although strangely enough, and I didn't quite remember this when I agreed to the project, but I, I came across a list list that I used to keep of opera projects to consider, you know, different novels, and Frankenstein was actually on that list. There was a point where I was thinking of doing a Frankenstein opera. So when Liam Scarlett approached me to do a Frankenstein ballet, I said, you know, I'd love to, because this was going to be a first, a full evening ballet commissioned by the Royal Ballet in London and San Francisco Ballet became the co-commissioner. And when he first approached me, I just for some reason assumed that he was going to update the action to either modern times or something because he had done an updated Hansel and Gretel and he did a couple of ballets on known stories. When we finally met, he told me, no, he wants this to be absolute period Mary Shelley. So that involved a certain readjustment in my mind as to what I was going to do musically. It was quite challenging because first of all, he didn't get me the scenario until very late in the game. So it turned out that I had less, less than a year to write about 2.5 hours of music, which is a lot. Um, and I had to literally figure out and count the days and say, okay, and it worked into I had to write a minute of music every day until the delivery date, otherwise I would not make it. And that meant a minute of music is usually about the limit of what one can compose in a day, unless it's you're on an absolutely extraordinary run. It's usually about a minute of music of really hard work. So I knew that if I composed a minute one day, the next day, if I didn't compose anything I was happy with, I knew the next day I had to compose 2 minutes and so on and so forth. So I had to keep track like that. It was the most stressful year of my life writing that ballet. And the other thing was that he gave me a scenario that everything was broken down into minutes. This pas de deux needs to be 5 minutes, this transition needs to be 30 seconds, this needs to be so and so. But he would have these large scenes. So for instance, he'd say the tavern scene is— I forget what it was, you know, 7 minutes or something. And I'd say to him, well, what's going on in, in the tavern scene? I need to know. And he'd say, I don't know, because he was one of these choreographers that would wait for the music before he would decide any of them, the, the moves or anything. So that was also quite, quite challenging. And, you know, there were often— there were parts I'd send him something and he'd say, oh no, that's not at all what I had in mind, you know, can you write something else? So I'd have to recompose, you know, a whole another 9 minutes of music or something. So it was very, very challenging.

Then, so then you have this latest coming up. So on February 4th, you mentioned that it's that they are not your pieces, but the pieces composed by David Hackbridge Johnson.

Yes. The new album is called The Devil's Lyre, L-Y-R-E. Very interesting. So I was on Facebook one day and a colleague of mine was very enthusiastically posting about this new CD of orchestral music by an English composer I'd never heard of, David Hackridge Johnson. And it was an enthusiastic enough post that I ordered the CD. I thought, I need to hear this. Also because the pieces on the CD, the opus numbers were in the 200s and 300s. Wow. And this was like Symphony No. I forget if it was 9, Opus 326 or something. And I thought, my God, what's going on here? So I ordered the CD and I found the music to be absolutely fantastic, just beautifully orchestrated. I mean, dynamic, terrific music. And ended up ordering the other 2 CDs of his orchestral music that had been released on the Toccata Classics label. And then I thought, okay, let me see if this guy is on Facebook. And he was on Facebook. So I sent him a friend request and he accepted it. And, you know, with a very nice note that he was— oh, I forget what he said, but it was something flattering. Um, and so we had this kind of Facebook friendship for a while, and then there was one— several months later, I had, uh, posted someone's performance of my Four Etudes on Songs of Brahms that I, I came across, a video or something. And— oh no, sorry, it was my Four Etudes on Songs of Robert Franz. I, I did two sets, one on Brahms songs and one on Robert Franz songs. Um, and for those who don't know, Robert Franz is a very neglected German Romantic composer of songs, a contemporary of Schumann. So I posted this video and he made a comment asking where he could get the score. So I said, I'll be you know, DM me your address and I'll be happy to send it to you. And when I was putting the package together, I just thought, oh, I'll throw in Personal Demons. So I sent him the recording and the music of my piece, and he got— he got the package. And then a couple of days later, he sent me this very enthusiastic, uh, text about the CD and how wonderful it was, and he wrote, um, and it's inspired me to write a nocturne, which I hope to send to you soon. Well, the very next day, he sent— he texted me the music and the audio file of Nocturne Number 7, subtitled The Devil's Liar, which he dedicated to me. Oh my goodness. And I ran to the piano and played through it and thought it this absolutely wonderful piece, just so coloristic and kind of taking off from that world of, you know, late Scriabin and maybe Sorabji, very coloristic, very interesting writing and harmonies. And at the time I was planning as my next recording project to maybe do a recording of all contemporary pieces. By different, different composers. So I texted David back and I said, would you mind if I recorded this? And he said he'd be thrilled. And then I said to myself, wait a second, this is Nocturne Number 7. I wonder what the other nocturnes are like. So I asked him, could you send me the other 6 nocturnes and maybe some other pieces? Which he did. And I played through those and thought they were all terrific. And so I just dumped the plans to do a mixed composer recording and decided I was going to do an all David Hankridge Johnson recording. And by the way, I should mention that, um, when he sent me Nocturne Number 7, he didn't put an opus number on it. So I had to call him, you know, when I was doing the liner notes, and I said, but by the way, what opus number was Nocturne No. 7, and it's Opus 405. Geez. Wow. And, you know, I wrote the liner notes for the recording, and in the liner notes I say that the fact that he's written pieces into the 400s is extraordinary on its own, but what makes it really remarkable is the quality and variety of the music. Um, of course. Wow. Um, I think he's a, he's a terrific composer, and, um, I'm very, very excited about this release and hope that it makes a lot of other people explore his music, because in fact most of it is unpublished. And, um, aside from the, the 3 recordings of orchestral music, this will be Those are the only other recordings of this music besides this one that comes out. Wow.

Okay, well, I can't wait to hear. So this will be published on February 4th on all music streaming services, and of course you can purchase on Amazon, Presto Music.

Okay, all the, all the retail, you know, music out CD outlets.

Sure. And of course, we can also check out your website, lowelllieberman.com. Yes, I will make sure to put that in the description section. So then, so those are current projects. And do you have any future projects in mind or certain pieces you want to compose? Or—

yes, I've got, um, two big commissions that are coming up that I cannot say anything about yet. Okay. And I do have a recording project that I'm working towards now that I also don't really want to— okay, anything about. No problem. You know, I'm doing both. There's, there's another recording project coming up, and there's, uh, there will be more music.

Wow, that's exciting. Stay tuned, right? Yes, exactly. Yes. So before we go, we have like one or two more questions. So we would like to know your really personal things. Like, what is your hobby? Like, do you have any things? Like, you mentioned cooking, but besides that, cooking is a big one, which also comes with entertaining.

I love giving dinner parties and I, uh, one of the things I like doing is making sure that everything I served I have made myself, from the baguettes to the— wow, at one point I was even making my own goat cheese and butter and stuff like that. So I really enjoy that. I, I enjoy entertaining. Um, as I said before, I'm getting back to, uh, the visual art and drawing and like that. And then, you know, it doesn't leave a lot of time for other stuff, you know, beyond the— of course, the practical aspects of, you know, keeping up one's website and all those things I hate doing. You know, people ask you for program notes or a new bio or stuff like that. One of the other things that I really do enjoy a lot is gardening. Growing herbs that I use for my cooking and so on and so forth. Wonderful. Um, so then, then, and, oh well, there is one more thing which is, um, a kind of home improvement because I've basically, um, you know, done this entire house, everything in the house, floors, ceilings, you know. Everything. And I love those kind of do-it-yourself projects. My father was very handy with that kind of stuff, and that's something I picked up from him. So I enjoy tinkering. I enjoy doing, you know, woodwork and all those kind of things.

Sounds like you've lived such a rich life so far, and it's just, you know, it's so much possibility and so much fun.

And Oh, there are times when I get bored, like everyone else. Got it.

Well, I'm sure you will go explore other things, right? And so we just have one last question. We want to know, maybe you have some advice for the young composers or musicians in general, especially at this time.

You know, for young composers, I tell my students, write the music that you want to hear. Don't let anyone else tell you what you should be writing. Or what you should like. Write the music that you want to hear. And I would say that for performers, play the music you want to play. Yeah, follow, follow your dream. Follow your heart. Yeah, absolutely. It's such a cliché, but it's true, you know.

So true. Thank you so much. Oh, you're welcome. It's been a wonderful interview so far, and it's so sad to say it's time for for us to go, but before we go, we want to end this interview with fun questions. So, okay, it's called The Piano Pod's rapid-fire questions. So just give us short, short, shortest possible answers, please. Okay. All right, so I'm gonna start. Question number 1: What is your comfort food? Sauerbraten. Cats or dogs?

Dogs. I've had— I should, should say something that I know this is not rapid-fire, but I started out with pet mice, graduated to a pet rat, then had two hairless cats, and have now settled down with dogs. Okay, okay. It's a long progression.

Yes, very unique. What is your word or words to live by?

Honesty.

What is the most important quality you look for in other people? Honesty.

What is the worst quality in people you want to stay away from? Dishonesty.

Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

Bach, Beethoven, James Galway. Name one piece in your current playlist.

Schubert B-flat Sonata. So you get only one song or piece to listen to for the rest of your life, what is it?

Can it be something like The Well-Tempered Clavier? Or is that too big? No, that's great. Music is life.

Yay! Thank you so much, you cast. Okay, so thank you so much, Lowell, for joining us, and it's been a wonderful hour and a half we spent together. And so this concludes this episode of The Piano Pod, and thank you once again for Mr. Lieberman for joining us and sharing your stories and insights and expertise. We can find more information about him at LowellLieberman.com. I would like to remind our audience to check out his latest album, The Devil's Liar, which will be released on February 4th and available at any music streaming services and on Amazon and on his website. That's right. Thank you, thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you to our wonderful audience and fans for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review on whatever podcasting platform you use. If you're watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and be sure to subscribe to our channel. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram and LinkedIn. The links are in the description below.

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We will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Thank you so much, Yukimi Song.

Thank you, and bye everyone.

Goodbye everyone.