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two people play one piano will be as much of a draw as the concert’s historical aspect. “It’s choreography,” says Greenfield with a smile. “Each person goes into all the areas of the piano, [so we’re reaching] above, under, everything. Each time we play together, it’s like relinquishing your space. “But it has to sound like one pianist,”
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and lets you know what you’re striving for, because that’s what the composer heard,” she explains. But she’s hardly the piano-playing equivalent of a Constitutional originalist. “What you bring to it [as an individual artist] is really important,” Greenfield declares, citing virtuoso Glenn Gould as
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It’s choreography. Each pErson goEs into all thE arEas of thE piano.
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she adds, “so you have to agree on what you’re getting — articulation, dynamics, etc.” Thompson and Greenfield have had lots of practice: They met at Vermont’s AdAmAnt music school in 1990 and began playing four-hand two years later. French Piano Four-Hands is their third recording together. Greenfield, who has also recorded solo Debussy preludes on a 1907 Blüthner and performed Brahms on an 1846 Streicher, is interested in the insights historic pianos can give into composers’ intentions. “It informs you
someone who “broke all the rules” in a way that was always really interesting. “Composers just give you the music to work with,” she says. “If you listen, you know what to do.” m
Working will provide a silent visual backdrop at the concert. “These are beautiful films he’s made of people throughout the world laboring,” Johnson says. “The minimalist aspect is, the same reactions are repeated, over and over” by workers in countries all around the globe. Johnson will perform Niblock’s piece “Timps in E,” accompanied by a recording of same by Jan Williams many years ago. Prepare to listen acutely to “a very small vein of sonic occurrence” in the key of E. This will segue directly into Johnson’s own composition, “I Tend Towards the East.” The live performance explores the acoustic properties of amplified suspended cymbal and voice, he describes. And then, that triangle. Back in 1987, the composer Alvin Lucier wrote a solo piece on the instrument, called “Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra,” just for Johnson. When Lucier retires next year from teaching at Wesleyan University, Johnson says, “I’m going to play that piece for him.” Meanwhile, Johnson will demonstrate the triangle’s surprising sonic versatility to the FlynnSpace audience Friday night. Without giving everything away, suffice it to say that the final two pieces bring in other drums and mallet-struck instruments — xylophone, orchestra bells,
marimba and vibraphone — as well as more film images and live players Jeff sAlisbury and howArd KAlfus. Oh, and “there may be some interlude music of mine that I made for dance,” Johnson suggests cryptically. Johnson, 58, is a distinctive regular presence at the FlynnSpace; tall, with long, salt-and-pepper hair and expressive eyebrows, he’s managed the venue since it opened more than a decade ago, and exercises his bartender muscles during intermissions. But his own public performances — other than as timpanist for the Vermont symphony orchestrA — are rare. So are, for that matter, percussion-only concerts. But if his music is minimal, Johnson notes, the setup is not. A “lot of technology” has come together for this show, he says, which has entailed preparing recordings and transferring old films and videos to DVD. “People should come just to appreciate all the work that’s been done,” he advises. It’s the least one could do. m
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The Transcontinental Piano duo, “Steinway ‘B’ (1927) Meets the Elegant Erard (1877),” Friday, May 20, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Burlington. $20, students and seniors $15, ages 15 and under free. Tickets at the door or flynntix.org.
- CHARACTER FLAWS: A Sketch Comedy Night MAY 26-28, 7:30 pm UPCOMING EVENTS:
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$15 SPECIAL OCCASION UPDO Brian Johnson, “Maximum Minimalism,” Friday, May 20, at 8 p.m. at FlynnSpace, Burlington. $16. flynntix.org
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