Season 4 Episode 15: Danny Holt - Pianist, Percussionist, Composer, & Producer

This episode is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, PH Media Studio, championing unique artistic self-expressions through custom-designed websites tailored exclusively for their clients. Welcome back to another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, here tradition meets innovation. We bridge the timeless beauty of the piano with the dynamic pulse of today's world. I am your host, Yukimi Song. Wow, it's hard to believe that we're already on the 15th episode of the season. Time flies, doesn't it? I just wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of our faithful listeners and viewers. Without your support and love, this show wouldn't be possible, so thank you. Each season seems to have its own unique trend or theme based on the guests we have on the show and, and also based on what's happening around us. At that time. Last season, for example, we talked a lot about audience engagement, but Season 4, which is currently underway, has become a celebration of creativity. It's been amazing to see how many imaginative and innovative people there are in the classical music world, and our guest today is a perfect example of that. I'm excited to introduce Danny Holt, a pianist, percussionist, composer, and producer. You might remember Dr. Michael Kunrod from a few episodes back. He's a former faculty member at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Well, he recommended that I get in touch with Danny Holt, and I'm so glad he did. I checked out Danny's videos and was really blown away by his repertoire range, from traditional Mozart pieces to contemporary music and even hidden gems from 200 years ago. And his piano percussion project is just incredible. I have never seen anything like it. The way he plays both instruments simultaneously is mind-boggling. So before inviting him on the show, let me just read Danny's bio very quickly. Praised as phenomenal by the esteemed music critic Alan Rich and celebrated as one of the local heroes of the Los Angeles music scene by LACityBeat.com, pianist Danny Holt has captivated audiences worldwide. From the prestigious stages of Carnegie Hall and the Walt Disney Concert Hall to the cozy corners of clubs, art galleries, churches, and private residences, Danny embodies the true spirit of a performer, always in search for a piano and an audience, no matter where they may be. Danny's artistic journey is marked by a diversity of collaborations that span the spectrum of the musical world. He's shared the stage with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Blue Man Group, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and more. His dedication to his craft has earned him fellowships at renowned music institutes such as the Wild Music Institute at Carnegie Hall and the New England Conservatory's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. But Danny's passion doesn't stop at avant-garde contemporary music. He is equally fervent about bringing to light obscure piano works from the 18th and 19th centuries, delighting audiences with his performances of rarely heard compositions and sharing the intriguing stories of lesser-known composers. His discography, which includes the recent solo album Piano Music of Mike Garson, among other solo, chamber, and orchestral works, showcases his eclectic tastes and is published by labels such as Innova Recordings, New World Recordings, Deutsche Grammophon, and more. Danny's academic credentials are as impressive as his musical achievements, with degrees from the California Institute of the Arts, Hampshire College, Smith College, and Interlochen Arts Academy. Before we dive in, a warm welcome to new listeners And a big thank you to our faithful TPP fans. Don't forget to rate and review the show on your favorite podcasting platform. Dear TPP fans and listeners, I am thrilled to welcome today's guest to start our conversation. So join us as we dive into the world of Danny Holt, exploring the depths of his musical explorations and the stories behind his illustrious career. Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century. Here we are with today's guest, pianist, percussionist, composer, and producer Danny Holt. Welcome, Danny, to The Piano Pod. Thank you for being here today. Yay!

Hello! Thanks for having me.

You're truly a multifaceted musician. I mean, from, you know, being the traditional classical solo pianist who also plays avant-garde music, and of course such an accomplished percussionist, and combining the two, piano and percussion. I watched your video clips on YouTube, on your YouTube channel, performing David Johnson's Antares. Revenge, and then many others. And then you also wear a producer hat for this long-standing concert series in the West Coast. Looks like in the middle of nowhere, like a desert, right? It's quite beautiful. And as well as you are a recording artist and composer. But I want to start our conversation with your recording of Mike Larson's Homage to Chopin and Godowsky. His piece and your performance really truly blew me away. Wow, what a, what a great performance. And then watched your interview also with Mike Garson. I think you did a little bit of an interview session, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he's a very interesting and fascinating artist. I never knew of him, shame on me. And then I'm learning a lot by doing this interview. But, and very interesting, and I would love to eventually interview him too. But I love the fact that the piece is the sort of the proof that classical music world is not stale or plateau, but actually very much alive and constantly evolving. So tell us about the piece and then composer.

Yeah, well, like you, I had not heard of Mike Garson. Um, he, he does have a, a loyal following, uh, but he's not exactly a household name. Really interesting character, and actually the story of how we met is kind of fun. Years ago, you know, it's funny, at the beginning of our interview, you were very patient with me as I overcame some technological hurdles. I am not very good with technology, but one rare example of when I was actually an early adopter of a new technology is in 2004, I started using a product called The Music Pad. This is before iPads and before tablets were mainstream. A company, called Freehand Systems, had created a piece of hardware and software specifically for reading music. They called it The Music Pad. Even in 2004, this piece of hardware looked outdated. It was really large and clunky. It was like, it was like 3/4 of an inch or an inch thick. And this, you know, the screen wasn't quite the full size of, you know, a standard page of a music score. And it was, it had its glitches, but It did basically work. And I was using it quite a bit, in particular for these really wild David Lang pieces that I was performing and recording, pieces that would be virtually impossible to memorize. And the only other solution would be to do the whole, the, you know, contemporary music cliché of having like a giant like poster board with all these pages reduced down to 50% and taped together or something. So the Music Pad was a helpful tool. Mike and I met through MusicPad because I was speaking with folks at the company trying to help them increase awareness about their product. And I was saying like, well, hey, you know, for music like this, like in the contemporary classical music world, there are a lot of applications for this product. I'd love to help you kind of gain some awareness. And they were interested in doing some kind of presentation at CalArts where I was in grad school at the time. And I told them, I said, you know, coming into a music school, a conservatory, you know, doing some kind of like product demonstration or sales pitch isn't really like the right vibe. But if you have like an artist who happens to use the music pad, we could bring in as a guest artist, that might work. Anyways, this is way more information than you need and you can edit this all down later. But suffice it to say, um, Mike Garson and I first met when I facilitated, uh, his visit to campus to CalArts as a guest artist. And he walked up to me and he, I mean, he looks like a total rock star. He's like, I, I might be wrong about this, but what I remember is it seemed like he was like, you know, decked out in like all leather head to toe, like sunglasses, like looked like a total rock star. Comes in and I'm like shaking his hand and, you know, saying, hey, I'm, I'm Danny Holt. I'm the one who, uh, arranged this visit. Thank you so much for being here. And as, as he's shaking my hand, he says, Danny Holt, hey, you're an amazing pianist, man. And I was like, surely you must be thinking of someone else because at that point I was still in grad school and I couldn't think of any reason why he would've heard of me, even though I, you know, I had started my professional performing career. Um, and it turns out that 4 or 5 years before that, Mike had been the judge for this Yamaha competition that I ended up winning. But it was one of these competitions where you just sent in, um, a recording. Uh, so it was, we had never met in person. Person. He'd never heard me play in person, but he'd heard my recordings and he remembered me and he had filed this away. He remembered like, yeah, this Danny Holt kid. I, I think that, that guy might, he might get my music. And so sure enough, like the universe brought us together. And then I, I heard some of his music and the very first time I heard Mike Garson's music, I became completely transfixed. And, um, I am a pretty intuitive musician in some ways, and when I hear a piece of music that I really like, you know, that really speaks to me, like, it's— I have that kind of immediate visceral reaction, and that's what Mike's music was like. And in fact, the very first— come to think of it, the very first piece of Mike's music that I heard was his homage to Chopin and Godotsky. Um, but what I didn't realize at the time is that the recording I was listening to was not Well, it was his performance played on a disklavier by a computer at a faster tempo than he had originally played it. And, um, yeah, so it really, it blew my mind. I mean, the piece blew my mind, but the, what I was hearing blew my mind too, because I was like, oh my God, I can't believe these fingers are moving that fast. But I felt a little bit better about it once I got to know him and got to understand his process and realized that what I was hearing was actually, and I can take a step back and explain this in case some of your listeners aren't familiar with the technology. So a Disklavier is Yamaha's product that's been around since the '80s that allows you to have a real piano, an acoustic piano, not a keyboard or a digital piano. And in Mike's case, a beautiful Yamaha Concert Grand. Actually, that was a very interesting piano too. It was a one-of-a-kind prototype Wow. It was like a ghost piano. It had no serial number. And he had saved this piano from the dreaded piano crusher, which I didn't know there was such a thing. But apparently piano manufacturers, when they make these kind of one-off prototypes, once they've kind of figured out whatever they wanted to figure out, they usually, they destroy them. Which is, as pianists, it's like horrifying to think about. So, so he had, he had convinced Yamaha to, to save this, uh, beautiful 9-foot concert grand from the piano crusher. Back in the '80s, and it had what was then the cutting-edge technology installed on it that allows you to play on a beautiful piano, and it's connected to a computer. So, uh, through MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, through MIDI, it can send and receive. So you can play and the computer will save that information, and then the computer can also then play the piano back. So Mike's compositional process is that he is a genius improviser. When he was a kid, he had the classical training, and then he became a jazz pianist. And then, you know, to the extent that people know Mike Garson, it's usually because of his association with David Bowie. But he really just fell into that world when he was in his, I think, in his 20s on David Bowie's first American tour, like before he was a really well-known figure. Mike started working with him and then worked with him for decades. But he really just kind of fell into it. And so he never really thought of himself as like a rock and roll pianist, but that's kind of the world that he ended up inhabiting for decades. But I mean, he— so he has that classical and that jazz training, and he is a truly masterful improviser. I mean, I've watched him, and it's frightening.

Oh my goodness.

So many years ago, he embarked on this experiment to kind of push himself as an improviser and as a composer. He realized that when he tried to compose, you know, the like old-fashioned way, the normal way, like with a pencil and staff paper, um, that that process just didn't work for him. But he was an exceptionally good improviser and he recognized the potential there. So he used his improvisational prowess and the disklavier as a tool and really developed and fine-tuned this compositional process that was improvisatory. So he, he plays in real time. So he's improvising, but he's also improvising at a slightly slower tempo than what he's actually imagining the piece to be at, which to me is fascinating because I'm not much of an improviser. But when I do improvise, so much of my improvisation, so much of like gesture and everything depends on tempo. So it's fascinating to me that he can have in mind a certain tempo, but then actually be creating the piece at a slightly slower tempo. Well, that makes sense because it gives him just a little bit more time for those ideas to unfold. Not to mention a lot of his music is insanely virtuosic, so it means he can play it a little slower. Mike's compositional process, improvising and using the disk clavier, is something that he spent, you know, a good 10 years really refining, and then he's continued doing it since then. But what he usually did is he would just have the computer play back his original performance and just jack the tempo up to the fast tempo that he really liked. So that first recording that I heard of that piece was the computer playing the piece much faster than he had played it at this, like, breakneck speed, which is really, like, mind-boggling. I can send— if you haven't heard it or if you can't find it online, I can send you that recording.

Oh, that would be great.

Yeah, I would love it. It is humbling. But once you start working with the Disklavier, you can— like, now I totally hear it. Like, if I hear a recording that's a Disklavier, I can hear the weird little imperfections. And especially with a piece like that that's so fast, I can hear things that's like, oh yeah, I know like a real person is not playing that.

This Chopin and Godowsky piece, I think it's the inspiration was coming from Opus 25, No. 12, Chopin's Ocean, right?

Yeah, but also, you know, Godowsky has this wonderful series of etudes, like deconstructing and combining and expanding on Chopin's etudes. And so there's a famous last one where he, yeah, he takes that really active right hand part and flips it around, inverts it, and puts it in the left hand. And Mike was basically like, ah, screw those guys, I can do both hands, you know, just as crazy. That was kind of the idea.

But to be able to master and record it, it's also was— it's, it's incredible. Then also you have this album, Piano Music of Mike Garson, and which was released 2 years ago, 2022, right? And so not only the inspirations from classical composers like Chopin, Alighieri, Ives, Prokofiev, but also there are a lot of references to pop rock icons. And of course, obviously David Bowie you mentioned, and Keith Emerson, who was the, um, uh, keyboardist, famous keyboardist from '70s, '80s, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I actually love the piece Tribute to Keith Emerson that you played in that. Yeah.

And then also, yeah, that's a wild one.

Yeah, and then what is this nowtude? Not etude, but nowtude?

Yeah, that's just— I mean, it's kind of funny. At a certain point, I mean, Mike has— I forget the number. I mean, he's insanely prolific, although he'll be the first to tell you that not every piece is great because his compositional process is improvisatory and he's not particularly interested in going back and editing things. Sometimes he does. And in fact, we've developed a rapport where like, He sends me something and I just give him my like unvarnished opinion. And you know, I'll just kind of flat out tell him like, yeah, well, it kind of reminds me of that other piece you did, but that one was better. Or, you know, well, you know, this feels good, but it feels a little undeveloped. Or like there was one piece recently that I'm actually gonna start learning. It's his jazz variations on one of the Schumann Scenes from Childhood. And I remember telling him that the ending felt kind of abrupt. And he went back and he expanded the ending, which was great. So it's fun to have that kind of dynamic relationship with a composer. But in general, he just does it once and that's kind of it. And then he's less interested in going back and tweaking or refining things and more interested in just moving on to whatever the next thing is. So because of that, he's got thousands of pieces, most of which are miniatures. And at a certain point, he just started running out of titles. I think for a while it was like Improv 1, Improv 2, and he got through hundreds of those. And then he did a whole series of nocturnes and ballades and, you know, so that the Now Tudes though, I think he did actually set out to write a series of essentially etudes, improvised etudes in, if not every key, certainly many, many keys. And I selected, you know, out of the thousands of pieces for this album, I selected the pieces that spoke to me. And a lot of them, like you mentioned, are the pieces that are kind of, that reference other composers or other musicians. And then yeah, the nowtudes, I really like them, but I didn't feel compelled to record the complete set. So I just kind of put together a shorter set of the ones that kind of spoke to me. But yeah, those are essentially little etudes. And one of the reasons I recorded the album is that although a few other pianists had played some of Mike's music over the years and maybe recorded a few individual pieces, no one had ever recorded an album of his music. So Mike had put out some self-released CDs of his works, but what it actually was is the Disklavier, you know, the computer playing on the Disklavier, reproducing his original performance. But at his desired tempo. And it's not the same as someone living with the music for months and years and really delving into it and making it their own. And then, so that's what I really wanted to do. I really wanted to pick a collection of his pieces that spoke to me and that felt like it kind of made sense as an album and record that album so that the world could you know, hear his music. Because like you said, you know, he's definitely not a household name, and he's got so many other pieces. Um, you know, his dream is that, you know, someday when he's long gone, hopefully that his music will live on, and that, and that there will be lots of other pianists who will decide to—

Yeah, because I enjoyed listening, and then I don't know if I can ever master his pieces, but, you know, I would love to try.

Some of them aren't that hard, but yeah, a lot of his music is, uh, I mean, he's a monster pianist himself, so a lot of them are very virtuosic, especially because the tempos that he ideally wants are really, really fast. I mean, like, back to the Godowsky Chopin etude, I mean, I wish I could play it faster. And sometimes in live performance, I'll play it a little faster than I did in the recording, and I basically take the risk of sacrificing accuracy for visceral excitement in live performance, you know?

That's what live performance is all about, right? And there's like a little bit of a fun and excitement that comes along. Yeah, so for all For listeners and viewers out there, I highly recommend exploring Danny's solo album, Piano Music of Mike Garson. It's a vibrant and enjoyable collection of piano compositions by, uh, you know, Mr. Garson, which captivates anyone who gives it a listen. You can find it on all major music streaming services, platforms. I think that's the best way. And then don't miss out on this musical gem. So Danny, I want talk more about you as a pianist. And so you've— I think you noted that the lockdown during pandemic marked a significant turning point for you as an artist, shifting from a focus on, you know, college university level teaching to deeper commitment to your performing arts career with an emphasis on more captivating programs. So everybody had this, uh, sort of like a wake-up moment during the pandemic time. And as difficult as it was, I think we were going through the same thing all at the same time, which was a really completely unique experience for human species, I think. Anyway, and so what sparked this realization besides having to have this, you know, luxury of lockdown, but What else sparked this?

Yeah, well, it was definitely, you know, I think we have, of course, the pandemic is still going on. I always, it's a little weird when to me when people talk about the pandemic in the past tense, I think when we do that, it's just a casual way of referring to 2020 and most of 2021 when, when our lives were really, really most severely impacted. But I do think it's important to remember that the pandemic is, is still going on and it is still affecting our lives, but I think we've had enough enough time and enough space now from that initial period, especially the whole year of 2020, that it's easier for me now to look back and see the transformation, the kind of like inner transformation that was taking place. Because at the time, I was just really, really depressed, which was a new experience for me. I am a very high-energy, optimistic, bubbly, bouncing off the walls with energy personality, as is a lot of the music that I enjoy playing. And I don't think I've ever really experienced depression like that, like the kind of classic depression symptoms of like not even being able to get out of bed, like not even be able to find the energy to do that. And it was devastating to be robbed of the opportunity to connect with live audiences. Through music. And, you know, all of us watched our concert calendars just evaporate in front of our eyes. And, you know, we were, as performing artists, we were some of the first people impacted in those, at least in the States, it was like, it was, you know, March 2020 really is when things started getting impacted. I know in other parts of the world, it was even sooner, you know, because all of our public events started getting canceled. And then we were also some of the last to be able to resume our kind of normal activities. I'm only just now in 2023, 2024, getting closer to resuming a normal concert schedule. But even still, a lot of my work is being impacted by logistics around, thankfully, not, you know, massive COVID outbreaks, but still just always keeping in mind the possibility that there could be an unexpected wave or someone involved in this project could get COVID. How would we handle that? What, you know, what's the balance that we take between COVID precautions and, you know, doing things the way that we normally would, et cetera, et cetera. So it's all still there. But anyways, the hardest part for me about 2020 and 2021, that time period in particular, was not being able to perform. And it was interesting to realize just how intensely that affected me. I'd always known that I was a performer first and foremost. I'd always juggled performing and teaching and wearing lots of different hats, but I've always been really passionate about performance. But I think what that experience early on in the pandemic really crystallized, really clarified for me is that that is, for me, that is the essential thing. I need to be in a room with other people making music. You know, whether that's performing with an audience, whether it's making chamber music with other people, but it's that live, in-person, real interaction. And as a performer, now that I'm out performing again more widely, I always talk with my audience. It's always a very informal— my performance style is very informal. So I'm always having a conversation with the audience. And I've started actually taking a few minutes out of the concert program to explicitly thank the audience and acknowledge them and make sure that they understand— I'm getting emotional— make sure they understand that they are a crucial part of what's happening. You know, I mean, because you're a pianist, so you understand. It's like we spend so much of our lives sitting at the piano by ourselves practicing.

Yes.

And I am more of an extrovert. I definitely, I get energy from being around other people. And so to me, all of that, that huge investment of time and energy and all that time I spend alone at home at the piano practicing over, you know, months to prepare for a tour or sometimes for, you know, one particular concert, um, that's all in service of and toward the goal of connecting with other people. And in live performance, there's like this electrical energy in the room. And, you know, there's a different feeling, a different vibe at every concert, you know, and it depends on the piano and it depends on the space and it depends on the people and it depends on the weather and it depends on the mood and all of that, you know, plays into it. And, you know, obviously I try to kind of make the most out of every situation because sometimes the piano's not ideal or sometimes maybe there's like a weird vibe from the audience or maybe the acoustics of the space aren't great. And, you know, as a performer, you have to try to kind of just make the most out of whatever, but you hope for every once in a while these wonderful situations where at least a few of those variables are kind of like on fire. And yeah, so there's just, it's a, performing live is just so different from practicing. And so I realized that that's really what I need and that's what I, crave. And it's not about ego and being in the spotlight. It's really about that real human connection. And like I said, it's about that kind of— it's difficult to articulate, but there is some kind of— there's a feeling that you get in the moment performing with a live audience and that energy that's kind of feeding back and forth. But then it's also just, you know, that the actual real interaction that takes place with people after the concert where someone comes up and says, "Can I hug you?" You know, "I just lost my spouse and that last piece you played, you know, moved me." And, you know, people sharing like genuine stories of how your music has affected them. It's those things that I missed when performing live wasn't possible. And we were chatting a little bit earlier about technology and how I'm kind of a Luddite and I'm kind of— I have a lot of anxiety and fear and frustration around technology and having to keep up with constantly changing standards and different apps and all this stuff. And I tried really hard in that early part of the pandemic when it was clear that it was going to be a while before we'd be able to resume live performances. I tried really hard to embrace the idea of of using technology as a way to connect with people. And I just, I just couldn't get there. I had very practical concerns about audio and video quality of live streaming, living somewhere at the time where I didn't have the most reliable internet connection. And knowing that, you know, even if you do everything right on your end, that if the person who's streaming something doesn't have the best connection, you know, and I just, you know, things like that. Made it difficult for me to get excited about. And the fact that even though there are some ways to do a livestream concert and have some kind of interaction with people, like typing things in the chat or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

It's different. Yeah.

It's not the same. It's not the same. And I think early in 2020, when we were all so hungry for community and so starved for connecting with people through music or other arts, I think people were more forgiving and kind of like, oh, okay, well, this is imperfect, but it's better than nothing. And I think also at that time, a lot of us were thinking, well, this is only going to last for a month or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was hard for most of us to conceive that the pandemic would cause the kinds of disruptions that it actually did. So yeah, I just, I really struggled during that time because I just couldn't bring myself to to be in charge of all that technology, to be responsible for all that technology, to be constantly worrying about all the different things that can go wrong with the technology, not knowing for sure if people were gonna hear me and my piano the way that it was meant to be heard. But most importantly, fundamentally, just recording a video or live streaming a concert, you know, in your home alone, it's just, it's just not the same. So, the first part of the pandemic, those couple years, that was the hardest thing for me. You know, not to mention I was teaching a lot at the time too, and just teaching online. I know some people enjoy it and some people enjoy like taking classes online. It's just not for me. I was glad that I was still able to connect with my students. You know, I was glad that we were able to keep working together, but I found teaching online to be incredibly frustrating.

Now, can you elaborate on what you said about live performance? The way, you know, just being there in front of the audience, and you also feel something, feedback, not verbally, but you feel something from the audience while you're performing, or even just a little afterwards, not just applaud or anything. Can you elaborate? Because those are the things I think you missed the most about performing. Like you said, it's not about me, but it's the interaction, but not literal, you know, verbal interaction, but something.

When I am at my best in live performance, when I am thoroughly prepared, I really know the piece, and I'm not like getting in my own way, that I've quieted those inner voices that are saying, oh, is that an F or an F sharp that's coming up? And oh, now, oh, here comes that really hard part that I mess up sometimes. If I, if If I know that if I'm prepared enough and I'm in a mental state where I'm not having those kinds of voices in my head distracting me from performance, and especially if I'm performing on a really fine piano that allows me to do what I want, and if the energy in the room is right, you know, under all of those ideal circumstances, I will have occasionally, and it doesn't happen often, but I will occasionally have like transcendent moments You know, you hear people talk about kind of like near-death experiences where they're like floating above their body.

Yeah.

So for me, it's, it's, it's like that. It's like I, I am in the moment, I am playing, but I'm also observing myself from above and I'm like watching myself playing and I'm like, wait, is that me? Like, how am I doing that? Like, I don't know what's happening right now. Wow. That's amazing.

Wow.

So I, I live for those kinds of, uh, transcendent moments in live performance. And if it only happens like, once a year or once every couple years, you know, that's good enough for me. But, um, I, it's, I guess, I, I mean, in a way, maybe I should talk to my therapist about this, maybe it's an addiction almost.

It's just a great addiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it's just, um, there's something special about investing the amount of time and energy that we invest as performers in in learning a piece of music thoroughly and then sharing it with an audience, to finally be able to share it with an audience. And like I said before, just knowing that in at least some small ways, for at least a few people in the audience, you'll be affecting them in some meaningful way. And I think, you know, back to what we were talking about before in terms of how the experience early on in the pandemic shaped me, I think I was having some kind of like existential crises, wondering like, wait, should I be doing something different with my life? Like, does this being— well, first of all, like, am I ever going to be able to perform again? Because there were— that was a legitimate concern. I thought, oh my God, I may never be able to perform again. But also just wondering like, should I, should I be doing something with my life that has more meaning? Like something more concrete? Should I be like, I don't know, should I be working in public health? Should I be teaching middle schoolers critical thinking skills? Working to like bolster our democracy. Like, I, you know, there are all these things I was thinking, like maybe being a musician, like isn't the thing. Every time I would have those thoughts, I, you know, at least at this point in my life, you know, I'm kind of like mid-career, you know, I, I realized, no, I'm not going to actually, I'm not going to actually go back to the drawing board and start a completely new career. That's not what I'm supposed to do. And I do believe, although it may not be the same as other professions that have a more tangible and practical effect on the world, I do believe that live performance is meaningful and brings joy and beauty to people's lives. And so I have to believe that. But yeah, back to your question. But back to your question, and again, it's really hard to articulate, but things happen in live performance for me that very, very rarely happen when I'm practicing alone. And so I think there is something about, you know, sometimes my students will ask me like, "Do you get nervous when you go up on stage to perform?" And of course the answer is, "Yeah, sure, I still get nervous." It's not the same as when I was younger. You know, when I was younger, I would sometimes I would just be like literally shaking and I guess those voices in my head sometimes would just be like this constant like, you know, chatter of self-doubt that's a constant distraction and, you know, worried about making memory slips. And, you know, of course you get to a certain point once you practice performing enough, you know, you have to practice to learn music. You also have to practice performing music. And, you know, after you've been doing it for years and decades, you get to the point where sure, you know, you have nerves, but they don't affect you as much. And you make, yeah, your nerves cause you to make some mistakes, but you get better at recovering from those mistakes and masking those mistakes. And, you know, so I do still get nervous, but it's more the nervous excitement of like, oh, I'm finally getting to share this music that I've been working on for months with an audience. And hopefully, hopefully that kind of nervous excitement, I can channel it in live performance and there's— and I'm feeling like an energy from the audience, which sometimes is actually like— sometimes there are like visual or audible cues. I will sometimes like see people like kind of like sitting forward in their seat or hear people like reacting, you know, to like an especially exciting moment. And I love that, by the way. I think so much of, you know, the kind of mainstream classical music world, the expectation is that you sit as an audience member, that you sit still and quiet. You know, it wasn't always like that. You know, the audiences used to be really rambunctious. Right. I actually love it when I can actually, you know, see and hear the audience's engagement. But anyways, yeah, I feed off of that, and that combined with whatever kind of nervous excitement I'm already feeling will often inspire me in the moment to do something, to take a risk, to do something maybe that I don't normally do. And so those are examples of some of the things that happen in live performance for me that are different than just practicing, which is what I spend most of my time doing.

But no wonder you don't like to perform livestream, right? Because that's just added pressure too, like make sure everything is working. It's always, always, even like doing this in podcast using these technology makes me really nervous. That's more nerve-wracking than actual interview itself, right?

So yeah, well, and also, you know, livestream is like, it's kind of this weird in-between between live performance and recording because I, and I really try to keep the two separate because I do think even though the whole business and economy of recorded music has changed in so many ways in the last decade, last couple decades, that's a whole separate conversation. But I do still, I do still want to record. I still want to make especially albums. I mean, like, every album I put out has like a very specific reason for being and a very specific programmatic focus. It's not just like a random collection of tracks, you know. So when I record, I really want to focus on being in a certain mindset. And I am trying to— I'm trying to use the medium of recording to capture an exciting performance. But there are different expectations, you know, because technology allows us to essentially make like a perfect recording. There is an expectation that, um, that recordings will be, you know, very, very accurate, um, et cetera. Whereas in live performance, audiences understand that this is, this is something that's happening just once right now. And, you know, it may not be technically totally perfect, but but the visceral energy and excitement of it is what we're really here for. So I really try to keep those two things separate. And I think that's one of the reasons why a livestream concert feels weird to me, because it's like, it's not a recording, but it's not really a live concert either. Unfortunately, what that meant is that I really just had to, as an artist, I really had no outlet for a couple years. Right. Which was pretty sad, but but it did give me time to reflect on things. And so, you know, now that I'm— now that we're past the point where, you know, the pandemic is affecting us as severely as it did in 2020 and 2021, now I am in a place where I can live every day with that clear priority that like, okay, you know, I'm an artist and my first priority is, preparing for live performances and connecting with audiences through live performance.

Before continuing this fun episode with Danny Holt, I'd like to take a moment to highlight The Piano Pod's valued sponsor, PH Media Studio, whose generous support helps us make this episode possible. Attention, The Piano Pod fans! I have exciting news just for you. Our website has undergone an incredible transformation. Ta-da! Welcome to the newly revamped website, featuring exclusive interviews with celebrated pianists and educators, showcasing podcast episodes, and captivating YouTube content. There's a lot to discover for every piano enthusiast just like you. With an intuitive design and smooth navigation, your journey through thepianopod.com is more fun than ever. And meet the creative force at the heart of this transformation, Poki Wang, with his latest venture, PH Media Studio. Poki has reimagined The Piano Pod's digital space into a sanctuary for all piano lovers. So head over to our website to immerse yourself in the piano universe and discover the magic firsthand today. And if you are an independent artist like yourself and want to elevate your online presence, look no further than PH Media Studio. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. So go to phmediastudio.com to see his amazing portfolio. So get in touch with the amazing Poki Huang today for more information. So you just briefly mentioned about captivating programs, like, so How do you choose your repertoire?

Yeah, well, you know, for years, I mean, decades, I've been making really unusual repertoire choices. When I was younger, you know, like you said at the outset, I mean, I do wear a lot of different hats. I am a pianist first and foremost and always have been. But when I was younger, I was a composer. And that was for a while, I would say being a composer and a pianist were like pretty equal parts of my artistic identity. Now that I don't wear my composer hat as often, but as a composer, as like basically in high school at Interlochen, I was really interested in experimental music and just generally interested in 20th century music. You know, I was total— like most music students, I was like totally obsessed with The Rite of Spring. And, you know, I was a percussionist too. So I was— so I was I was more involved in orchestral repertoire than a lot of pianists tend to be. So yeah, I was really into The Planets and Carmina Burana and The Rite of Spring, and I loved Bartók. And then I got really into John Cage and experimental music and kind of blurring and bursting the barriers between different genres and different artistic disciplines. So I did a lot of weird performance art pieces that involved actors and dancers and different kinds of musicians. And I was just really, really interested in, it was this kind of like playful experimentation and really interested in stream of consciousness creativity and then doing these like really absurdist things and then stepping back and observing like how people would make, how the audience would kind of find their own meaning in these things that were mostly meaningless. And so pretty early on, you know, you know, even when I was still a high school student, I was really not interested in just playing the same old repertoire. Um, and I'm very grateful that I had teachers who were open-minded enough to allow me to break free of that mold. So, you know, to be clear, I do have a solid, straightforward classical background. But there are some pretty huge gaps in my repertoire. I have never been that interested in playing Bach on modern piano, for instance. So one of the other— one of the things we may not have mentioned is I'm very passionate about historical performance practice and performing on period instruments.

Really?

So I've always felt like if I'm going to play Bach, I'd rather play Bach on the harpsichord or on a clavichord or learn to play the organ. I just don't, I don't really want to play that music on the piano. Um, so, you know, I've done enough of it. I know how to do it. I can teach it if I need to, but it's definitely not my passion. It's definitely not my area of expertise. Um, same thing with like, if you think of kind of a traditional classical piano training, like the Beethoven sonatas are core. I've played a few Beethoven sonatas, but just a few, you know? Um, and, and again, there it's like, it's a pain in the butt to play Beethoven on a modern piano. It makes so much more sense when you— if you have a chance to play that on, on a beautiful replica of a forte piano. Oh my gosh. I mean, it's just— I mean, musically, it's— to me, it just makes so much more sense and it sounds better, but also technically it's just so much easier. And so I just— again, it's just like, I just don't— I don't want to put in all that extra effort, especially if I'm playing on some heavy, clunky New York Steinway that's got a mushy sound. It's just not the right instrument for that music. So anyways, I'm just kind of mentioning these as examples of how I've kind of like— I did enough of that stuff early on in my education to kind of, you know, to know it. But it was very clear even as a teenager that I wanted to play more 20th century music and contemporary music and experimental music. And so thankfully I had teachers like Michael Kunrod, who you've interviewed, who were open-minded enough to allow me to do that exploration while still keeping a pretty solid grounding in, you know, the more standard repertoire. So anyways, as always, I'm giving you the long-winded answer to your question, but even as a high school music student at Interlochen Arts Academy, I was making unusual repertoire choices, exploring a lot of 20th century music and experimental music. And Uh, as you know, moving forward, I eventually got to a point where, uh, for a, for about a decade when I was in, uh, grad school and then in the early part of my professional career, I basically didn't play music from before 1900. I mostly played music that was, uh, composed for me. So collaborations with living composers, or I was playing 20th century music. And I did that for a really simple reason. That's the music that most excited me. But also looking at the culture of mainstream classical music, it's just really strange that there's this— there's basically like a century of music that's largely neglected.

Yeah.

And, you know, so not only is there a focus on mostly music of the 18th and 19th centuries, but there's the whole canon and it really focuses on just a handful of composers. And then we tend to play the same pieces by those composers. And you know what? There is absolutely value in hearing 3 different pianists interpret the same Beethoven sonata. Great. But when I think about what I want to do with my time and my energy, I just look around and I see, okay, there are enough people doing that stuff. You know, there are enough people playing Chopin etudes and ballades, and I've never really been that excited about that music anyway. It's fine. Let those people play that music. I know I'll be the happiest version of myself and I'll be the most effective performer if I'm playing music that I am totally fired up about. But first and foremost, that's, that's important. I don't want to play music that I'm not really passionate about. But I also, I step back and I look at what's going on around me and I ask like, how can I make a contribution to the classical music world here in the 21st century? And, you know, amazingly, there is so much music from the past few centuries that just has been totally forgotten. And I've, you know, interestingly, it's 20th, 21st century technology that's made it easier to find that music. You know, I've spent hours, countless hours, you know, on IMSLP, you know, tracking down obscure music that oftentimes, you know, isn't in print anymore. And, you know, you might not even find in some of the best music libraries, but thankfully, like, someone's got it somewhere and they've uploaded it. So I've really enjoyed kind of discovering lesser-known composers. And, you know, if we're talking about piano repertoire, so we're talking mostly about, you know, 19th century composers. Like I said, for about a decade, I made a decision that I was only going to play 20th century and new music. And then at a certain point, I decided, you know, it's been a while. I think I might be ready to start playing some old music again. And so That's when I started becoming more interested in, you know, finding the more obscure works by well-known composers. I mean, like 25 years ago, I did a program of obscure music by Mozart. So I've always been interested in doing that kind of thing, but combining like the obscure works by the well-known composers and then shining a spotlight on lesser-known composers, that's allowed me to create really interesting concert programs where Like recently I did a program, I have a project called the Sonatina Project, and it's actually started in the pandemic because I thought, well, I can use this time when I can't perform to start researching repertoire and exploring repertoire and doing lots of sight reading and start thinking about program ideas for when I can perform again. And at one point I was thinking about the Sonatina Project being a YouTube project where I would like record a new sonatina every week and then have like a behind the scenes video and stuff like that. And of course it was just too much. Like I said before, it was just too much much for me to think about making all those videos. And I'm not a content creator. I'm a performer. I'm a performer and I record albums, but I'm not someone who's like trying to constantly churn out videos for YouTube or social media. Although I do kind of the bare minimum to just kind of like put myself out there. But yeah, originally the Sonatina Project was conceived of as something that could be a video project that I could execute during the pandemic. Didn't do that, but I did develop this extensive database of sonatinas, which are, you know, pieces that were mostly written as like pedagogical tools and not necessarily meant as pieces that you would perform. But as we get into the 20th century, there are some really cool sonatinas that are definitely not like easy student pieces.

Wow.

Anyway, so now I have like, I could do like at least 10 different programs of sonatinas or albums someday if I wanted to. But, uh, Starting last fall, I finally put together a program that was kind of a historical survey starting with Clementi and Diabelli, so some late 18th century sonatinas going up through the early 21st century. Oh, wow. And this historical overview. But now I remember the reason I brought this up is that I would look at the printed program for that and the most the most well-known composer on that program was Bartók. And so even like avid classical music fans who came to the concert would be looking at this program being like, they look at these names like, who are these people? And so I love being able to make a contribution that way by reminding people that, you know, okay, great, you know, yeah, we all love Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, whatever. Great. There's nothing wrong with that music, but there are plenty of people playing that music and recording that music. And, you know, sometimes if I feel like I have something to say about that music, I'm going to play it too. But I'm— right now I'm more excited about showing people this other music that is— it's not an unfamiliar style of music, you know? It's like— like Theodor Kirchner is one of my new favorite composers. And when I found Kirchner's music, it was like I discovered like this hidden, like, treasure trove of late Brahms. I love late Brahms.

Yeah, me too.

And now there's like all this other music that's like stylistically very similar that I'm really excited about exploring. And, you know, composers like Theodor Kirchner, Stephen Heller, you know, they were all contemporaries of and friends with, you know, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, etc. But for whatever reason, they kind of fell into obscurity. And I think a lot of it, for those two particular composers, a lot of it is that they didn't tend to write like large-scale works. Kürchner in particular is really a master of miniatures. So he's got just so many sets of miniatures that, you know, don't even necessarily need to be performed as one complete set. You can kind of like pick and choose and make a suite of Kürchner's music. I think there's a little bit of a bias in mainstream classical music culture toward like the big masterpieces, you know? So I really enjoy curating programs that highlight obscure works by well-known composers, shine a spotlight on some lesser-known composers, and definitely include some 20th century and contemporary music. So sometimes I do programs with a very specific focus or theme, but in general, what I find right now is doing an eclectic mixed program like that is really effective. And without a doubt, when I think maybe I'm being a little too risky, like programming a piece that's a little too adventurous or like focusing too much on lesser-known composers, without a doubt, the feedback I get from the audience afterwards is, "Wow, I'm so glad you played these composers I'd never heard of," or, "I'm so glad you played that contemporary piece. I didn't think I liked contemporary music." So again, back to our larger conversation about, you know, the vitality of live performance. A lot of it really comes down to just actually having real conversations with the people who you shared that experience with afterwards.

Now I want to continue our conversation, you as a pianist, but also want to move on to percussionist. Is that okay? Because eventually I want to get to the, uh, your piano and percussion project. But before that, I want to just explore a little bit about you being a percussionist. So I watched a video clip from your youth you're like 7 years old.

Oh my gosh, did you watch the video of me playing the drum set? So cute. Wow, you really do your research.

Oh, I do. And Honda song on, on, uh, on the drums. That was so adorable.

I was really into cars.

Yeah, you're doing the drums and you're already so, so good. And then singing, it made up a song of singing at the same time.

I had no idea what I was doing. Once I forgot about this. Yeah. So that's, that's one of the few videos from my childhood that I actually posted on my YouTube channel because I thought it was so precious. And, um, once when I was teaching at CalArts years ago, um, I came into the classroom and my students started singing that song because they had found the video. So yeah, I think I, I think I did have some kind of like, I was just telling my students Yesterday that, you know, we're all smart in different ways. And some of us find certain things easier than others or more intuitive than others. Some of us have to work harder to figure out certain things or develop certain skills. There were definitely certain things about music that just came very intuitively to me. And I do think rhythm has always been one of those things. And thank goodness for that, because we as classical music educators are not very good at teaching rhythm.

Oh yeah, I know.

It's kind of glossed over. And for the students who really don't have an intuitive sense of rhythm, it becomes a problem pretty quickly. And I don't know about you, but I've also had experiences where like I'll be teaching a student, especially if it's a student who like they had a previous teacher before and they're still kind of new to me. And then I'll suddenly realize like, oh, you don't actually understand rhythm. You're, you're like, you're, you're, you're pretty good at kind of faking it, but you don't really understand. Anyways. Yeah, I do think that. I always had a pretty good intuitive understanding of rhythm and also on a more sophisticated level, like timing and rubato in music. And so I think it's not surprising that when I had the opportunity to play percussion, that I, that I, not only that I jumped on that, but that it just, I just picked it up really quickly. And what it was is actually, I think I was in like 7th or 8th grade and I had like a study hall in the library and the band director who knew me because I played piano in the jazz ensemble, although I should say I am not and have never been a jazz pianist. This is like middle school jazz ensemble where like they write out all the notes. Yes. But, you know, I was, I was playing jazz, if you can call it jazz. So she knew me because of that. She walked by me in the library and she stopped and said, oh, hey, Danny, have you ever thought about playing percussion? You know, we need some percussionists in the band. And I was like, oh, that sounds like fun. And then like a couple of weeks later, I was like the section leader.

Wow.

So I appreciate that she kind of plucked me out of that study hall because yeah, once I started playing percussion, it just, I got, I got really into it. And, um, you know, she, like a good middle school band director, she was able to teach me the basics. And then eventually a year or two later, I was able to find a wonderful teacher. Uh, actually, uh, he was a retired, um, LA studio musician, which as a percussionist is a really fun and interesting job because you go to work, and especially back then, like in the day, you know, that work has dried up to some extent. But, you know, decades ago when he was in the scene is, you know, he'd tell me, you know, I'd show up one day and I'd be playing timpani in an orchestra. I'd show up another day, I'd be playing, you know, timbales in some kind of Latin ensemble. You know, especially as a percussionist, you have to have a very diverse skill set. And my teacher, Richie Lepore, man, he taught me how to be an orchestral percussionist in this little back room in a music store in Western Massachusetts, where we had a drum set with mutes on all the drums and the cymbals. And then there was just enough room in the room where if you turn around from the drum set, there was a vibraphone there. And yet he somehow taught me how to be like an orchestral timpanist, an orchestral percussionist. He was a genius teacher. And he also recognized that by the time I came to him for percussion lessons, I would've been in like 8th or 9th grade, that I was already a pretty serious music student. And I already like understood music pretty well. Like I didn't need to be taught the basics. And so he challenged me. He gave me like little composition assignments every week. It's okay, this week I want you to write 16 bars only using, you know, the kick drum and the hi-hat and the ride cymbal and the floor tom. And you have to, you know, change the time signature at least 4 times and you need to use, you know, these time signatures. He would give me these like really clever compositional assignments that would help me be a better percussionist and also kind of develop my compositional chops. I'm so grateful to Richie and so lucky that I happened to find him. Like I said, he just happened to be the guy who was teaching drums and percussion at this little music store. And, you know, I've had so many experiences like that where I've just been in the right place at the right time and found, you know, the right teacher. So yeah, so I picked up percussion pretty quickly. And then when I went to high school at Interlochen for my sophomore, junior, and senior years, I was definitely still first and foremost a pianist and a composer. But I still found some ways to play percussion. But I knew I was never on track to become like a professional orchestral percussionist. And there are huge limitations to my percussion technique. Well, first of all, I don't play percussion a lot these days. So I'm— my chops are a little rusty. But also, like, I never got to the point where I did like virtuosic four mallet marimba solos or anything like that. And honestly, it's just like, it never really interested me. It's like, I'm not, I can, I can play the piano. Like, why would I play? A lot of that repertoire is kind of lame anyways. And I was like, I was a really good timpanist. I was a really good orchestral percussionist, played lots of fun music in, you know, percussion ensemble. But yeah, fast forward a few years later, you know, I'd definitely gotten to the point where percussion was really on the back burner. And I knew I wasn't going to have a career as a percussionist first and foremost, but it was a valuable skill that I had developed. But I wasn't really doing anything with it. And then I was at, I was really lucky to be there at the first two summers of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Institute. Bang on a Can is this wonderful, you know, new music organization that's been around since the '90s in New York. And they created this summer music institute where we took over the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art for a couple weeks in July. It was so fun. And I was there as a pianist, but I think they knew that I was a percussionist. And so David Cawson, the percussionist in the Bang on a Can All-Stars, their ensemble, He had arranged a piece by one of the Bang on a Can composers, Michael Gordon, and he asked me to play keyboard and also with one of my feet to play a kick drum from a drum set. And I did that and it was so much fun. I was like, oh, this is immensely satisfying. Now, it doesn't take extensive percussion training to do something like that. I mean, like, you know, any decent pianist or a decent percussionist with like, you know, basic Uh, you know, Piano Chops could have done what I did, but I did have this like light bulb over the head moment. And I kind of had this vision of myself sitting at a piano surrounded by percussion instruments. And so I started thinking about, I started thinking more about this and trying to figure out like, what, what could I actually do practically speaking? Like how many different foot pedals could I have down there? And what different instruments could I play with foot pedals? If I take the music desk off the piano, what instruments could I fit right there that I could actually reach? And play? What other instruments could I have within reach? Could I have something behind me? Could I have things like hanging down from above? And I developed this basic setup and then I just approached a group of composers with this crazy idea and I said, I know this seems kind of nuts, but like, you know, I'm a pianist and I also play percussion and I think it would be really fun to try to find some creative ways to integrate them. And, you know, I think this, so I call it The Piano Percussion Project. I think The Piano Percussion Project also speaks to my desire to always like push myself beyond what I already know I'm capable of and also to collaborate with other musicians and work together to like find something new, you know? And I mean, it's not entirely unprecedented. There are definitely composers who have called on pianists to play some percussion instruments at the same time. But to my knowledge, until I started doing this around 2000— I guess the very first pieces were in like 2003, 2004, but then I really launched into it with full force in 2009. And now there have been, I think, more than 30 pieces written for me at this point that use variations of this solo piano percussion setup. And to my knowledge, until I started doing it, no one else had ever done anything that extensive. And it was really, it blew me away, the ideas that composers came up with. There are a lot of logistics that that have to be worked out. Sometimes composers have an idea that seems like a really cool idea, but there's like one little logistical thing they didn't really think of. Like, like a classic mistake, a classic mistake they make is even some of the best composers I've worked with have made this mistake where they get excited about like all these different foot pedals I've got that can play different instruments. But then they forget that like the way that they're writing for the piano, that Even though they might not have been thinking about it, they, they, they really were probably imagining that it also had the, some, some sustain pedal. And it's like, sorry, I only have so many feet. Sometimes, sometimes I can get creative. I can play like, I can like have the ball of my foot on the sustain pedal of the piano and play like a foot pedal for a percussion instrument with my heel or vice versa. Like sometimes I can do stuff like that. But anyways, it's just, um, We don't need to go into all—

Yeah, but it's quite acrobatic. I— it's not only lovely to listen to, but also it's quite enjoyable just watching you. Yeah, all sorts of things. Because, um, you have this concert grand and then the drum set is on the right side, and then there's a gong, and then the, uh, what is it, the glockenspiel? Glockenspiel, yeah, or something like that on that piano where usually the music stand is, and I watched that whole 9-minute of Ante's Revenge by David Johnson.

Well, you know, the initial stages of learning a piano percussion piece involves a lot of very careful planning and choreography. And so I've found— I mean, some of the pieces are quite complex and I have not memorized them, but I've found that some of them I end up memorizing them just kind of by mistake, kind of out of necessity, because I have to be in so many different places at once. And sometimes it's a matter of like very quickly, like playing something on the piano with this hand and then picking up this mallet and holding it in just the right way to go hit this instrument and then putting it down so that I can play the piano again, or figuring out a way to keep a mallet in my hand while I play something on the piano because I have to very quickly go over to this instrument, you know, or figuring out like, okay, well, the composer notated it this way and suggested I do this with my left hand, but actually I think it makes more sense for me to do that with my right hand. So then I have to kind of reconfigure this other, you know, other aspects of the passage. So there's a lot of incredibly painstaking work that goes into the initial stages of figuring out the choreography. And then it really is just about— I mean, you know how to practice. It's about lots of slow, careful, repetitive practice of I mean, oh my God, there are passages of music that I have spent hundreds of hours practicing just to do something that takes like a second or a fraction of a second.

Really?

Yeah. In fact, you know, you mentioned that it is kind of a visual spectacle. And for years now, you know, I've got all this repertoire, you know, it could easily be like a double album if I wanted to do that. But like, who wants that? No one needs that. Because it is such a visual spectacle, I've decided that what I want to do, like the next incarnation of The Piano Percussion Project, is I really want to make some great-looking videos of these pieces. Professionally done videos with multiple camera angles and everything, because even in live performance, people are always coming up to me afterwards like, "How did you make that one sound? Like, I couldn't see what you were doing with your foot." And, you know, because the setup is so elaborate and depending on where you're sitting, like a lot of the drums and percussion instruments are obscuring my hands and my feet, so people can't always see what I'm doing. So, It's one thing to hear it, but it's a whole different thing to actually see it. Yeah, yeah. The piano percussion video that I'm most excited about is a piece by Sean Fryer called Chrysalis. And we— not only is it one of the most genius pieces, I think— why, let me take a step back and say that the most successful piano percussion pieces are the ones where the composer composer really puts very careful thought into exactly which instruments to use and creating a particular sound world using the piano and percussion and really understanding, like, having a concept of like how the piano and percussion instruments are relating to one another. And this was one of those pieces, a very, very successful piece. But I'm also particularly excited about the video because I think we used 7 cameras and like 13 microphones or something like that. So when it's all done and mixed, when the audio is all mixed and when the video is edited, it's going to be an experience of my solo piano percussion unlike anything so far. Because like most of the videos I have are like, you know, just a static camera from a live concert. And like I said, you miss out on a lot that way. I mean, like I said, it's been really, really interesting to see how different composers have responded to this idea. And that's why I do really want to make more professional, really good-looking, good-sounding recordings of these pieces so that people can really experience them the way they're, you know, meant to be experienced. Because it's, yeah, like you said, it's interesting to watch me do all this stuff, to see all that choreography. But like, it's also just really fascinating to hear how different composers took the idea and really ran with it. And that's the kind of thing I love doing. I like being kind of an instigator. It's like, okay, well, here's my concept. Here's what I think I can do. Now let's see what you come up with. So yeah, it's been a really fun project.

Hey there, TPP family. The Piano Pod is now into our fourth season, and it's all thanks to you. Since 2020, you've been with my journey with the TPP. Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. 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 with Yukimi Song 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 podcast's essentials, 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. You have such an interesting, really eclectic, unconventional career as an artist, and there's none like you, you know. And so I'm curious to find out your origin story. How—

Oh, sure.

Yeah, how you discover the love for music.

Yeah, I'll try to give you the bullet points. You know, I don't need to start on, you know, on my birthday in 1981. I had very supportive, nurturing parents who always encouraged us to, you know, try and do different things. And so I did not come from a musical household. But when I expressed an interest in music, my parents were happy to sign me up for piano lessons. I actually took Suzuki piano lessons. Lessons for the first, oof, 6 or 7 years. And, um, it worked well for me because I did have a pretty good ear. So, for folks who might not be familiar with the Suzuki Method, it really emphasizes at first, especially, mostly learning by ear. So, your teacher will demonstrate something, but you don't necessarily learn notation at first. Every Suzuki teacher is a little different in terms of how and when they end up integrating that really crucial skill. I think it worked well for me because I think if I had started with a teacher who had me learn notation, I think I would have easily gotten frustrated because there was, there was so much like musical energy in me already, like bursting to get out. So Suzuki was kind of cool because it was like the quickest path for me to like start playing piano. And then of course I was, I'm sure I was so obnoxious when my teacher finally tried to teach me notation because it's like, why do I need to learn this? And of course now in my own teaching, I'm such a hypocrite because in my own teaching I emphasize notation from the beginning because I feel like once you learn that language of music notation, it opens up this whole world of possibility. You know, what an amazing skill to have for someone to put a piece of music in front of you that you've never seen or heard and to be able to play it, right? It's so liberating once you develop that skill. Anyway, so yeah, I did years of Suzuki piano lessons and I also— the public schools in the town where I grew up had a really great music program, so I had a chance to play viola and play in the string orchestra. And like I said, eventually played percussion in the band. I eventually started— I switched from the Suzuki method and started studying with a Russian teacher, and she was not the kind of like quintessential, like strict Russian teacher, but she was very intense and we would have 2 lessons a week. And we would have like an entire hour-long lesson working on like, you know, one measure, you know. It was one of those— it was intense. It was great. It was great for me. And I went from, you know, a lot of the Suzuki repertoire really emphasizes like Baroque and classical music. It's kind of small. And then like I was like, I discovered pictures at an exhibition and I was like, whoa, where's this music been hiding? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I tried to, you know, I tried to make the jump from like playing, you know, Haydn to, you know, playing like really big romantic music.

Oh, wow.

And then, yeah, I left home when I was, I think, 15, uh, so that I could attend the last 3 years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, where, you know, as I mentioned, I studied with Michael Kunrod, who you've had on your show. And he was the piano teacher who often taught, um, slightly less conventional students. So, you know, I was a— yeah, I was a composition and a piano major. And, you know, like I said, because I was a composition major and I was really interested in 20th century music and experimental music, I wouldn't have been the best fit for some of the other piano teachers who were much more traditional. So, I'm very grateful that I had the chance to study with a teacher who was more open-minded. So, after Interlochen, I made a choice that concerned Michael and some of my other students. I decided not to attend a conservatory. It was totally the right decision. Although I appreciate that my teachers were concerned, I'm glad that they you know, I'm glad that they cared about me and that they expressed that, you know, like, are you sure you're making the right decision? But I was sure it was the right thing for me. I feel very grateful that I had the conservatory experience in those 3 years at Interlochen. And I'm not saying that doing 3 years of high school at Interlochen is equivalent to getting an undergraduate degree at Juilliard. I'm not saying that. But I got enough of a taste of that conservatory experience to realize as a senior in high school that if I went to a conservatory for undergrad and I went to another conservatory for master's and I went to another conservatory for a doctoral degree, that I'd be in my late 20s or early 30s and I would know like everything there is about this tiny, tiny slice of the world. I wouldn't know shit about anything else. And I really didn't like that thought. And I am— every time I tell this story, I'm always kind of amazed. Like, I look back at my like 17-year-old self and I can't believe I had that like like foresight. But when I started applying for colleges, I was like, you know, not sure I wanna go to a conservatory. I think I might wanna like learn about the world more broadly. So I ended up going to Hampshire College, which is this wonderful kind of hippie, very small liberal arts college.

Mm-hmm.

On a farm in Western Massachusetts. And it's, it was founded in the late '60s, so it opened in 1970. It was founded in the late '60s by, uh, the other colleges in the area. Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and UMass Amherst, part of what they call the Five College Consortium. And it was created as kind of a radical experiment in higher education. And the idea at Hampshire is that you are there because you are genuinely motivated to learn and you're intellectually curious. And there are no grades and there are no tests and there are no majors per se. You work with a committee of faculty advisors to create your own course of study. And then everyone in their final year or so, 'cause you can structure it in lots of different ways, does a major project, you know, essentially it's a senior thesis.

Really? Wow. That's cool.

And this was great for me. 'Cause I've always been very self-motivated and self-directed. And Hampshire creates this framework where a student like myself can come in and say, all right, here's my vision of what my undergraduate education is gonna look like. And then I had these amazing teachers who can help me realize that. So I didn't have to just fit into the box of like, oh, I'm a piano major or I'm a philosophy major or whatever. So I was able to get a liberal arts education and continue studying music very seriously, you know, pre-professional training as a performer, but within this broader intellectual and cultural and historical context. So in addition to continuing to hone my skills as a pianist, I got really interested in ethnomusicology, so studying music, music in culture or music as culture. I worked with an ethnomusicologist. I worked with a cultural anthropologist. I also was really interested in music cognition. And, you know, that's a field that's advanced a lot since I was in college 25 years ago. And at the time, one of the, one of the people teaching in the School of Cognitive Science at Hampshire College was one of the pioneers in that that field of music cognition. I became really interested in like looking at musical cultures from around the world and noticing similarities and differences and trying to understand, asking big questions about like those, some of those similarities and some of those differences and whether there was something kind of like, whether there was something fundamental about our humanity or about like how our brains work that would explain some of those similarities. And then asking interesting questions about the differences and So that was kind of the background of my undergraduate experience, was continuing to study, essentially being a classical pianist, but learning about music from around the world and, and learning to think about music much more critically. And because Hampshire is so flexible in its design, I was actually able to complete my undergrad in 3 years. And then I had a chance to get a master's degree and teach at Smith College nearby.

Mm-hmm.

So I kind of think about the 5-year experience at Hampshire and Smith as kind of one continuous experience. And I wrote my undergraduate thesis and my master's thesis about the country music industry in Nashville, which has absolutely no connection to my artistic life. It was—

why, why, why? Yeah.

Well, you know, my mom moved, uh, when I was in high school, my mom moved from Massachusetts where I grew up to Nashville, Tennessee to run the public television station there, the PBS station. And, um, So I started spending some time in Nashville, and I knew nothing about country music. And traditionally, in the discipline of ethnomusicology, like old school ethnomusicology, it was kind of problematic because it really was about this like Western gaze toward the other and studying, you know, essentially like music from, you know, third world countries. It's changed. It's changed a lot, but it is still a little bit of a problematic discipline in that way. So a lot of ethnomusicology was about Had that kind of dynamic. And so I wanted to choose, as a subject of my research, I wanted to choose something that would kind of shine a spotlight in our own backyard, so to speak, because my mom was living in Nashville and I had a chance to start meeting some people there and I knew nothing about country music, so I could go in tabula rasa, a blank slate, and just immerse myself in this particular musical culture that I didn't know anything about. But I'm a musician, so there's a certain kind And I can speak the language to some extent. Um, and ethnographic research was something I really enjoyed as an extrovert. Uh, I loved just meeting people, uh, songwriters, musicians, producers, people involved in all aspects of the music industry there. And just basically asking them to explain to me, like, explain this music to me, explain to me how your business works. Um, and then, you know, in the kind of like geeky academic way, I, you know, I wrote a thesis about how everything I learned ties into, uh, kind of intellectual and cultural arguments about like globalization and capitalism. And, um, I mean, I don't need to, I don't, I don't need to geek out about all this academic stuff, but, and it was, it was fun for me because like I said, I, I didn't actually know anything about country music. So it was as if I was going to a foreign country and studying some totally foreign music, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, I had so much material. From my, my final project at Hampshire that it was great when I had the opportunity to go to Smith College, who had recently hired a popular music studies scholar, which at the time was a pretty forward-thinking thing to do. It's a little more common now. Um, and he's someone who had actually written a wonderful book about kind of like a cultural history of the electric guitar and had spent some time in Nashville doing research for that book. So whereas at Hampshire, my advisors were an ethnomusicologist and a cultural anthropologist, At Smith, I had the chance to work with someone who was really immersed fully in, you know, American popular music. So he was able to give me all sorts of insights and perspective on that research. So I went back to Nashville and did more research and basically wrote, like, I kind of envisioned, like, my thesis at Hampshire as, like, one chapter, one-third of a book, and my master's thesis at Smith as another third. And if I had decided to continue that research, I might have finished, and it might have been, like, a big book about kind of like a cultural historical examination of country music. But—

That is fascinating. It seems like you want to be different, but even within that sort of different group of people, even then you want to be different. Is that what it is?

I just, I mean, I'm just really interested in a lot of different things. But, you know, I mean, in terms of the trajectory of my artistic life and my career, I definitely got to a point After finishing those degrees and doing those big research and writing projects, I definitely realized like, okay, like that was really interesting. I'm glad I did that, but like, this is not my life. Like, I don't want to be an academic, you know, because all the time I've been doing this, I was also still very seriously playing the piano. But yeah, I definitely realized this academia is not for me, this kind of insular world of academia. And, you know, while I enjoyed especially the ethnographic research part of it, like I said, the part that had to do with interacting with people, the intense amounts of reading and writing that are required when you're doing that, that part didn't excite me as much. So that's how I finally ended up out in Southern California to get a master's, a second master's degree at CalArts. So that was kind of my return to the conservatory, although CalArts is like the anti-conservatory conservatory. CalArts emphasizes every, I'm so proud of CalArts, it's such an interesting music school. They emphasize everything that is neglected by the traditional conservatory model, right? So emphasizing, you know, 20th century music, contemporary music, experimental music, music from non-Western traditions. I mean, increasingly they're doing really interesting things with like, you know, more very broadly defined, you know, pop music, but like really smart, creative, innovative approaches to that. People doing all sorts of interesting things with electronics and technology that are like way over my head. So yeah, CalArts was a really wonderful place for me to be. And that's where I finally felt like, okay, now I'm finally where I really belong. And because I did my master's at CalArts and had started performing professionally in LA, it made sense to make a life and a career for myself there. So not long after graduating, I ended up teaching at CalArts for years, and I had a busy studio of private students, juggled as, as, as freelancers do, juggled a number of different part-time jobs, had some, some wonderful residencies at some private high schools in LA that were really rewarding and fun and and teaching, teaching and co-teaching courses about like Michael Jackson and the Star Wars films. And like, yeah, I'm really— I do lots of different things.

Wow. Then is that where you decided to start this desert hot springs classical concert?

Oh yeah. That's a whole nother story.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we, can we talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. Yeah. So after, after living in Los Angeles for most of my 20s, I gradually realized that I wasn't really a big city person. LA is a very exciting place to live. It's an exciting city, and I'm definitely more of an LA person than a New York person. Okay. I learned that about myself a long time ago. I need, I need, I need some space.

Okay.

But yeah, I went out to the desert, the Palm Springs area, which is like a 2-hour drive east of Los Angeles, and I completely fell in love with the desert. Like, it blew me away. It actually, like, I'd never had this experience before, but it was like calling to me. It was like, "You need to come here. You must come live in the desert." So I ended up buying my first home in Desert Hot Springs, which is a small city north of Palm Springs. And for a few years, I was mostly living in LA and then basically going out to the desert on the weekends. A lot of people in LA do this. They have like a place in the desert that they go to, you know, on weekends and holidays, 'cause it's the relatively quick, easy drive and it's, it's just, it's much quieter and slower there and it's just, the desert just has this awesome natural beauty. So, I really fell in love with the desert and ultimately after splitting my time for a few years, I ended up moving full-time to the desert and that's when I started thinking about, you know, okay, well, if I'm really gonna live here, like, you know, what kind of, How could I get involved in the community? What kind of contribution could I make to the community? And I was like, I don't know if anyone here is really interested in classical music, but like, that's what I have to offer. So let's see what happens. So one day it was actually, it's kind of funny how this transpired. Some, some friends from New York were visiting, a wonderful pianist and cellist. And, but it was August and like August in the desert is miserable. It's like really, really hot and everyone just wants to stay home in their air conditioning. And also a lot of the population of the Palm Springs area is seasonal. A lot of people only live there for 4 to 6 months out of the year. But these amazing musicians were here and I was like, I don't know if anyone's gonna come to this, but I really feel like we should put on a concert, you know? Because people around here don't usually have a chance to hear like musicians of your caliber and you're here. If you're willing to play a concert, let's do this. Let's try a little experiment. Sunday afternoon, found a church, uh, in Desert Hot Springs where we were able to put on this concert. And sure enough, people came and they really liked it. And people were asking, you know, when's the next concert? So I got a tiny I got a tiny grant from the city. It was $1,000, and for the first season, I managed to squeeze 3 concerts out of that $1,000, mostly by just calling in favors from friends. And then, you know, long story short, it just grew and grew from there. I was able to get a little bit more of a grant every year, and I was able to start soliciting donations and, uh, being able to have more musicians perform. But especially in those early years, I really was leaning on friends and friends of friends and the conversation would go something like this. It's like, you know, you know, you know, it's like we're musicians, so we speak the same language. It's like, hey, I run this little concert series. You know, I know that you're already doing this really cool program in the LA area. Is there, is there a Sunday afternoon around the same time when you might be able to come out here? You know, I can only offer you this really small, like, token honorarium. I'm so sorry, like, I, you are worth so much more than that. I wish I could pay you more, but like, that's what I can offer. If you'd like to stay with me for a couple nights, I'm happy to give you a place to stay. I'm happy to feed you. I'm happy to, you know, take you on some hikes. You know, you can make it into a little like working vacation. And people were usually really happy to do that. So especially in those early years, I was really relying on, on friends and friends of friends who I could have those kinds of conversations with. Thankfully now we're in our 10th season, a milestone I'm very proud of cuz a lot of small organizations like this, uh, don't make it that far, uh, or, or didn't recover from 2020 and 2021. Um, so I'm really happy that we're in our 10th year and now I have the budget and the resources to really do it right. And I can pay musicians. I mean, I'd still always like to pay musicians more, but I'm able to offer them less insultingly small sums of money. And because of our proximity to the greater LA area, we have access to this amazing talent pool essentially. And I make it as easy as possible for the musicians because I'm a musician. So I understand what you, you know, I understand what a musician wants when they show up up to play a gig, and I know how to make the process as smooth and efficient and easy as possible. And because we mostly do our concerts Sunday afternoons and most of our performers are coming in from the LA area, they don't even need to spend the night. Uh, you know, you can wake up at home, do your morning thing, do that 2-hour drive out to the desert, have time to grab lunch, warm up. You play a 4 o'clock concert, it's done at 5. You can be back home for a late dinner if you want, or back home to tuck the kids into bed, or, you know, whatever. Um, but I've also been able to, uh, have some friends come from out of state. In fact, Michael Kuhnradt has come down a couple times from Michigan, and we recently had a pianist come fly down from the Bay Area. I've had a pianist friend of mine come down from Washington State, um, a few other places as well. So, um, each year I try to do a little bit more, have more musicians, more musicians from outside of Southern California. And, um, what's started really as just this kind of side kind of passion project of mine. Uh, oh, well, let's still put on some concerts and see what happens. It's become a real staple in the community that people rely on. Um, and it's become a bigger and bigger part of, of my artistic and professional kind of like portfolio. Um, and I, I have to remind myself about that because in the early years it was like, okay, well, I'm just kind of putting together a couple concerts, no big deal. But it's really gotten to the point where it is a It takes up a considerable amount of my time and my energy, and I am— it's a one-man operation.

Does it last a certain amount of, like, period of—

We typically do 5 main concerts and sometimes 2 or 3 kind of smaller satellite events, usually between January and late March or early April, because that's kind of prime time in the desert. Like I said, so much of the population there is seasonal. People only live there for the winter, so everything is kind of jam-packed into roughly 3 months month, period. And all of our concerts are just by donation only, so we don't sell tickets, which means it puts the pressure on me to raise the money because the money we get from those donations, you know, doesn't come close to covering the actual costs. But it all works out, you know, thanks to the generosity of some donors and the people who make those small cash donations at the door. We're able to keep things going and keep the concerts open and accessible to everyone because, you know, not everyone can afford to pay $20, $25, $30, $40 for concert tickets, especially like, you know, I really want to see people bringing, you know, families coming as a family. And, you know, not every family can afford to pay those kinds of prices for concert tickets. So I'm glad that—

Currently right now, is it still going on right now? Because it's February, right?

So yeah, yeah, yeah, I just got back. I just got back from a 2.5-week trip there. 'Cause now that I don't live in California anymore, now that I live in Maine, I moved from one corner of the country to the other corner, but I'm still fully committed to the concert series and the desert still has a very special place in my heart. So I'm not letting go of the concert series anytime soon. And there's no one I could just hand it off to. It's like, this concert series will exist as long as I am making it happen. And if someday it doesn't make sense for me to do it anymore, then that's that's when we'll call it quits. But yeah, it's great for me. I love living here in Maine where it's even quieter and a slower pace of life than the desert was. But I love that I'm able to go back to Southern California because I still have so many professional and personal ties to Southern California, both Los Angeles and the desert. But the desert especially is a place that's always very, very special to me. So I'm glad I can keep the concert series going. And the way I'm making it work now is I'll typically go out out for, like I said, this recent trip was about 2.5 weeks. And one of the first things was a concert on the concert series. And then a couple days later, we did a special event to honor my composer friend whose album I produced. And then I went to Arizona for a week and played concerts with my violist friend Molly Gebrian, because we've got a new album that just came out. And then I came back to the desert and we had one more concert on the concert series. And now I'm home for like 10 days. And then I go back and I do another similar trip where it's a combination of concerts on the concert series, Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts, and then also some of my unrelated performances. Although actually, I'll be performing on the next concert, which I'm usually— I'm just behind the scenes, but because, you know, the concert series is not— it's not a vanity project. It's not— it's not about me. But I've learned over the years that the audience does kind of expect to see me on stage every once in a while.

Sure.

So I'm actually performing on the next concert in March.

Oh, how exciting! You have so much to offer. But before I forget, we have to talk about your latest album called Trailblazers, uh, with the violist Molly— how do you pronounce her last name?

Yes, good for you for asking because people usually don't get it right the first time. It's Molly Gebrian.

Gebrian. Okay, beautiful last name. Now, uh, so with her you have created this album and then 3 female unknown— I know Ethel Smith. I mean, I've known of, but I did not know other composers, so this is great. So other 2 are Henrietta Bosmans and then Dora Pejatović.

We're pretty sure that's the correct pronunciation, but maybe one of your viewers or listeners who's Czech will write in to tell us that we're getting that wrong.

But they're all viola, you know, sonatas, pieces, right?

Well, they're not actually. Oh, really? So let me tell you the story. Okay. So this new album with my violist friend Molly Gebrian, and I mentioned her previously because we were talking about an offshoot of my solo piano percussion project, is this project called Trios for Two. That's with the same violist. Molly and I met when we were like 15 at a summer music camp. So we've been friends forever and we, have very rarely actually been in the same place at the same time, but we really like collaborating. So we've created a couple of projects as an excuse to work together. And this most recent project, the album that was just released called Trailblazers, is no percussion on this one, just viola and piano. But they actually aren't viola sonatas. They are cello sonatas that Molly has transcribed for viola. And the genesis of the project is kind of funny. Molly was cleaning her house and listening to something on YouTube. And then when the piece she was done listening to finished, YouTube autoplay started playing one of these cello sonatas. I don't remember which one was the first one, but, and she was listening. She was like, wow, this is a really cool cello piece. Like, and then she went and looked at the composer. She was like, I've never heard of this composer. And then the autoplay feature played another one of these cello sonatas by this, you know, not very well-known, you know, female composers in the late 19th and early 20th century. And again, so she had, so these these 3 pieces came on back to back, and it was the same reaction every time. It's like, why haven't I heard these pieces? And these composers are amazing, and like, I think these would work well on viola, maybe. And you know, violists frequently steal repertoire from other instruments. You know, pianists, we're so lucky, like there's no shortage of piano repertoire, right? But violists, they don't have a lot of amazing repertoire that was written for them, especially not in that romantic time period. You know, there's some great 20th century repertoire for sure, but in this late 19th, early 20th century kind of transitional period, kind of late Romantic, early modernist style, there's not a lot of viola repertoire. So Molly took it upon herself to transcribe these works for viola, and it's not as simple as just, you know, for your listeners or viewers who might not know the difference, the viola is one octave higher than the cello. But it's not as simple as just saying, "Oh, okay, I'll just play it up an octave." Right. It's not that simple. It's a much more involved process of making very careful, deliberate decisions about which octave to play certain passages in, and then sometimes having to make compromises based on the nature of the instrument. So she really invested her time and put a lot of thought into making these transcriptions, and then she asked me if I'd be interested in performing and recording them with her, which of course I was I wanted to because it's right up my alley. You know, I love being able to showcase composers like this who have mostly been, you know, in obscurity. And the Bosmans in particular is a piece that really, really spoke to me. It's got that great early 20th century energy, and all of this music is very— it's very accessible, even though two of the pieces are from the early 20th century. They're more backwards-looking stylistically they're more romantic, but The Bosmans in particular has a little bit of that. It kind of reminds me— it's written around the same time as The Planets by Holst. Oh, okay. Yeah, there are a lot of moments in The Bosmans that remind me of that piece in particular, but nothing nearly as radical as like The Rite of Spring or, you know, or Schoenberg or anything like that, even though it was that same time period, you know, the first couple decades of the 20th century. Well, this project was going to take place in 2020. Molly made the transcriptions and we, you know, had the scores and I started— we all started learning the music. And then of course it was not going to happen in 2020. The hope was that we would learn and rehearse the repertoire and then perform it a bunch of times before we went into the studio to record it. But that didn't end up being possible. But by 2022, we were finally able to make the recording, although we'd only had a chance to perform the music a little bit. So we've actually performed the music more since we made the recording. And, you know, things always end up taking longer than you think. I think recording projects, it's kind of like home renovation projects, you know, you start that bathroom renovation thinking, oh yeah, we're going to get this done in 3 weeks. And then, you know, 3 months later, it's still going on. Well, sometimes albums are like that too, especially when because of geography and also caution around COVID risk, a lot of the post-production work ended up being done remotely. So that added kind of an extra layer of complication. So yeah, things dragged on for a while, but this album that we recorded toward the end of 2022 was finally just released now in the beginning of 2024. And, you know, March, I believe, is International Women's History Month. So it's kind of a good time for this album to be out there. And, you know, we're really excited to have a chance to introduce this music to folks who haven't heard it before. I think Molly's transcriptions are great. You know, I think a lot of people are like, who wants to listen to the viola? Who wants to listen to a viola sonata? You should hear Molly play because this sounds really, really great. Listen to a really good violist. It's an awesome instrument.

For our listeners, please check out Danny's latest album Trailblazers on, uh, asisproductions.com, and then I will obviously leave the link in our bio or in the description. So, I mean, we can talk forever, Danny. You are such a— you have so many wonderful stories, and I can spend one more, two more hours, no problem. But, you know, it's almost close to the end of our conversation, so I have just one or two philosophical questions. So first one is, we are all aware of the stereotype or preconceived idea of classical musicians merely following the score, what's on the score, you know, acting as if we were cover artists. But however, you are a very creative person, such a creative artist, so you know that classical musicians are indeed a collective of creative minds. So in your perspective, how does classical music training contribute to fostering creativity?

Yeah, well, I do find sometimes I have to remind people that as performers, that we are creative, that we are not just passive conduits. It's not, you know, there's a, it's interesting because historically, you know, if you look back at most of the composers from the, you know, 18th and 19th century who we kind of revere, most of them were composers, improvisers, performers. Those three things were tied together. And it was only later in the 19th century and into the 20th century that those three things started to become separate and improvisation in particularly became the realm of jazz, something totally separate from classical music. And then there became this real separation of the composer and the performer. So yeah, there is this kind of old-fashioned notion, although like I said, I think it's important to recognize it's actually not the way that a lot of the composers we love were actually living their lives and being artists. Exists, but it is the way in more recent memory that, um, that the relationship is thought of. It's this idea that like the work of music exists kind of like in this almost like otherworldly place. And the composer is the one who kind of like brings that into reality by writing notes on a piece of paper. Um, and then it's, and then the performer just like plays those notes and brings it to life, you know? But, you know, as all of us who actually do this know, it's not so simple. There's only so much that music notation can convey. Even composers in the 20th century start to be much more precise about their notation and use lots of very specific expressive markings or metronome markings and all sorts of things to try to convey as specifically as possible what they're hearing in their head. No matter how precise the notation is, There's so much that can't really be conveyed. And that's where, you know, studying with really excellent teachers comes into play because, you know, we owe this amazing debt to generations of teachers. It's really, it's a teacher-student, you know, or master-apprentice relationship going back, you know, and all of us in one way or another can trace our pedagogical lineage back to, you know, some really famous pianists and composers.

Yeah.

It's all, we're all this kind of like one big family.

It's—

this came up in one of our earlier conversations too, you know, when you're— as a teacher, when you're dealing with, you know, an advanced student, when you're not dealing so much with like the nuts and bolts of like actually just like the technique or understanding the music, a lot of it really does come down to these really abstract concepts and a lot of the communication has to do with metaphor. And it's all of that kind of like— ephemeral stuff. It's difficult to find words to describe it. That information isn't on the page. There are certain performance practices that have just been passed down over hundreds of years from teacher to student. So I think it's important to recognize that aspect of it. There's a lot that's part of the tradition that's not on the page. And you learn that by, you know, thankfully we're lucky now to have, you know, over 100 years of recordings that we can study. So we can, we can study how other people have interpreted the music that we're looking at. But we also learn a lot from our teachers and we also learn a lot from like a lot of the scores on the shelf behind me are, are Urtext editions, you know, and even today sometimes we're still learning things. I mean, like really getting into the weeds, but like, you know, a great clean Urtext edition that's been thoroughly researched where we've got footnotes and sometimes places where it's like, oh, well, you know, in previous editions, this was a B natural, but actually now we're pretty sure it should be a B flat, or some places where it's like, well, you know, you can kind of go either way with this little nuance. We're not really sure what the composer meant. So even today with really old music, sometimes because of people, you know, musicologists doing really careful research and publishers publishing really good new editions of pieces. Sometimes we're still learning, we're still learning details. So that's all kind of the backdrop. And then for me personally, the way I approach it is I'm really trying to first start by understanding the composer's intention as much as possible. But I also want to make the music my own. And, you know, there are some different philosophies about this. I'll never forget, I remember one of my teachers, One of my teachers thought I was putting too much of myself into this Brahms piece that I was playing. And so we just had a slightly different approach. And I remember, I think I still have this score actually. He took my score and the COVID you know, it had Brahms and he wrote, you know, it's not Brahms, like slash Holt. And he like crossed it out. But I don't know. To me, the most interesting performers are the performers who find something new and interesting in a piece of classical music and really like make it their own. And so that's always what I've been interested in doing in my own interpretive process. And I think I've been pretty successful with that because I'll have people come up to me after a concert where I'm playing like, you know, familiar music and They'll say things like, you know, so I played Mozart and they'll say things like, "I know that's Mozart, but it's almost like you wrote that yourself." And to me, that's like the highest praise because they clearly picked up on the fact that I've really delved deeply into the music and found, again, it's hard to use words to describe this stuff, but I've just found certain things in it that resonate with me in a certain way. And I'm going with that and I'm kind of taking those ideas and running with them. But like I said, it's also when we're dealing with classical repertoire, it's also always grounded in understanding the composer's intentions. So for instance, like if I'm playing Haydn or Mozart or Beethoven, like right off the bat, we just have to recognize this instrument that I'm playing is totally different from the instrument that they were playing and that was their frame of reference. So like already this is like, it's essentially a transcription. So there's no way you can be like a purist about that repertoire when you're playing it on a modern piano. So that's an important acknowledgement. But that said, there are still things, you know, thankfully we've got a lot of scholars and performers who have done a lot of work studying performance practice. And so we do have a pretty good idea of some of these little subtle nuances of articulation and timing. That these composers didn't notate, but we're pretty sure that that's what they wanted. And some of that can translate to modern piano. So like, I'm not an advocate of just like ignoring all of that. I definitely want to start with that, but also acknowledge like, okay, I am in the 21st century and I'm playing a totally different instrument than this music was written for, you know? Or like sometimes I'm playing a piece like totally decontextualized. Like I like putting together like one of the programs I've done is called Eclectic Miniatures. And I'll, I put together like a set of music that's like 12 to 20 minutes long of completely unrelated pieces, but that I find kind of interesting connections. And I like, I like interesting juxtaposition, like unexpected juxtapositions, you know? And so the way I approach a given piece might be informed by the context of how, of how it sits on a program. Of too, you know? So yeah, I don't know. Those are just my kind of preliminary thoughts, but I hope all of that conveys to folks that it's not like we just get the music and we practice and we learn to play it and then boom, we perform. It's a much more, at least for me, it's a much more subtle and nuanced and complex process that unfolds over months and years in terms of, you know, constantly developing and fine-tuning and changing my, my approach to a particular piece.

Thank you for clarifying.

I don't know if that clarifies anything.

It does. So what's your next move? I mean, how do you like to see yourself in, let's say, 3 years? Because usually I would say 5 years, but lately, you know, our lives change so much and then things just changed so quick in this, you know, 2020s. So I think 3 is a good number. So how do you see yourself in 3 years?

Well, I'm definitely in a big transitional period in my life. I'm in my early 40s, and after spending 20 years in Southern California, I did, you know, recently decide I was kind of ready for the next adventure in life. As I mentioned, I feel incredibly lucky that I am able to live in this quiet, beautiful place, but still travel to a place like Los Angeles, kind of take advantage of everything that a city like that has to offer and maintain the personal and professional and artistic ties that I have to that place. Um, so I feel really fortunate. I feel really fortunate to be in a place in my life where I have almost total control over what I do with my life on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. I've worked very hard to get to that point. I've made a lot of difficult decisions along the way, but I am clear about the things that matter to me. And as we discussed earlier, you know, the most important thing is performing. And in order to perform, I need to practice. And for the first half of my career, the last 25 years, it was a constant juggling act of lots of different teaching commitments that I thoroughly enjoyed and which happened to be a pretty convenient and steady way to earn a living, by the way, that's a whole separate conversation. You know, being a gigging musician is a stressful way of life. For years, I really struggled to feel like I was able to practice consistently to be able to play at the level that I expect of myself. To be able to reach those kinds of like transcendent moments in live performance that I talked about kind of craving. And so a year and a half ago when I made the decision to make this big move, this big change in my life, part of that was that I really wanted to leave behind the busy teaching career that I had had for so long. I still love teaching, but, um, I am happy to be in a place now where instead of having ongoing regular weekly teaching commitments, I can teach master classes and be a guest artist, but I can spend more of my time just focusing on performing and also frankly on being my own booking agent, manager, publicist. You know, it's like if I want to perform, I mean, I appreciate that people do call me and ask me to play concerts, but you know, mostly it's, you know, it's me sending emails and getting on the phone and introducing myself to people, especially being in a new place here. I'm really excited about connecting with audiences in my new home state. So yeah, the driving force is really about, you know, being able to have the large uninterrupted chunks of time in my daily life when I can practice, ideally free of other distractions. It's easier to do that living in a beautiful remote place like this, rural Maine.

Oh, how nice.

Than in a city where there's all this hustle and bustle. And yeah, and you know, outside of practicing and preparing for performances, keeping my concert series going is really important to me because even though I'm not the one who's usually performing, I really get a lot of satisfaction from being the one who's facilitating that. Again, you know, just getting people in a room to share a real experience. So much of our lives now are mediated through technology, mediated through screens, mediated through social media that, you know, where algorithms and the format of social media is kind of dictating like, what we experience and how we experience it. So just really prioritizing real life experience. Like, I wish I could be in New York and we could be having this conversation face to face.

I know. Maybe next time. I know. Yeah.

And so, so yeah, so aside from my, you know, from the work, the actual artistic work and the administrative and professional work, you know, the other things that are important to me are spending time outdoors in beautiful and inspiring places and spending quality time with beautiful, interesting, smart people.

Wow, that's great.

I feel very lucky that I get to, that I get to do that every day.

Well, Danny, this has been a fun and inspiring conversation, but before I let you go, we have one more thing to do. It's called the rapid-fire question. So this is part of the show where I get to ask fun questions to each guest, but now here's a little twist. At Sili, as these questions may sound, your answers may reveal who you truly are. So I just want you to answer them with the shortest responses possible. No explanation is necessary.

Okay. No explanation. Oh my gosh. I struggle with that.

Okay. Okay. That's the whole point of rapid fire, right? So, okay. Question number 1. What's your comfort food?

My comfort food. Soup. Okay.

How do you like your coffee?

Blended with MCT oil, vanilla, and maybe some Maine maple syrup.

Wow, that sounds amazing.

I'll make you some sometime.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Cats or dogs?

Cats. But I am allergic, unfortunately.

Oh, okay. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset.

Now, next question is a little bit more difficult. What skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had a chance to?

Right now, I'd like to make— I'd like to be able to make my own pesto.

Okay, that's simple. Yes.

Yeah, it's really not that complicated, but for some reason I haven't gotten around to doing it.

Okay. What is your word or words to live by?

Right now, gratitude.

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

Openness.

Good one. Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

Michael Jackson.

Yes, same.

Nigel Kennedy and John Cage.

Okay. Wow, Michael Jackson, me too. We have so much to talk about.

I'm a child of the '80s. What can I say? And yeah, I mean, what an incredible performer.

Oh yeah. Incredible artist. So unique. Anyway. All right. Two more questions. Name one piece in your current playlist.

Mm. Well, I can't name a piece, but I would say an album that has been with me for a while now is an album by Canadian Indigenous artist Jeremy Dutcher.

Okay, I need to check that out.

Yeah, he has a new album that just recently came out, but he has an album from several years ago that blew my mind. He's a classically trained vocalist and composer who has gone back and reconnected with his, his cultural roots and recorded this amazing album where he takes, uh, songs from his people that were preserved on wax cylinder recordings. And he reimagines the songs and arranges them for a kind of like chamber ensemble slash rock pop ensemble and also integrates those actual wax cylinder recordings. And the music is, the music and the arrangements are just amazing and it's beautiful and it's been really fascinating for me to hear this totally unfamiliar language. And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of these languages are dying. So, it's a really important— it's really important work that he's doing. Yeah, really interesting. Really interesting artist, Jeremy Dutcher.

Jeremy Dutcher. Okay, I will look him up. Great. So, the last question, fill in the blank, music is blank.

Everything.

Everything.

Great. I don't know. That's an oversimplification. But for me in my life right now, maybe, yeah.

Wow, wonderful. So this concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Thank you, Danny, for joining my show today and sharing your stories and insights and expertise. So for The Piano Pod listeners and viewers, please visit dannyholt.net to learn more about his career and connect with him on social media like Instagram @dannyholtmusic, I think, yeah. And then also Don't forget to check out his latest album, Trailblazers, with a violist, Molly Gibrian, as well as his solo album, Piano Music of Mike Garson, on all major music streaming services. All the links are listed in the show notes. Thank you to my wonderful audience and fans for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on wherever you get your podcast. Remember to hit the thumbs up button if you're watching this episode on YouTube. Follow The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song on social media to get the latest piano news via Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Bye everyone, thank you Danny.

Of course, thank you.

Thank you so much.