KSO's guest pianist encourages listening

Shaham

In Jerusalem in the 1970s, learning to play an instrument was just something everyone did.

"Because everybody started on an instrument, performance opportunities came often," said pianist Orli Shaham, who will play Chopin's "Piano Concerto No. 2" with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Thursday and Friday, Feb. 24 and 25, at the Tennessee Theatre.

Shaham's first performance came when, at only 4 1/2 years-old, she played on the radio.

But it was more than the fact that all the kids played music that influenced Orli and her older brother, internationally known violinist Gil Shaham.

Every Friday, her father, physicist Jacob Shaham, and mother, cytogeneticist Meira Diskin, bought records.

At age five, Shaham received her first scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation to study at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. When she was seven she moved with her family to New York where she began study with Nancy Stessin and a year later became a student at The Juilliard School.

"For me, music felt so natural. Enthusiasm for it was infectious."

She is also enthusiastic about getting other people excited about music.

"In our society there is often a wide gap between musicians the music audience," Shaham said.

To help bridge that divide, Shaham has hosted a radio feature on Classical Public Radio Network called "Dial-a-Musician," in which she invites listeners to send in questions that she then calls expert colleagues to answer.

Additionally, she hosts programs at a local club called Baby Got Bach that is designed to spur music listening at an early age.

"Baby Got Bach is a fun way to promote music listening. It's a way of breaking down barriers," Shaham said. "They also get young mothers involved with music without them realizing it."

Just how effective this will be in the long term remains to be seen.

"This is something I feel very strongly about," Shaham said. "We live in a visually oriented society. Ambient sound has become meaningless. We just block it out. That makes learning to listen, really listen, very difficult."

This focus on listening has impacted Shaham's presentation of the Chopin concerto she will play with the KSO.

Often viewed as a solo for piano with a minimally orchestrated back-up band, Shaham admits it can be a problematic work.

Her husband, David Robertson, music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, once had to play the Chopin "E Minor Concerto" 10 times in one day and hated it.

But when she performed the "E Minor" with his orchestra, her interpretation changed his mind.

"Sometimes the orchestra's role is coloring. But there are also more special moments that the relationship between the orchestra and the piano is very delicate," Shaham said. "It's really magical."

Also on this week's pair of concerts are three works that complement the Chopin: the Overture to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," the Suite from Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" and Franz Liszt's delightful "Les Preludes."

Harold Duckett is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.

© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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