Season 5 Episode 5: “Dances, Improvisations, and Song,” Mark Markham - Steinway Artist & Improviser

This episode is brought to you by the Artsong Preservation Society of New York, whose support helps make this show possible.

I'm Blair Boudmagoura, the founder of the Artsong Preservation Society of New York, and I'm inviting you to join us for our Summer of Song Festival 2025, hosted by Manhattan School of Music. Join us for enchanting artsong recitals and masterclass performance workshops led by international artists. Visit www.artsongpreservationssocietyny.org for details and join us in this realm where music speaks and words sing.

Welcome to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. Today I am so thrilled to introduce our guest, concert pianist, Steinway artist, and improviser, Mr. Marc Marcom, known for his mastery of tone production and extraordinary improvisational skills. He has built a remarkable career that spans solo performances, collaborations with renowned vocalists, and jazz improvisation. His expansive artistry and versatility have earned him a reputation as one of the leading pianists of our time. Mr. Markham was nominated as one of our guests for this season by Blair Boone Migura, founder and executive director of the Artsong Preservation Society of New York, which also happens to be our sponsor for this month's episodes. So a big shout out to Blair for his dedication to keeping the art song tradition alive and for supporting The Piano Pod with us. For first-time listeners and viewers, welcome to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. I am Yukimi Song, a classical pianist and educator from New York City. Whether you are pursuing a piano Whether you're working in the classical music industry or simply passionate about piano, this podcast is your backstage pass to the fascinating world of piano music. In our biweekly episodes, we engage with remarkable guests who are shaping the future of classical music. Our mission is to create a vibrant community that embraces fresh perspectives, ensuring classical music thrives in our ever-evolving world. If you are new here, check out the introductory episode of Season 5 to get a glimpse of what's ahead. And don't forget, you can catch up on all our previous seasons on your favorite podcast platforms or YouTube. Now let me tell you more about today's extraordinary guest, Mr. Marc Markham. Mr. Markham is a world-renowned pianist celebrated for his wide-ranging artistry, from his solo performances and collaborations with singers to his improvisational brilliance. He has graced the stages of iconic venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and the Salzburg Festival. One of his most notable collaborations was with the legendary soprano Jessye Norman, with whom he performed nearly 300 concerts across 25 countries, including the acclaimed Sacred Ellington Program, where he served as both pianist and music director. Mr. Markham is also the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins University, a testament to his outstanding contributions to the world of music. Mr. Markham currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Artsong Preservation Society of New York. Before we dive in, I want to thank our incredible TPP fans and loyal listeners for your ongoing support for the show. If you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review it on your go-to podcast platform, because every review helps others discover the show. Now let's uncover the secrets behind Mr. Markham's multifaceted career as a classical pianist, jazz artist, and collaborator. Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the future and thriving in a complex, ever-evolving world. Welcome to The Piano Pod, Mr. Markham, or Mark.

Thank you.

I am so delighted to have you with us today. And then the last time we spoke was back in August, I believe. So I— how have you been?

I've been great, you know, just dealing with hurricanes, which, you know, affected people and affected concerts and travel and all those things. And, you know, you don't think about it when it's so far away, but it does a lot of people.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I didn't think of that.

We're on the Gulf of Mexico, so I know all about hurricanes. Yes, it is down there this time of year.

Yeah, I've experienced hurricanes myself too. I used to live around the area, so it's a huge deal now. But besides that, how has this concert season been treating you besides all the storms?

Uh, let's see, last Thursday I was in Atlanta for a private concert to raise money for the second Jesse Norman School of the Arts. They opened the first one over 20 years ago in Augusta, in her hometown, and some people in Atlanta decided that it was time. And they got together and they have a place and they have students. They kind of did a soft opening this summer and asked me would I come down, and that was to be in conjunction with the annual gala in Augusta, which was to have been on Sunday, but they had to postpone because their city is, uh, a lot of it is in very, very bad shape.

Oh, really? Wow.

That was a big hurricane thing, and I didn't know if Atlanta would postpone, and that went on for a week trying to figure out what's the best thing to do. And so that has pretty much— that was a big focus. I was down in Virginia playing a recital with a wonderful singer, all German repertoire. So that's the— it's starting off slowly. I have a big, big center to my season this year, which I've been focusing on for the last year, making sure that the work is done in advance so I can actually enjoy what I want to do.

Mm-hmm.

When you play so many different types of repertoire.

Right, yes. I mean, speaking of, you have such a wide range, a rich and exciting career spanning, you know, from solo to jazz improvisation to collaborations with some of the world's most celebrated vocalists. You mentioned Jessye Norman and also other big-name vocalists. And also, I didn't realize you were also part— be part of this, this big chamber groups in the past. So given this rich and varied path, I'd love to start by asking what What has been the driving force behind your longstanding success and what continues to inspire your passion for exploring these diverse musical avenues?

I'm in love with music. I think that that is what this is all about, is my relationship with it, not my talent, not my luck, not my What opportunities, it's about your relationship to the music that you want to perform in front of people, because that is the only thing that we all have in common. That your relationship with whatever it is in your life, whether it's with a person, whether it's with playing the piano or music or your job, whatever. I mean, it's a huge thing. Somebody actually asked kind of a very similar question the other night, wanting to know, 'How do you, how do you deal with insecurity when you didn't grow up steeped in all of this music that you now take to places all around the world?' And I said that it's your relationship with music, that in the pieces that you're playing, that you're so inside them, you don't know if there's one person in the room or 10,000, and it doesn't make a difference. You still have to play. The same. You have to fight for your connection constantly to this and to prepare. And for me, no one ever said there were different categories.

It's silly.

You can only do this, you can only do that. That works for people who organize things. That works for concert halls. Sometimes it works for agents. Sometimes those people, it makes their life easier, but it doesn't make my life fun. To be fit into this little track of, yes, you do this. You know, I debuted with orchestra when I was 18. And everyone said, oh, do this, do this, do this. And then that summer I was sent to an opera training program and I was 18 years old and I got there. I'd never played anything in my life with opera. I fell in love with all of this. And, you know, it's just, and I was always playing improvisations when I was a child and No one ever said it was hard. So you, you realize that's the thing that, that carries you through this life. That's why people go to concerts to, to not avoid life, but to take a break. They sometimes need, they sometimes need 2 hours of being with someone else and to participate in that relationship with them. As they guide you through music. And that's what we do. We're just a vessel where this passes through us. And that's, uh, that's what I protect. That's what I nourish. That's what I look for. I try to instill that in my students. And that is the only— we serve. Music does not serve us. We serve it. A big shift right now that I'm having to go up against a lot because people like to use music to make them more important. And that's not the story. That's not the purpose. That's why it's very tricky, especially in this country culturally. We're dealing with Western European music.

Right.

We're trying to feed it into this culture, which is deeply based in money. That is part of the United States. And so whatever starts to make money, Sadly, it starts to run ahead of everything else. But, you know, this country is from Europe. Europeans founded this country. So this music, you know, I was fortunate enough to study with people who trained with people who were European, who were steeped into this and know what the sounds were. I mean, they were around when Brahms was alive and they heard people playing his music. I trust them. When they tell me this is the sound, this is the reason for the sound, and that's what it's about. So that's how I guess I've been doing all this stuff. And you know, my brother's very funny, he's a lawyer, and he said, you really don't care about what other people think. And what do you mean? Because you just, you, you, you're clear with what you believe in. And I said, yeah, I said, "It's my business to be involved in my business, not somebody else's." And I understand people love to get into everyone else's business, but that's not— that's never been me. And maybe that's why I can do the broad scope of things that I enjoy doing.

Wonderful. Well, now then, you also performed at some of the most prestigious venues as a soloist and performed traditional to contemporary music sometimes as well, and also piano concerti. I think, I believe there's one concert coming up you're performing Ravel, no?

Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand. For the first time in my career, it's Ravel's 150th birthday next year, and I thought, okay, I can play either, you know, I've played the G Major Concerto many times, and I thought, I've never played the Left Hand Concerto, and I've always had this thing for it, but the opportunity didn't arise, and I didn't feel that I was where I wanted to be with the piece. And I kind of asked some people, I proposed it, and everyone said yes. So it's coming out for the first time in January, and that's an experience. It is truly an experience that does not equal anything else. I've played Rachmaninoff 3rd, Prokofiev 3rd, the other Ravel concerto, all these other big things, and this is from another planet.

Can you elaborate a little bit more?

Well, you're dealing with only one hand, which if you close your eyes, you sometimes think there are three hands because Ravel was so clever in how he did things. But he was near the end of his life and having, you know, not mental problems, but problems in his brain, you know, with a disease. And some days it was good, some days it wasn't good. And this piece I find rather apocalyptic. That he, when it starts, it sounds like it's coming from the depths of a sleeping volcano someplace. And you just feel the rumblings of the earth shaking. And you're trying to figure out what instrument is that that's playing these, these sounds down there at the beginning. And by the time the piano comes in, it's outrageous in the most extraordinary way. And you feel this battle of creation. And it's probably with his own personal experience, what he was going through, because there's not much else in his repertoire that's like this. There are little moments of other pieces, of course, because he's still the same composer. But that he went off and did something with only the left hand. Still kept his, he kept his honor, he kept his dignity, he stayed, it was integrity. He was true to himself. You know, a lot of people think it might be flashy. There is nothing flashy about it. It is profound music. It tells a very deep story and That's an— it's a completely different experience than the G Major Concerto.

Hmm.

The movements of that, which are the first and last movement, the second movement is of another place, but in a different way, much more light. The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song has a lot of darkness, but at the same time, these huge bolts of light that shine through and you feel the tension, which is in the creation of it all, which I find fascinating as a mature musician, not as a 25-year-old. Nothing wrong with being 25, but you know certain things in life by the time you get to where I am now, you've experienced quite a bit so you can bring all that to it. Yeah.

Oh, exciting. Always tackling on new pieces is what keeps us really motivated and young too. And yeah, but it's not easy.

Right, you stay involved with this process. And now that I can, a little hindsight, I look back and I see artists similar age to mine, same place, whatever, you know, time-wise in the career, they got to play the same Sixth Concerti for 35, 40 years. I don't think that would have worked for me. I am not that person. I couldn't do it. I was told when I was 20 years old, you should leave school and go directly to the Metropolitan Opera House. And I just looked at the person, I was a faculty member, and I looked at him like, oh, you're very talented. I said, yes, I might be, but I still have many things to learn before I go jumping into a, on a ship like that to be eaten alive, pretty much.

But you did, or no? You waited.

I didn't. I, I, I, people said things and suggested things and I thought about it and I thought, no, that, that bothers me inside. I try to listen to me inside and when something is put in front of me, I'm usually a pretty good judge about determining whether or not does that make me feel good? Does that throw me off center? Am I doing strange things to try to fit it? And that's, that's a tricky thing because people want to work, you know, and they're told, yeah, we'll get you this job, we'll get you this job. Well, I want to play this instead. Well, you got to do this job first. Opera singers, they end up singing the same bloody 5 roles for 30 years and then they get bored out of their minds and they don't practice well and they don't try things. And then, you know, some crazy staging has other ideas and They haven't been doing their work, so they get in trouble. I think they're just kind of, you know, sleepwalking through things after a while.

Hmm.

Hard to keep renewing, refurbishing.

Right.

Renewing your commitment over and over again. The same repertoire all the time.

Uh. Hmm.

There are things I play now that I've played since I was 12 years old. Wonderful, but you have to bring it to today. And bringing it sometimes is really a lot of work. I played the Suite Bergamasque last week in Atlanta, and I decided, because all the pieces were written by young people in their 20s, to talk about my relationship to music and everything. The amount of energy that I had to put into that a week before, trying to— because I made the decision late. Of course, I still have it memorized. Get it to where it's speaking from me today versus me doing a karaoke version of what I had done before. That is— either you love doing that or you don't. And I'm not that person who's going to try to play it again.

Right. Yeah. Because you keep reinvesting in yourself, no? Exactly.

Every day is a new day. You got to work. That's hard work. Life is real. When life comes along and throws you something that's real life, that's really not pleasant, you somehow have to deal with that and all these other things at the same time. So it's, you know, it's a great journey. But I think I'm— I know I'm happy.

Wonderful.

All the dreams, the pieces I think, oh, I'd love to play that. Most of them I've been able to manifest.

Oh my goodness. That's a dream come true. It is.

It is in that you get to enjoy it. Some things where I wish I would get more than one chance or that it could come back around. But I'm not that old. I could still have a chance for for it to keep coming back. And I hope this works for another 20 years.

So what are some memorable moments as a soloist, like pieces or maybe events? I've listened to your Liszt Transcendental Etude, Poulenc Improvisations, which are so lovely.

Aren't they amazing? Aren't they the most amazing pieces? That was because I was trying to put together a program called Dances and Improvisations. And I, and this all happened, the pandemic, as horrible as it was, it really put things in your face to deal with them because you didn't have anything else to do. You had to confront what the reality was. And for the first couple of weeks, you know, I probably sat around here and was sad and cried and all those different things, wondering what am I going to do for a job? Nothing was working. And then I had a little meeting with myself and said, you know what, the last time you played Bach in public was in 1980. I think it is time. This is coming back. And you will have to excavate because that is truly from another lifetime. And I brought back the second French Suite. And a lot of the time, sadly, we're all trying to do things with a lot of pressure on our backs to get it ready, to be ready, and then to have to put it away and run to something else. Well, during the pandemic, there was none of that. You had all the time in the world. You had hours and hours every day. And so I sat with it every day, and Bach is usually one note at a time. And I had to find my relationship with that music, where I am to where I was, you know, 3 years, 4 years ago, to confront all of that and whatever these things, ideas we have about Baroque music as a pianist and all these different things. And it was quite eye-opening. Those were my dances. And then the Valse Noblesse Sentimentale of Ravel, I wanted those. That kind of came together. And then these Poulenc improvisations, when I found those, it was— and I'd found those years ago and decided, you know what, this is part of this program. It's got to be such original pieces. He always said his piano music was was not very well written. He thought his piano writing in the songs was much better, so he was always talking down about his solo piano music, and I wanted to prove him wrong.

Also, I realize that you are so engaging. You're not just performing and do the traditional bows. Or maybe that was for streaming, but you were also explaining about the selection of each piece, which is really untraditional. But, you know, people are starting doing it because otherwise most of the audience that you deal with, they have no idea what you're playing.

I mean, a lot of people It's like, come on, I remember when, when I was in school, in the library, there was a card catalog. One day the card catalog disappeared and they said, oh, we have computers, look it up that way. I didn't know what that was. I didn't know what a cell phone was. There were no cell phones at that time. Didn't take pictures when we were on tour. You went and did your work and you came home. So all these new things for the older people came in. And so trying to figure out, all right, who knows what about what? And when you choose a piece of music, you have to find what can— if you want the room to have people from 15 to 85 years old, then you've got to find what in that will spark a little bit of interest for the young ones as well as the more mature, the traditional audience in this country. And, you know, and I'm very tough with people about that when they do talk. And I said, don't talk longer than the piece lasts, please. Make it quick. Tempt us, lure us in to make us more open to listening. That's something that, you know, I was asked, what was it, 30, almost 35 years ago by Johns Hopkins University. I was a new faculty member at Peabody and someone contacted me and said, we'd like for you to go out and lecture on music representing Johns Hopkins at all the alumni associations in the United States. And I said, wow, okay, well, what should I talk about? Well, what about the history of rock and roll? And I remember looking at the phone like, what? And it really upset me inside. I didn't say no, but I, oh, okay, let me think about this. And I hung up the phone and I thought and I talked to a couple of friends and one person, very wise, just said very calmly to me, Mark, if you're going to speak in public about something, you must have a relationship to that topic. You cannot read something. You cannot read somebody else's story. You've got to find your— because if I'm engaged, I know the room is engaged. That I do. That's how communication works. And when people sense that I'm engaged, then that works. Trying to find a program, and I came up with A Night at the Opera, which made people think of all different things, whether it's the Marx Brothers, in their crazy movie or something modern today and talking. I had talked about the history of opera and the crazy stories and the crazy singers and that Chopin, Bellini, and playing a Chopin ballade and then playing a Liszt transcription at the end of the waltz from Faust. But, you know, in an hour that you put all this in there, everybody in every situation, the room was always thrilled. There was something there for everybody that I believed in. Nothing filled in just to kind of take up space because you can't do it for real. You can read things.

Hmm.

Not very interesting to people. The Hungarian Franz Liszt, who was a man of the world, spoke many languages, was one of the great pianists of the 19th century, and he is credited for creating the piano recital. This idea that they put a piano on the stage, and that one person comes out and plays it all night, and you all sit here and listen. Some of these programs, when you go back and look, they lasted 3 to 4 hours. It's a long time to be there, but this was the only way that people could hear music. He wrote a series of the Transcendental Études. There are 12 of them. The first time around, it was so difficult that no one could play them, except him. So he had to revise them. Then he revised them a second time, and no one still could play them. So finally we got to the third version.

This is one of those pieces, "Arménie du soir." I'm also curious about the your recital at the Lexington Bach Festival, Bach and the Art of Improvisation. What is this all about?

Well, the Lexington Bach Festival, I think it's next year's their 25th anniversary. It's up in this little town on what lake is that, Huron? I don't remember for sure, in September. And Bach is the thing. Everything is, it doesn't have to have Bach, but you try to have something based around that and the music around it or something that relates. And so the dances and improvisations were part of that. So my improvisations are based a lot of the times on the American Songbook. I can do an improvisation out of nothing, just make up stuff. That doesn't bother me. I mean, it's fine, but I haven't gone that far yet. I haven't programmed that yet in public. It's always something because I want people to feel, I want them to have something that I, my take on it. I might play the song Moon River. I have a certain thing in my head that I hear with that song. I don't know why, but for a while, it's been a few years, it's in the same vein. And I didn't realize what I was doing the first time I did it. It just kind of happened on the stage and I was, rather alarmed by it in a good way. Wow, that's, that's something. So I keep playing with it and, you know, maybe the next time I play it, it'll be completely different, you know. And that's where that came from. And, you know, you're in a church with 250 people with a beautiful piano, a beautiful acoustic, and they are there for music. And I was given the, the great opportunity to be able to share that.

Yeah, but you know, playing improvisation, it takes really courage. I mean, as much as playing Chopin etudes, Liszt etudes, they're very difficult and to perform live takes so much practice and everything, but improvisation is another thing. But you are known to do that and you've played, you also play like in your solo concert toward the end. Don't you play like a transcription of—

Oh, I play transcriptions of different things. I sometimes do encores that I play with orchestra. You know, I— well, there was a night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania during the pandemic, and they were given permission to have a concert in October of 2020. And I thought, okay, and this was the beginning of— this was the first time the Bach was coming out. I agreed to do it, but I decided 2 days before I would go to Philadelphia and play this at the home of some friends. Well, of course, we had all the COVID restrictions and people wanted to be safe. They opened all the windows and the doors to their house. We had people inside. Some people sat outside on the lawn. Some people sat on the front porch and I played. Wonderful. I finished that. Got— next day, got up, packed my bags. Was looking at my phone to see the directions to drive to Harrisburg because I was going to play the following night in Harrisburg. And I looked at the phone. I kept my glasses on my face. I'm carrying two pieces of luggage down a staircase with my glasses on, which are only to see close up. I looked down and I thought I saw the steps. Did not see the steps clearly and I fell. So I'm plummeting down. I only missed two steps. But into a wall. And I didn't want to smash my face in the wall. So my arm came up and stopped that. And this arm was back like this. And I landed and my friends are screaming, are you okay? Are you okay? Because I landed with all of my weight when you fall 2 steps. And no, I'm fine. I'm fine. And I took my step to the car. And I thought, I wonder if my leg is going to be— my ankle, my foot. You would think I landed on all of that weight. There should be a problem. It wasn't a problem. I got in the car and drove for an hour and a half, 2 hours, got to Harrisburg, got out of the car. I felt fine. I said, well, lucky me. Okay, that certainly woke me up for the trip. But then when I got to the hall and started practicing on the piano, I realized that my right arm would not move quickly left to right. They just— I didn't have the— I didn't have freedom in the muscles, had kind of seized up a little bit. And so playing the Was it Andante Spianato in Grand Polonaise of Chopin? You are moving a lot. It's a lot of left to right, constant motion like that. And I just couldn't— I didn't feel comfortable. So that concert then turned into Bach, Ravel, and Poulenc on the first half. And the second half was all improvisations on the American Songbook. There were 49 people in the room because the government said at one point you can have 50 people. Then the week before they said 150 people. Then it dropped down to 35. And by the time they made their final announcement, it was set and people didn't buy, they couldn't buy tickets because it was, but we had 50 people or so in the room. And that's where that came from, that entire evening. Sat there on the stage for half an hour. And, and I told them very, as clearly as I could, I said, I have no idea what I'm going to do. This is all a surprise to me. I said, I think it will be clear when I'm finished with each group. I'll probably play 3 different sets. They were absolutely thrilled. But when you look back at it, how important music was during the pandemic for people. It was so important. I didn't realize how important it was for me. The performance of Bach that evening is on YouTube. The French is there. And it's the very first time I had ever played the piece in public. And that is there. And there are things in it to this day I'd sit there and listen going, I don't know where that came from, but I had to trust that music was going to carry the day, carry the evening, so to speak. It was, it was, it's an interesting time to, to be in that place and people that you can feel they want music and to take these old songs, which I know them all for whatever reason. I memorized words back when I was a child. I learned all these songs out of books. I didn't know what I was doing. I just sat there and played and learned all the words. And it really is kind of strange that a little, you know, 8, 9-year-old is doing this type of thing. That's what I did. And no one ever said it was hard. I'm just playing an instrument that I know very well. And I Pianists know their instrument, you know?

So that's how you started, like, doing improvisation as a child. You flipped through all these songs and—

Flipped through these songs. I remember I got a hymnal from the church. I would open it up and put it there on the piano and thought I was playing it. I knew this. I knew the hymn. Look at the words. I probably couldn't even read the music well. I was playing something. As if this is how it goes.

Right, right, right.

No one ever said stop doing that or no, that's wrong. Don't do this. Don't do that. A lot of people are fearful of, oh my goodness, that's going to destroy the hands. Oh, that's going to do this. Oh, they're going to have bad habits. Oh, they're going to have this. I was never taught by fear. And yet a lot of energy that people had to deal with with me. There's no doubt. My dear teacher, Anne Schein, she said to me a few years ago, I said, what was it like teaching me? And she goes, mm, the energy of 6 people. And I had never thought of it. I just, I loved what I did. And I mean, she suffered through many times when, you know, I had 3 vocal recitals to play, but I was supposed to be preparing my master's recital. And I played 3 recitals in a week with 3 different singers. And then had to get in there and learn the Barber Sonata and Schumann Fantasie and all that stuff. And I did, but it didn't make everybody calm around me. Those who were trying to guide me, they had to really watch. They knew when to lean in to say, hey, you've got to take care of this. But I learned, you know, this is why I think I can handle it now that I understand. I look ahead. I don't wait for one project to be finished and then look at the next project. You can't.

Right.

The Ravel Left Hand Concerto does not happen in 3 months.

Mm-hmm.

No.

It is little bits and pieces. And sometimes I don't play it for 2 weeks. And then I come back and I realize, wow, all of the work I did is still there. My body and my mind and my spirit all came together and it works.

But did you have any, like, uh, improvisation lessons from, like, jazz people with the jazz background, or no? No. Wow.

No, I just did it. I remember it was probably in the late '90s. It was— we were having Thanksgiving at Jesse Norman's house in London, and we had eaten upstairs, and then after dinner we start wandering downstairs. There might have been 20 people in this little house of hers in the center of London. And I went to the piano and started playing, you know, show tunes or American Songbook, just improvising. And a few minutes later, she's come down the steps and you see this head kind of bend around the corner looking like, "Who is playing the piano?" She had no idea it was me. And then I see this look in her eyes of, "You do that too?" And I thought, "Oh no." And that was the beginning of it all because then the next year she was doing this Duke Ellington project.

Yes, I was gonna—

On our recital at Carnegie Hall, she wanted to do some of these Duke Ellington pieces with the Alvin Ailey dancers. I mean, it was the most, not insane, but it was out there to finish a vocal recital with piano and at the end, clear the stage, push everything around, and then the last group songs is with dancers and Jesse and me and a string quartet and a bass player and all this stuff going on. It was something. But I remember those rehearsals. Ron Carter was the bassist. Ron is the most recorded instrumentalist in history. Sweetest guy. We're still friends. Grady Tate, a drummer. Grady's no longer with us. They were playing. And I show up to the first rehearsal at Carnegie and we're in a rehearsal space and they come up to me saying, Mark, can you tell me how this is going to work here? Hey, can you explain this to me? And I did. I didn't know who they were. This was 1999. So I did not know who they were, what they'd done. And I said, sure. So we started talking about it and they were depending on me. And I started thinking, well, okay, fine. Well, after it was, the concert's over, people started telling, do you realize who you worked with? And I said, yeah, Ron and Grady, cool guy, Mark. And then they explained to me, I'm like, oh my goodness. And they're, and they're asking me for things. I'm over here listening, trying to figure out what do you play? And Grady would be very funny about it. And he was always very direct. That's too much. Why are you playing there? Why are you playing the left hand? Stop it. And he would do this in rehearsal. I mean, he would say things to Jesse. Are you really going to sing it like that? Oh, oh no, that, that was priceless. He would say these things to me, and while it would make me a little— because you play by yourself, that's one thing. You get into a trio, you're in a quintet, and you're dropping things in where they need to be dropped. You're not doing something, you have to sense where's the moment to put this down to play this chord and put the what beat. And I was lucky that I had these people who were around me who said they were willing to say things because I was their little liaison between the jazz world and Jesse's world. I had to be the person in between because it's her show. I'm watching what she needs and trying to get them to do what we need to make sure she's happy. But at the same time that I'm not trying to guide the group in a way that doesn't sound authentic.

Wow. So that's kind of where Ms. Jessye Norman started singing these non-classical songs, but probably inspired by your playing, you know, playing, improvising, You know, she had done some of this music with John Williams before.

They did some orchestral things. They even recorded an album, and there's a recording of her singing "Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel. If you've never heard that, you need to go and listen to it. It will blow your mind. You won't know who it is. I remember when I heard it the first time, I thought, "Who is this?" It's that good. It's that just so so far removed from singing Ariadne auf Naxos. But then she did an album with Michel Legrand, and that was fine. Michel was wonderful. He would always come to our concerts. So, but he had his own style of playing and was really, really big. But then with the Ellington Project started, and then she started, when she started mixing a traditional classical recital and choosing very specific, more popular pieces to place within that program, not just at the end, but within the same group that you'd find Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Poulenc, and Gershwin, for example. Because that's just a random example, but that she made it work. And that was, you know, we both started playing with that and trying to figure out, you know, I get the list, she'd send it to me, and I'm like, what, what arrangement? Oh, we'll figure it out. You'll come up with something.

Hmm, fun. Wow.

When she wanted Summertime, the first— we were at the Temple of Dendur at the Museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and she said she was going to sing Aida, and she was going to sing Summertime. I'm like, Summertime? What do you mean Summertime? What key? Oh, I don't know.

Wow.

Okay, I know you're not going to sing in the original key because that's too high. Okay, just sing the beginning. And she closed her eyes and laid back and starts, "Our time," and came in and I found the first note. She sang a C sharp and I said, "Fine, you're in F sharp minor." And I started improvising the song in F sharp minor, trying to find this atmosphere that worked with her voice and the harmony and the color and the rhythm and the swaying and all these different things. But you know, there wasn't anything in the back of my head of, "No, you can't. No, you can't. No, you can't," because no one ever told me that.

And I'm grateful for that because I know a lot of people who were told, "Oh no, you can't do that." Improvising itself is not a comfort zone for so many classical musicians, but at the same time, you are improvising with someone like Kristi Norman, right?

For me, it's very strange when people say, oh, they can't do it or they're afraid to do it. I think if you play Chopin études, if you play Beethoven sonatas, you play Debussy préludes, don't you have atmospheres for those pieces or you just learn their notes? And that's a big, big thing right there that people learn the notes and they never ask why. Why these notes? What is the composer trying? What is the message behind all of this? Why did they choose? These notes to communicate this thing? And did you— are people clear with what do you believe the composer really is trying to put in the room? Because we musicians, we put sound into a room to change a room. And we can change the room by color of sound, by how we phrase something, by the volume of sound. And when people don't do it, they don't learn their music well. You know, we have a physical part, we have a mental part, but there's also a spiritual part. And these three things have to work together. They must. Because when we perform live performance, it's those three things coming together, they merge together, and just, they must march into the room as an op, as one. And a lot of people think they can take it all apart. And, oh, I'm just gonna work on technical things. Well, you really can't because it's still music. If you learn technical things with no expression behind it, then what have you done? You've created a little pile of nonsense over here. You can learn things by being expressive all the time. And I was told very young, even when you're practicing slowly and everything, it's still with intention. It's still with expression, with meaning, because that's, that's what connects you to the public. That's what connects you to the music. So you can have communion at that moment. But with improvisation, they know the keyboard well, I would assume. Though there are some situations nowadays when I ask someone, I say, what key is— what key— what chord is that? And I use this example. We were in— she was playing in the key of A-flat major, and all of a sudden, going along, a chord came up of D, F-sharp, and A. And I stopped and said, hold that chord, please. And they stopped and said, what chord is that in this key? Is it F major? And I said, shame on you. D, F sharp, A. You're a grad student. You're not 8. You're a grad student in A flat major. D major is about as far away as you can go. It is just completely— it should take your breath away. And that's what the moment was in the piece. But when I saw that that wasn't understood, the how music is built, that harmony is everything. If you don't understand harmony, how do you know? Of harmony, of how something is phrased, where is a release, where is some— what are you building towards? And that's monstrous for me because that tells me everything about a piece. I can learn so much just understanding the harmony. And when you don't know harmony, I would be terrified about improv— doing improvisation too, you know, because you're on a certain chord, you listen to Chopin sometimes. I'm sorry, when Chopin got older, the man, it sounded like he was on some special meds. He would take one little note and go chromatically with that one note on the inside of something, and everything else would kind of wander in another direction. Great theory teacher, Peabody, years and years ago in a class only on Chopin, who analyzed harmonically all of these things. And when you look to see how that man could hold something together with one little note and how he moved it through, and if you didn't know where that little line was, all these other things are going, woo-hoo, and jumping all around. It made no sense. And it became much more difficult. And you didn't understand where is the tension in the line? Because it's built in. I mean, Richard Strauss does the same thing. That one little note just keeps running through chromatically. And if you find where that is, you can hold it all together. And that's what I do when I improvise. I'm trying I'm feeling something that keeps me grounded. I just don't randomly choose something. Come on, this is like when people paint, when they— oh, I've created something new. No, you haven't created anything new. It's all— all of this is connected. And that's the beauty of it all, that these sounds have been around for who knows how long, how they're organized. That's why we have these amazing composers who do this for us. That part I'm not going to do. People always, oh, do you compose? Good Lord, no. That's a whole other job. Completely different job. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Then this, um, Sacred Ellington program became like a concert program and you're toured with Miss Norman, and they also became a CD album, right?

No, um, the Sacred Island team was never recorded. I think they tried to at St. John the Divine, last performance with that. That was an amazing night, but it was just— it was— it involved so many people with the chorus and the jazz band and string quartet and me and a dancer and Jesse, and you know, it was huge. But it was one of the most thrilling things to get to do. The works that we recorded were Roots: My Life, My Song.

Yes. Okay.

It involved spirituals and hymns and French music and Ellington and all these different elements of her life. She wanted to try to bring all of that together. But that was one of those experiences when she told us, okay, this is what we're doing, and sent the list. And I'm looking at this playlist going, What, what are these things? What is this? I didn't even know what it was. I said, where's the score? Nobody knew. There wasn't a score. And then somebody showed to the saxophone player, he turned in the rehearsal and said, here, and handed me a chart. Okay, I know harmony, so I can play a chart. That doesn't, that doesn't scare me. A lot of people freak out completely trying to Read +5 and, you know, all these minor 9th chords and this, that, and the other. And we started coming up with our arrangements.

Wow. Now, as much as this episode is about you, but it's at this point unavoidable to talk about your collaboration with Miss Jesse Norman. We've already, you know, in length, you've talked about her. So you must talk to us about— because we are curious— working with her, but also how did this collaboration first come to you and so on. Before continuing this inspiring conversation with our guest, let's take a moment to hear from our valued sponsor of the month, whose support helps make this podcast possible.

Are you ready to immerse yourself in a world of music? The ArtSong Preservation Society of New York, or ASPS-NY for short, is thrilled to announce our Summer of Song Festival 2025, hosted at the iconic Manhattan School of Music. Join us for a spectacular week filled with breathtaking recitals, illuminating performance workshops, and collaborative opportunities led by extraordinary artists like pianists Marc Marcam and José Meléndez. Experience the emotional depth of art song as you engage with a vibrant community of of musicians and enthusiasts who share your passion. Whether you're a budding performer, emerging recitalist, or devoted music lover, this is your chance to enhance your skills and connect with fellow artists. Picture yourself among the inspiring atmosphere of Manhattan School of Music, where every corner resonates with creativity and talent. Mark your calendars for June 8th through the 21st, Summer 2025, and be part of this extraordinary celebration of song. Visit artsongpreservationsoctny.org to learn more about our lineup of performers, schedule of events, and how you can register as an audience member or in some select cases as a performer or participant. Don't miss this opportunity to enrich your musical journey at our Summer of Song Festival 2025. Join us in this realm where music speaks and words sing.

Your collaboration with Miss Jessye Norman, we've already, you know, in length you've talked about her. So with whom you collaborated and performed together nearly 300 concerts in 25 countries, and that's like more than 20 seasons, right?

20 seasons, right?

Oh my goodness.

I heard her play, I heard her sing the very first time at the Kennedy Center in the spring of 1982, my first year at Peabody. And a friend of mine called me and said, I have bought the last 2 tickets for Jesse Norman's recital tomorrow, Sunday afternoon. You want to go? I said, sure. Well, I had a car, so kind of helped out. I made that work. So the 2 of us go down there, 2 pianists, and we're on the very last row of the Kennedy Center in the very top corner, as far, the furthest away you could ever be. And there we sat, and she came on stage and opened her mouth, and the wall started to shake. And you're going, "What is this?" And I had heard her at Tanglewood before, live, and that was amazing with the orchestra. But to be there in recital and to hear the pianist— and when she finished, we got to the end, we stood up, and everyone is exhausted because we've had half a dozen encores and people screaming and beating their hands together. And I turned to my friend and said, "You know, I think I could do that job." And she looked at me like, "Oh, okay." And that was then. I didn't think anything of it. Well, I didn't know this, but Jesse Norman and my teacher, Anne Shine, had known each other from the 1960s. Jesse had sung at her wedding. So they were friends in Washington, D.C. And in the '80s, when I was in school, people wrote letters to each other. And she was writing Jesse letters telling about her family, her children. And then she said— she told me this later— she goes, I would mention you, saying I have a wonderful student who loves vocal music. And Jesse would write back, oh, that sounds— he sounds lovely. And that was it, you know, just, oh, my teacher's writing to a famous singer about me, how isn't that nice? Anything of it. And then I don't know, but it was 1992, '93, somewhere around there. She wanted to have dinner one night. We had dinner and she tells me that Jessie was going on a tour and that she had written her about me, but that Jessie responded with, "Well, Mark sounds lovely, but we've never worked together." So they worked together for a couple seasons. And then I was playing in Brussels with Derek Lee Ragan, who sang in the movie "Farinelli," and we had a tour and we got to Brussels and we do the first half of our concert and I'm in my dressing room and all of a sudden someone's banging on my door and I open the door and the promoter's standing there and she goes, Jeff, Jesse Norman's pianist is dead. He died in January. She's looking for a pianist and you're it. I'm telling her, I'm calling her tomorrow. And I said, you know what? That poor man's body is probably still warm. It's Mark, you know, and you're telling me this during my concert and people love to talk. And I didn't know that I just met this person 2 hours before. And I said, that's very nice. Uh-huh. Let me finish the concert, please. And I did. And she did do that. So Jesse was hearing it from 2 sides at that time. And then in May, I get a phone call saying that Jesse's looking for a pianist. And her office called and said, are you available these two dates, three dates? And I said, yes, I am. I was— it was really sandwiched in perfectly with concerts right on either side. And, uh, they said, okay, fine, she'll call you tonight at 8:30. And she called and she goes, hello, Mark. I said, hello. She goes, I hear we have some work to do together. I said, yes, we do. Did you get the program? Yes. Do you like it? And I kind of laughed to myself like, what am I supposed to say? No, please don't sing that. Could you sing this instead? So I showed up at her house a few weeks later in London. She had never met me. She had never heard me play. And she took it on other people's word that I could do my job well. And I showed up and we had our first rehearsal, which was fantastic. And at the end, leaving the house, and she puts her hand on my shoulder and says, "They told me you were good, and they were right." And I thought, okay, I didn't know whether I was being seduced by the famous diva or how to take it. And I just said, "Just go and do your work and get back to work tomorrow." And I did my work, and we finished the 3 concerts. And at the end of the 3rd concert in Norway, she called me to her dressing room, and I walked in, and she goes, "I just have to thank you for being so prepared." And I looked at her and said, "For pay? Why isn't that? That's just what you do." Oh, you wouldn't believe the nonsense that I've put up with for the last few months. People who want to be on the ride, but don't do the work. Think that the person who's singing or whoever you're working with wouldn't notice the difference. So it's, it's that, that's how it started. Us being prepared. Her sister was there last week at the concert in Georgia, and she said, yeah, because people want to know, and she said Mark was it because Mark was prepared and they got along. And, and the biggest thing, I think, in that, to work with someone who's already had a 25-year career in front of the world and they're flying at that altitude and you're asked to join while the mission is ongoing. There's no time to stop the career and let me figure out what I'm going to do. Uh, it was up to me to be able to have the, the strength, the, the talent, the dedication, all those things, to be able to get on the ride already in motion and to join without creating any excess weight, any difficulty for her. The very first concert in Glasgow, people are asking me, the stage people and the managers there, now you, Miss Norman, have worked together a lot. What is she going to need? And I said, I'm sure that's in her, in her contract. Why don't you just check that out? I don't want to forget anything. I wasn't about to tell them it was my first concert, because when they heard me play, they heard us together, no one knew. They thought that we had been together for years, and that's just because We were both always very well prepared so that whatever happened, we could deal with it.

But the, you know, some intricacy of collaboration, like her part and your part, you know, ensemble. I hear it. Um, Erich König, uh, right? Yeah, I heard that. And Brahms and some other songs that I heard online, and they're so together. They're so in sync. It's just so beautiful. And I've done some of those pieces in the past, and it really almost made me want to go back playing for singers again because, yeah, you know, those pieces are so fun as a pianist. Song cycles are so fun. So, but did you do like a lot of those song cycles together with her? And did you also sometimes play arias for her?

Like, I was just saying, she would sing arias from Carmen, Lila, things like that. Not much more than that in recital. But, you know, lots of German repertoire, lots of French repertoire, even some Spanish. A little bit of Italian, lots of songs in English.

So that relationship with her professionally, and then obviously you, you both became such good friends, I'm sure, and So then I watched a short video clip of you playing Deep River arranged by you, and it was at her funeral, I think. Right. Very emotional performance, and a lot of people are there. So can you tell me about that event or occasion?

Well, a funeral is a funeral, and for her it was rather shocking And I spoke to the family and they said, Mark, if you want to play something, please, love for you to do it. And I said yes. And it was put as the very first musical tribute of a 4.5-hour funeral. And it went on forever with people praying and sermons and eulogies. Eulogies and music and all these different things. And I thought of all the pieces that we did together, that was something I think that could mean something. And her sound in that piece was, was unique. She did— that was just the color of her voice with that piece.

It worked.

And so I decided to put something together, but it was, you know, in those moments as a musician, as an artist, you're trying to— you want to make the contribution, but you're also— your emotions have to be not kept in check, but you have a responsibility to your— to the musical performance. And to feel the pain in the room, you know, they called me from my dressing room room and said, "You're next." And I walked out on— walked backstage, and there was a woman praying. 8 minutes later, she was still praying. Back to my dressing room, I said, "Please let me know when she's finished praying. I'm trying to— I've got to stay in this place to be able to do what I want to do." And feeling all of that, I mean, I've known— I knew the family for 25 years. At that point. You know, we shared holidays together and just, you know, showing up to play a tribute for someone because they were famous and you're famous, very different thing. Like, you know, it's the Metropolitan Opera when they did the big tribute for her there. I played. It's very different for me than it was for the people I played for.

Well, thank you for sharing this beautiful tribute and stories with me and with my audience. So now also you work with some other wonderful renowned singers like, you know, Janaye Bridges and so on. What's the secret you will want to have as a pianist to collaborate with singers?

You have to play your part well. You have to know it well. You have to be able to, you know, the language. You understand how a singer breathes. If you can't sing the piece, if you can't sing the piece and play your part, then how's it going to work? You have to be able to sing the song and play simultaneously because that is what's going to happen. And the fun part is never do the song the same way twice.

Why?

How boring. You know, Arthur Rubinstein did not play the same way two nights in a row. That's part of being, I think, an artist that you, in that moment, you have to be able to fly. And if you want to play with someone who's singing, then if you don't know the poetry, if you don't know that pronunciation, you don't know what those words mean, how can you play inside the word? You're playing inside the color of a word, inside the sound of a word, how it's pronounced, how it's caressed. And you think about all those things and you try to come up with probably, I would always, the joke was I would come up with 100 different ways to play a song and then get to a rehearsal with Jessie and she'd come up with 101. And I'd just kind of laugh and roll my eyes sometimes and go, uh-huh, okay, fine. And then I could change something else. And we both knew it so well that we could, You know, you start flowing together with it, then it's fun. Who wants to do the same thing day in and day out? How boring.

Sure.

But that's it. You want to play for a singer? If you don't love words, do something else, please. You've got to love all that. Singers can be a little crazy at times, just like a violinist can be crazy and a pianist can be crazy, but singers take a hard rap. But you know, as I say all the time, they're the only people facing the public. The rest of us get to turn sideways, turn around, do all these different things. They are there facing the public, telling stories through these words, through this music, and they have to count on their breath. And when you get nervous, the first thing that goes is your breath, and things get a little tight. You hear that, and you have to understand what that sounds like and what it feels like. I love it. People, they love to make fun of singers. Pianists will do that. I said, well, good. Have you stood— let me hear you sing something. Shuts them up very quickly. I was singing, you know, in public since I was 4 years old. So for me, it was, it was a part of being, saying everything, everything was sung. And so my playing has that feature to it that everything was sung. And if you don't understand all that and what it feels like and to understand what it feels like to be in their shoes. Those are not easy moments. Jesse and I did the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at Lincoln Center. You're in a hall with 3,000 people and you're doing— you're representing the country at that point. Those emotions and the families are there and here you are thrown on stage to do 7 minutes of something that's supposed to be perfect and great and expressive and free and like, okay, you got to get to that. You got to get to that place very quickly, but you have to know where that place is. Yes, you have to know what that is, and that's how you build that when you do your work.

Not—

it's not luck. It's not, oh, I hope it's going to work out. Hope is 50 50. It's a lovely word. Hope is 50/50.

Wow. Now I want to go back to you being the pianist, the soloist. These are specific questions, technique and tone production. Your performances are known for your expressive power and clarity. And it comes to, when it comes to piano technique and tone production, how do you work to achieve that clarity of sound? And curious about your thoughts on technique and service of The music.

Well, you have to know what you're going to serve. We are serving. Just like you serve, you're serving food. It would be nice if it was well thought out and well put together and looks nice on the plate when it hits the table. Not running, if somebody running over saying, oh, I forgot this, let me sprinkle this on. Oh, let me chop this on here. No, I don't want to see all that. Oh, I forgot the chicken. No, that's not how it works. You prepare And with, with The Piano Pod, with the instrument itself, its capacity to do everything that the whole orchestra can do, that is in your imagination. If you wanted to sound like a drum, you can. If you want to sound like a flute, you can. If you wanted to sound like a clarinet, an oboe, a trumpet, all of these different things that this instrument has the capacity to do. And this is where I think the piano is an extraordinary— for me, that it is my playing field because all the things are there. All those opportunities, anything that I can dream of can happen here. And we're playing more than one note at a time, which a lot of people, you know, their instrument only plays one note. We are dealing with harmony and line and direction and color and the shape of things. If you actually understand what it is you want to communicate, to understand why that piece was written in the first place, to try to get into the composer's psyche about those things, you then— your body actually has the capacity to release And you can trust all the work that you've done if you've practiced and you know where the— you know, your fingering. Fingering is hugely important. If you don't understand great fingering, you'll never get a sound. And singers are born with a sound in their throat, and that is their voice. For pianists, we have to cultivate our sound so that no matter where you go, you still sound like you. The freedom that you feel inside, you can then trust that your hands, when you touch that keyboard, you're touching the keyboard for a reason, not just to put down a note. Because when we put down a note, our next responsibility is how to get out of that note, because we have— must feel the release of that that takes us to the next whether it's the finger next door, whether it's 3 octaves away, that if that release is not there, then you can't get to the next note. So it means your, your, your story has broken. And the fluidity of sound, of, of line, the color, your pedaling— there's so many young people now don't understand what the pedal is even for, that it's either on or off. And trying to explain, no, no, no, they're about 5,000 different variations of the pedal and how you can move it constantly to set off, but you play the pedal with your ears and it gives the piano— every piano has a certain capacity and your job in that little bit of time that you get prior to concert is to try to understand the capacity of the instrument you have and the hall that you're in and bring yourself because can you change the way you play?

No.

Technique is the easiest way to do something, the simplest way to do something. But finding what is simple in life is always the most confusing. It can be the most challenging. It's easy to make something simple complicated, but it's very hard to make something complicated simple. Then that's a whole thing for me of constantly studying and paying attention through the phrase to find out what is the simplest way. For me to achieve, but it means I understand what I want to achieve before touching the piano. And that scares a lot of people when I say, oh, I can learn a piece before I ever touch a keyboard. And people are afraid of that. I think, why would you be afraid? You can't look at the score and hear things? You don't have to hear every note perfectly. But when I first played, when I worked on Schoenberg Opus 11 the very first time, You can't sit down at the piano and play it. It's too crazy. But you can still look at the rhythm. You can see the shape of a phrase. You can hum all these things. You can make it up. But you learn the shapes. I mean, what do conductors do? They spend their lives with nothing in front of them and they have to look at a score and imagine things, how they'd like to hear it. And that is the aim, then I'm actually free to— you'll hear me, you'll hear my spirit ringing in that instrument, through that instrument, into the room, if I've really had the time and the possibility to settle down. You know, and that's— that to me is where my sound comes from, that I know where the release is before I play, but I also know where the release is after I play. And what is the journey to the next note and the next one after that? And how do things move as fluidly as possible? But, you know, practicing slowly with expression, that's not everyone's favorite thing.

Oh, I know.

And for young people, that is really the hardest part because I would have teachers tell me a long time ago, oh, you practice slowly, practice slowly and underline it 3 times. And I thought, why didn't anyone tell me why? Why didn't you tell me why? Had you told me why way back then, maybe I would have understood a little bit sooner. But then I think, you know what, my path is my path. Things happen when they happen. I arrive whenever I arrive. Some people might not have liked certain things at a certain time, you know. And I heard, I've heard everything from you know, the best to the worst of reactions back in the day when I was in my process of learning how to organize all of this energy and all my, the things I felt and the ideas and the plans that I had in my head someplace for a piece of music and what I thought it represented. And that's a, that takes, for me, that takes another artist teacher understand. Not just someone who teaches the piano. It's a wonderful thing to be able to teach piano, but to be able to teach artists how to actually stay an artist and not get caught up and confused in all that. And to sense sometimes people are— sometimes people bloom late, you know. I know this, the system, the media loves if everybody— The Piano Pod is blooming at 16. A lot of these kids, 18 years old, they're stars. By the time they're 30 years old, they don't want to play the piano anymore. Maybe even before. They're burned out. They're bored with it. Why? Why am I doing this? You know, if you're all the Liszt Transcendental Etudes when you're 18 years old, I'll be very curious to see what you're doing when you're 30. Because life is the— while it's short, a career is a long road. And to be able to tell stories when you're older, it's fabulous. It really is. Because honestly, you just don't care about what anybody else thinks. Wonderful place to be that this is my call. I'm gonna prepare this. This is what I feel because of my life and how I, what I've studied and read and everything else about this composer and these pieces. And then things work. While it is admirable to play the notes, wonderful that you put down these notes, you have to have a reason because there are people who kind of work on playing the piano, and then there are people who play the piano. But we work so hard to play the piano to serve music, and that's where an artist comes in. That— can you work with your gifts? And there are people who are frightfully talented. You know, you see these kids now, 7, 8 years old, and they're playing major works. With what appears to be comprehension, which is astounding. But the other side of it that, uh, Rubinstein talked about it a lot, and that playing the piano is, is just part of your life. It's a part of it. That food, that books, that painting, the architecture, all these different things, understanding where these things come from and why they, why they're important. Because we give concerts for what reason? To show off what we do? And this is where it gets all lost. And you know that you want people to come to these experiences and they should have an experience. It should startle them sometimes.

Their—

when they discover their capacity to actually feel things. I remember years ago in New York, I played a solo program, and afterwards there's a line for people to meet me. And it happened like 2 or 3 times, these businessmen shook my hand and then started crying. And I thought, what is going on here? And it was just one of those nights where it touched It touched people in a way that they didn't realize they had the capacity to feel something. And this is your responsibility as the artist that you have. Yes, I have a connection with music. There is no doubt about that. I always have since I was born. I remember it from the time I was a year and a half, what was in my life and all that stuff. And that you, I have, okay, fine. Do I have hand-eye coordination? Yes. Everyone else in my family played sports. My father was a minor league baseball player. His brothers, they all played sports. And this hand-eye coordination was astounding. My grandfather was an artist, but he couldn't make his living just doing that. So he created an outdoor advertising company in the '40s or late '30s. And, you know, so it exists in there, but for me that it went directly to music. Did I have other skills? Yes, I was comfortable playing the piano. It didn't faze me. I enjoyed all that. I thought it was fun. But when you realize, wow, my responsibility is to work with this, you know, not to, not try to be famous with it, not to, you know, and this is where it gets, it gets a little strange because I'm sure the public wonders, well, who's the next young thing to come along? Not what does this person who's been doing this for 50 years, what are they going to say? And it doesn't— I mean, that does happen, that does exist. But there's a lot in between that's kind of, hmm, it's just filling spaces. And that's a hard one to It's a hard one. If I had only played solo repertoire all these years, I think I would not be this. I might not even be the same person because all the different things influence, you know, my solo playing influences how I play with singers. That my physical skills at the instrument are strong enough and dependable enough that I can play anything written for the voice. The Erich Kirnisch is not something I enjoy playing because it was so horribly challenging on different pianos. You know, you get an action that fights back, uh, and you can have a rough evening. But that's, you know, but you— that's why you develop your strength and your coordination and the mindset that understands how to get you through things when, uh, other stuff gets in the way. I had a piano a couple weeks ago, wonderful piano. I sat down in the rehearsal on stage and I played the first chord and I heard, I played the next chord and boom, and I went back and forth between the two chords and it don't— boom, every time after I hit something like a little boom inside the instrument. A beautiful 9-foot Steinway, gorgeous piano. And I thought Huh. And I stopped and brought the stage people out, and they're looking at it like how dogs, when they go, turn their heads to hear something. And I thought, are you not hearing that? And then the sound person came out because it was being streamed, and he's like, oh no, no, this is— this is not good. I said, thank you. They wheel the piano out, they bring me another one.

Really?

Yes, right before I'm getting ready to play a concert. So you end up having to completely readjust, recalibrate to be able to do these things. And if your relationship with these, these pieces is not strong enough, it can take you down. And some people, though, can battle through and beat the piano down and type out all the notes. And everyone thinks that's wonderful. And at the end of it, I'm going, but you're not going to come back. You were impressed in that moment, but you weren't touched. There are two very different things. And that, that's a really tricky thing. And, but I think it's— and that's why I think it's so important to— when I talk to people, I say, you know, it is important who you are as a human being. This is part of the The way you tell a story, that you understand what your responsibility is and how you tell these stories musically. And what is your real intention?

Yeah.

And it's interesting to watch, especially now. Things have changed.

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

The last 45 years. Which things do change.

Do you think it's a— you mean by technology, you mean how we live, how we think about life?

I think that we're further and further away from the origins of this music, especially the Western European music. This country is further and further in time away because there are very few people now teaching with that connection. And other people learn from someone who taught them about these things, but they don't have any direct experience. I lived in France for 12 years. Doesn't make me some specialist in French or French repertoire. I was in love with French repertoire when I lived in Pensacola, Florida when I was 12 years old. But that, that thing of something being closer, but as they further out of sight, out of mind. It's not absence makes the heart grow fonder. That's a lovely sentiment that people like to use. But out of sight, out of mind. And then, you know, we're getting further and further away from all of this music. And these kids nowadays, they have these phones constantly. IPads and all these things, which gives them 30 seconds of something and then we're on to the next thing. So you're never trained to listen. You have your little experience for, and you laugh or you whatever, and go, wow, and then you swipe to the next one. Life is swipeable. The experience of life is swipeable. You don't like this one, go to the next page. You'll find one that, you'll find one that fits it for that moment. And I'm very grateful that I didn't have all that growing up, that I had to be creative and, you know, do something with your time and your imagination. Doesn't mean kids don't. I know plenty who do. Their parents pay close attention though. But that's where this music lives. I mean, it lives way, way up here in a divine space because of its power. It's the best of humanity and its power to connect us as human beings. It's extraordinary. And to find people who actually are willing to let it live there versus trying to bring it down to them. And to show everybody, look what I can do. Hmm. You know, and the same goes with singing too. There are people who can make extraordinary sounds, no idea whatsoever why. And I listen for that same thing at the piano as I do in the human voice. And that freedom and that vulnerability, to be vulnerable in that moment, to, to go with what you believe and You know, you're in love with somebody or something, you don't question things, and nobody can tell you otherwise. The worst thing to do is tell a teenager or a 20-year-old that they're in love with the wrong person. All you're going to do is get an explosion at you. At that point, better just stay quiet and hopefully that it just fades out. Like the other person that they— who they're with. But to tell someone, no, you can't do that. So it's, uh, that's where— and I think, I know, I know with no question at all that in the sound itself lies the truth. And to be able to trust that in your sound is everything that you can bring. And but to maintain that sound your connection through that line, that's called your job. It's like, I can't imagine having— when I talk about, you know, how an actor has to memorize Shakespeare and that every syllable has to have intention, that just blows my mind. And then they laugh at me going, yeah, and every note that you play doesn't And then you realize, wow, we're kind of doing the same thing, except we're lining it up vertically, trying to understand harmony, but then we're pushing it from left to right, trying to make sure that it tells a story. So it's a very interesting experience. Try and find your vulnerability.

So I feel like I'm really getting a master class here. So you are a great teacher, master teacher. So you have this extensive work in education as well, plus you created this workshop called Singing in Sicily, which nurtures young artists. And so can you tell us a little bit more about this program?

For many, many years, after I stopped teaching in an institution, I tried to assess what do they really— what do students really, really need? What do young singers really need? Because a pianist, if you're getting to the conservatory when you're 18 years old, you've probably been playing the piano for 10 years minimum. You've been— you've started your lessons and you've been there every week and you've played your competitions and you've already played concerti and you've done all these things. A singer, when they're 16, 17 years old, they open their mouth one day at school or at church and sing. Everyone starts to cry, oh, you should be a voice major! And the next thing you know, they're singing for every bloody school in the country trying to get in because someone told them they had a beautiful voice. And then they arrive at the conservatory, they're put into the exact same classes as everyone else. The clarinetist who's been blowing on a clarinet since they were 7, the flute player since 9, The Piano Pod since 8, Everybody else is 10 years ahead of them. They're supposed to be able to read music, learn 4 languages, sing in these languages, learn how to move on the stage to where it looks natural for them. All this thing, but with the same confidence as everybody else and take theory class and take history classes and they're on and on and on. And I thought it really needs to be redone. The curriculum needs to be rethought. But because we love the system, everybody loves to have a system so that it can be, you know, critiqued and, and certified by this association and this group and this group. Well, if you're training artists, it's a very different thing. That's just my philosophy. I have ideas as to how it could be redone to where the singers coming in would be dealt with completely differently because they don't come— maybe sometimes the singer has played piano since they were 5 years old. Well, they have a huge advantage. They might not have a voice, but you know, what's the story? How do you, how do you balance this playing field so people actually have a chance when they're in the institution? So after looking at all that, I decided, you know what, why don't I just create something to where I choose people, 4 or 5 people every year, Who I decide I'm going to bring them in. And you know, I was in Sicily at the time with visiting friends, and I talked about an idea for that project. And they said, well, and I'm a singer who studies with me was singing in Munich, and they came down to work on repertoire to prepare a role they were doing and came down to Sicily. I rented a little keyboard. It all worked out. It was great. I had the space to do it. And when I finished, they asked me, so what do you, what, how was it? What'd you think? I said, it was incredible. It was so wonderful to be able to sit there and look out the window and there's the Mediterranean Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea out there, out the window as I'm teaching. And I said, I'd love to do a project. You know, I've been thinking, I dreamed about it for years when I was in France, but it was always housing people. You can't count on hotels. You can't count on people canceling because then money is lost left and right with hotels. And I said that and they said, oh, we can show you a building where you can house the kids tomorrow. I didn't know that they had inherited from their father all these different buildings. And so we housed them. They said, oh, you can house the kids here. There's enough room for 4. They have a bathroom, they have their bedrooms, they have kitchens. I said, okay. So we did that up until the pandemic. And I invite 4 singers. I don't have auditions. I hear people, I get messages, word of mouth. Someone sends me a little video, someone tells me about somebody. I meet them all in person, face to face, before I work with them, before I invite them. So to find out, is the energy good? Because it's 10 days, 4 or 5 people, and it's every day. You might get half a day off, but you are working seriously every day. And it's intense. But to show them this is the work that must be done. So I created a nonprofit, 501, and I've been able to raise the money to do it. Truly just a huge blessing. And we've done 7 years so far and some wonderful, wonderful singers, wonderful results. For many people, it's life-changing. Because in the school system you're constantly running, doing this and doing this and doing this, and they never get to stay. Which the reality of it all is, once you graduate and you get a job, you could be stuck in a city for 6 weeks. I had students that, that freaked them out a long time ago, and they would call crying, I can't do this, I can't do it, I can't be here like this, this is driving me crazy, I'm not at home, I don't feel comfortable, I hate this hotel, I don't my colleagues. You know, you're in an opera production, you could be there minimum a month. And you're seeing the same people day in and day out. And humans are human beings. Some days they're good and some days are not. And when you're mixing all that together and you have to work together, it's tricky. So I've used this opportunity, this gift, truly, that people have provided for me to do this. And we have a great time. We do it now in Duxbury, Massachusetts, outside, down on the South Shore from Boston. It's a little town I've been going to for 44 years. I have very dear friends there. And when I was there visiting during the pandemic, I believe that's when I was up there. And I said at an event, I said, it's such a shame because They can't take care of the property where we house the kids in Sicily because they have so, there's so many problems. You know, a 17th century building will have issues and they didn't have the workers and they didn't have the materials. And so I had to reinvent. I did Baltimore, my apartment one year. And that was, I'm glad that was only a one-time event. And now we've been in Massachusetts for 3 years and we're at a convent. And it is, sisters said, please come, please, please, please. We loved it. We love music. We love art. We want you here. And we go and we have the best time. But it really is a, it lets them feel what it really is like to focus only on the stuff that they have to do. That they have, there are things, you know, it's like playing the piano. There are certain things you just have to do. You want to get stronger, you want to be more coordinated, you want to feel this, you have to do the work. You don't have a choice. I don't care who you are, I don't care how talented you are, you must do that basic work. Boy, and that's a big factor of it, just pushing that constantly. That if you're not enjoying this, who, who else can? And you have to practice that every day. Not that it's, oh, this is so heavy. This is so hard. And it's very easy to get into that situation if your life is tough. The situation is tricky for them. And, you know, I counsel people about it and they come to me asking about this or this person or something or this conductor. And I end up with all sorts of ways trying to help people to understand you can get through it. You have to adapt. Change who you are, but you have to change your reaction to things so that you focus on doing your job. Is the piano different everywhere you go? Yes. You've known that since you started taking piano lessons. You have your piano, your teacher has theirs. There's another one at the school. There's another one at the church. There's another one in the back of a pickup truck if you were ever so lucky to be able to play in the back of a pickup truck, as I was when I was 17 years old and got there and there were only maybe 72 keys.

Uh-huh.

Yes. Uh-huh. There were holes in some of the spots where there should have been, and for whatever reason, I agreed in a park that I would play for this festivity, and there— well, you know what? Nobody cares. You can complain all you want until you might become more famous and respected, and then you get to choose what you'd like to have. But you have to find your way, because if you cancel every time you feel uncomfortable, have a job. And this is part of it, whether it's with singing, whether it was playing the piano, that, you know, if you're lucky enough to have a great instrument that you practice on all the time, fantastic, good for you, you should play even better. But I've heard people say the other way, oh, it's better to practice on a horrible instrument, that way when you arrive you'll be grateful for anything. I am not of that school. I do not want to practice that way. I have my piano. It is a small miracle. I love it. It loves me back. And it shows— it shows me every possibility that's out there. And that is, you know, that is why it was built the way it's built for me.

So now you also have a mentorship position or mentorship function at the Art of Preservation Society of New York, right?

I'm on the board.

Board.

Advisory board. Trying to— we talk about how to— why is this music relevant? What is there to learn? What is there to share? How are we going to— how are you going to get people to show up? And this is always the challenge because people come in trying to do things. And I talk to them a lot about it. And my students, I'm sure they watch this, they're gonna burst out laughing. It's lovely that you can do something. That's not the point. We're not trying to show people that we do things. We're trying to be something through music so they can, their lives will shift a little bit for the better, hopefully. During the time that you're with them. And with the Arts on Preservation Society, this year for the first time, because we've tried other things with me working with duos, and it's tricky then because, oh, my pianist canceled, or oh, this, oh, that, and all that nonsense that goes on in this world. And so Blair asked me, would I do American Song? I said, sure, I love it. Why not? And I have a lot of experience and all that. So he sent me videos of all these different singers and asked me to choose who would be in the class. And I sat there that night on my couch listening, and I texted Blair after the first couple people, and I said, I think you sent me the wrong videos. These people are not singing in English. He writes me back, said, I'm sure I sent you the right ones. No, they're not singing in English. This is not any— I don't understand anything. Finally, there was a song I knew. I know all these composers, I know all the songs they write. A song that I knew, I thought, oh my God, people really don't know how to sing in the language they speak. So I chose the people. And then I told Blair, I said, Blair, this is going to run a little bit differently this year. He said, what do you mean? I said, I'm going to send out an email to those who I've chosen with homework that will be done prior to my class. I don't want to work with the first person and spend 45 minutes with this person getting all of the stuff. And then the others watching going, I have to change this fast. No, I'm going to give it to them up front. And that's what we did. Everybody had to come in and whatever assignments I gave, and the biggest one was to recite their poem, their text from memory. Recite.

Hmm.

Wow.

Was that not interesting? Mind-boggling.

Hmm.

How people could divorce themselves completely from music and recite a poem like this. Oh, wow. This is not— they built nothing. They memorized some words. You know, but, but this is what— if they've not been told that, that it's beyond that. Then why would you— how can you expect that of people? As an educator, it is your responsibility to inform people to find the kindest way possible. And writing— when I'd listed it all, I laughed and thought, this is good. I think I'm going to do things like this more often. Because it's always in a masterclass, the first person gets hit with everything. The basic thing that you want to talk about with pedaling, with this, with fingering, with sound, with phrasing, and then the other people are sitting in the public waiting their turn going, oh my God. And it freaks them out because they get in their head thinking, oh, I have to change this before I get up there. I have to do this. And then it's not fun for them. But if they at least have to show you some type of commitment and connection. Some people read their poem with so much expression. It was, it broke your heart. It was so beautiful. Others forgot what the song was about, but came up with a whole new interpretation of the poem. So I got to see the whole gamut, which was great. But when there's a song involved, the composer chose the poem because of what they feel about the— what the poem means. And that inspired them to write that music. So your job then is to weave through two different things. Yeah, you have words in front of you, but those words were set by a musician. And your responsibility as a musician is to get into their psyche to find out why did they set it that way. And that's how you say those words. And it— I find it fascinating, but to see how much they improved in 3 days, because we had a class recital at the end of the week, that they stood up there and sang with such incredible commitment. And they got to sing one song. Which is the nightmare of all performance types of things. You get one thing, you don't get to sing a group, you don't get to sing once and then come back later and feel more warmed up. You had to jump up there and do your one little song. And everybody delivered. That was, we talked about that afterwards, how every person raised their level. That's all you can ask for is awareness. And I think that is a huge part of my job is just awareness.

Yeah.

Of getting people to realize, wow, there's another room to this house. Yeah, there's a door there. Why didn't you open the door? That'd be the first thing that I'd want to do. What's behind that door? I'd want to know what's— but that's just the way I'm wired, and everyone's wired differently. And everybody, you know, some people might ask very nicely I wonder what's behind that door. When I'd probably be the one to walk over and open it. Yes. But it's, uh, you know, but that's, that's all part of being a human being. And music does come from human beings. It lives in a very divine space, but it's the, it's the best of humans, the best of humanity, just like great art is the very best of what we're capable of. And I tell people all the time is that we don't use music. You don't treat, you don't use it, you serve it. It's a very different thing. People use music to become famous. That's not how it works. It's the other way around. You let it use you. You listen to it. It informs you. It can show you how to be a better human being. When you listen to it and the clarity, when you sit and really pay attention in Bach, you learn a lot about life.

Absolutely.

It's pure. It is so, it's just, it's, it's right there. There's no craziness going on, but then to be still enough inside to be able to listen. And that's another thing I think is very challenging for young people. To be still enough inside to trust that it's okay that they can just actually listen to something in their head without having to see a video that goes with it. Someone comes and brings a piece and they play it and I'm going, have you heard this before? Oh yeah, I heard someone on YouTube. Well, who was it? I don't know. I mean, wrong style, wrong whatever. Going, you really have to look at, consider the source. You know, if I want to hear great Chopin, there are going to be just a few people I'm going to think of. They will all be very, very different in their approach, but I want to hear those people. Doesn't mean I'm going to discard everybody else, but there's a reason why those people are known for their interpretation of a certain composer. And that's a, you know, I have, I have an affinity with French music, especially with Poulenc. And you feel those things, and that's something you don't even know when you're young. People around you notice things, and they just kind of quietly just keep feeding you things that they know make you happy, at the same time giving you stuff that they know is going to challenge you.

Now we're close to the end of our conversation, almost, but we have a few more. Um, you have received 3 degrees from Peabody, and then also later you were honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins University, which is not an award they just give out very often. But it's very rare that one receives, right? So could you share more about what this recognition means to you?

I was stunned. I was living in New York at the time when this letter arrived and it said the Office of the President. And I thought, oh, they must want money. They're always fundraising at Hopkins. And I opened the, and it was only one piece of paper inside instead of the envelope and this letter and this this little shiny brochure, and there it was. And I was like, wow. And I reached out to— I knew two other people who had received it, musicians, because Peabody became part of Hopkins in 1977. So I thought, what do you— one of them said, oh, I played with the orchestra. Well, that wasn't going— that didn't work out. We talked about that a little bit. It, and the other person was a conductor, so he just conducted a concert because he was already on the faculty. And I said, okay, it was strongly recommended that I just play a recital. And it was getting later and later in the 16th season, and I said, uh, well, why don't we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Peabody Hopkins Union? And I'll play a recital in honor of that, and you can present the award that night. That's what they did in October of 2017.

Congratulations, really. Thank you. Well deserved with all the amazing career path you have had, and plus all the things that you do with your students and other initiatives and raising the future classical musicians and also plus reaching out to the audience in such a way that they're also being educated, right, through your concerts and things. Yeah.

That to me, I have a friend, she's right here on the fireplace with me. The lady in the middle, you can see her, Ruth Justkowitz, the concert that I played on YouTube, are the Dances and Improvisations Community Concert Series. That was for her 99th birthday, that concert was.

Really?

Now she's 102.

Oh, bless her heart.

Her dear daughter Amy, in the photograph, she passed away last year of pancreatic cancer. But Ruth is still with us, 102 years old, and I had dinner with her a couple weeks ago, and we're sitting there waiting for her son-in-law to arrive. The two of us, and we've known— I've known her since I was 19. She said, Ruth, you realize I'm now older than you were when we met? Because she was 59 when we— and now I'm beyond that. And she laughed and she said, you know, Mark, you just have to be willing to learn something every day. And I'm thinking, this is someone 102 years old. Telling me the reason why we are here is to learn something every day. And I, I live by that philosophy. And I just took her hand and I said, I hear you very clearly. You know, that's how I live my life. She goes, oh, it's, it's very clear. And it's true that this is— we're here to learn. And if you've been given special gifts then your responsibility is to share those gifts. Not just give it away, but to learn the best you can as to how you can share that. And that's— these are the people in my life from— for a long time who've watched the entire journey, who we still laugh about things that happened 45 years ago. And that's, that's what it's about.

Well, by the way, you look so much younger than— older than 59. But anyway, that's my— just my opinion.

63 and feeling free.

Oh my goodness, you look so much—

tell me this beard makes me look older. I said, that's fine, I don't care, I'll keep trying it out.

Yeah, it looks fine to me anyway. But you— as still, you're very young, but What sort of legacy do you hope to create, cultivate?

It's important to care about something, anything, to really care, not just stare at it, but to care, to make sure to give it the chance to grow, to nurture, to share it, whatever it is you have.

Isn't our guest so inspiring? I'm sure you're enjoying and learning from every bit of this episode, so I need to ask you two things. First, hit that like button on YouTube or subscribe if you are listening on your go-to podcast platform. Then follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok at The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Behind-the-scenes content, episode updates, and more. Stay connected and inspired to celebrate the past, present, and future of classical music. You told me about Río Bravo left-hand concerto, so what else is in your— this season's—

I'm playing a recital with the soprano Karen Slack. Program called Dream Variations that I created for her and me. She's a great fan of Jesse Norman. She admired the program that we did, The Five Seasons, which mixed classical things with the more popular music. And I put 3 pieces, one of Tina, Nina, and Lena— Tina Turner, Nina Simone, and Lena Horne— on the program mixed in with Schubert and Brahms. It's—

Oh, that is lovely.

That'll be for Chicago Lyric.

Okay.

And what's that, the end of February? What else? I'm playing a solo recital, a program that I created called The Roaring Twenties: The Genius of Youth. And all the pieces are written by composers when they were in their 20s. Bartók, Bagatelles, Opus 6, the Brahms Third Piano Sonata, that he had a third sonata at the age of 20. F minor sonata. And then the second half is Une Barque sur l'Océan of Ravel, Miroir, Boat on the Ocean. And then a piece that I commissioned 25 years ago by a dear friend, David Shapiro in Philadelphia, Through the Eyes of a Child, because I was doing a program based on— that was the title of the program. The piece is written by or for children, uh, Kindertänzen and BBC. But the people who were in charge of the series decided they didn't want that program. They wanted something more traditional. So that piece was kind of left to the side. And throughout all these years, I've tried to find ways to incorporate it, to put it, and I didn't— couldn't find the right moment. Now we finally arrived at the moment. So here it is, 25 years later. It will have its world with another piece by a young composer who wrote— he wrote when he was 19 in Harrisburg, and then finishing with the Harmonie du Soir of Liszt.

Oh, wow. Nice. And then where are you— said you're performing with—

uh, it'd be here in Baltimore. There's a private concert. Uh, this is on the Market Square Concert Series in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. At the end of February, February the— it's the week after the Ravel. I play Ravel with them on 15th and 16th, and then the week later on the 22nd, I play the recital.

Wonderful. Well, if you are ever in New York, please let me know, and I would love to attend your concert or masterclass or—

Thank you.

Yeah. So for our listeners, please go to markmarkampianist.com to learn more about Mr. Markham's solo chamber career and his concert updates, and you can also watch some of his solo chamber concerts we discussed in this episode on YouTube. All the links are listed in the show notes. Mark, this has been such an inspirational, fun conversation. So before I let you go, we have one more thing to do, which is The Piano Pod with rapid-fire questions, and I In this segment, I get to ask silly questions, but each question is a little tricky. So, um, yeah, but I really need you to answer them as quickly as possible, whatever comes to your mind in a second. Okay, no judgment here. Okay, question number 1: What is your comfort food?

Oh wow, gosh, I love too much food. Ice cream.

Sounds great.

Roasted strawberry ice cream.

Ooh, nice, specific. How do you like your coffee in the morning?

I don't drink coffee.

Really?

I drink green tea from Japan.

Oh, which kind? Which green tea specifically? Do you know?

Tamari Okucha.

Tamari Okucha, okay. Now, are you a cat person or dog person?

Dog.

Sunrise or sunset?

Ooh, sunset.

Summer or winter?

Summer.

What skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had a chance to?

Skydiving.

What is your word or words to live by?

Be real.

What is the most important quality you look for in other people? Decency. Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

My teacher, Anne Schein. Wow, there's just so many people. Wow. Oh my goodness. Larry Smith, who's a dear friend of mine. He's no longer here. And Ruth Juskowitz.

Name one piece in your current playlist.

Oh gosh, what if I said I didn't have one?

Oh, that's okay.

I don't have a playlist.

But do you have like any piece that you're listening right now? Like a—

Uh, no, because I'm always curious if I can find live performances of people. I'm much more interested in that. There are songs that I hear. I was— where was I the other day? Shopping someplace. And this piece from probably the '80s came on and I was in public, not even aware who was watching what I was doing, and I was in my own little world with some pop piece. It was, it was, I laughed. I had to laugh when I left. I thought, you've really, you've lost it now.

Well, pop music from '80s, they're the best.

It's absolutely the best. Late '79 and on, look out.

Now fill in the blank. Music is blank.

The best.

You think the best? Wonderful. Wow. So this wraps up this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Mark Markram. Thank you, Mark, for joining us today and sharing your story, beautiful stories and insights and expertise. Once again, to our wonderful audience, you can learn more about Mr. Mark Markram and his amazing work through his website at markmarkampianist.com. And thank you to our faithful fans and listeners for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate, review it on your go-to podcast platform, and give us a thumbs up button if you are watching this episode on YouTube. Follow The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song on social media to get the latest piano news via social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. I will see you for for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song. Once again, thank you, Mark.

Thank you.

Bye everyone.