Anne Akiko Meyers: Blog

So, I am leaving for New York City this coming week…getting ready to play in Vogue’s Fashion Night Out at a fancy jewelry store on the East Side named David Webb‘s. I will also be launching ‘Seasons…dreams‘ at Le Poisson Rouge. That venerable institution that I launched ‘Smile’ at. Love that 2 drink minimum when listening to classical music. I think most venues should definitely have this option. Makes listening to music feel more open and accessible when the environment isn’t so staid and fraught with tension. Come to think of it, I have played at so many different type of venues. Community centers, outdoor amphitheaters, arenas, basketball courts, lawns, a ferry in the Sydney Harbour and the floor of the Belgian Stock Exchange. The stage is set no matter where I unpack the violin case and start playing. Ooohhh, but that 2 drink minimum!

Anyway, getting back to the music, I will be playing a lot of the tracks from the new album. Everything from Debussy’s magical ‘Clair de Lune’ to Gene Pritsker’s rap-like ‘Sakura Sakura Variations’ and Schnittke’s eery ‘Stille Nacht’ or Silent Night. You can watch the making of the album here:

I hope to catch you at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City on September 19th, Space in Chicago on September 21st and Yoshi’s in San Francisco on October 4th! I will also be performing with the St.Louis Symphony (love them!) on September 24/25. I remember when I toured Japan with the orchestra and Leonard Slatkin and had such an awesome time.  This time, I will be playing those awesome Wynton Marsalis cadenzas in Mozart’s Concerto in G Major.  Time to start packing!!

Where did the beautiful ‘Clair de Lune’ come from? With most composers throughout history, I am always incredibly amazed at the sheer output of material and depth of feeling the music conjures. The pillars of musical history are all geniuses in my mind. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Mahler, Mozart, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Stravinsky etc. The list goes on and on…how do they do it? how do they write such unbelievable music over and over again?  I was reading about Debussy’s ‘Suite Bergamasque’ and how the 3rd movement of this piano suite ended up becoming one of the most played and beloved pieces in history.   Originally entitled, ‘Promenade Sentimentale’, Debussy wrote the music in 1890, but revised it a great deal right before it was published in 1905.  Named after Paul Verlaine’s poem ‘Clair de Lune’ , the piece is sublime…making one dream of the mysterious night, love and moonlight. There was a lot of ‘big music’ being played at the time, specifically Wagner’s music and Debussy felt it was more accessible for people to hear shorter works.  I think it is more difficult to write a shorter work than one that goes on and on. Much like a conversation, getting one’s point across naturally and efficiently is not a simple task.

With my love affair of ’Clair de Lune’ intact, I felt it would be too heavy having the piano accompanying the melody and texturally, much more aligned with the harp. Having worked with Emmanuel Ceysson in Cartagena, Colombia (a beautiful city on the coast)

After performance of Ravel's Tzigane in Cartagena, Colombia

I started thinking of ways to pair the ‘Seasons…dreams’ repertoire.  I was so excited when Emmanuel, an intensely musical performer, enthusiastically agreed to record. A solfege fanatic, he proceeded to solfege the whole piece to me and sung ‘LA!!!! up high!!!’ towards the end of the piece. This note towards the end gives me goosebumps every time..

Moonlight

Your soul is like a landscape fantasy,
Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise,
Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be
Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise.

Singing in minor mode of life’s largesse
And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite
Reluctant to believe their happiness,
And their song mingles with the pale moonlight,

The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming,
Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees,
And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming–
Slender jet-fountains–sob their ecstasies.

The days are hot hot hot in Austin in the summertime…the cicadas are buzzing, and the crickets and dragonflies seem to be everywhere. I have mentioned how much I love Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ and after hearing the final cut for the new upcoming album, ‘Seasons…dreams‘, I realize how fitting it is to feel the music in this languid heat….the song is a lullaby which is also perfect as I delivered a healthy baby girl who seems to love hearing me sing in the wrong key no matter what. ‘Summertime…and the livin’ is easy..hush little baby..don’t you cry’..you can listen to my rendition here:

(thankfully played on the violin and not sung..)

As the lyrics are so full of poetry, I decided to have a haiku contest on Facebook…if you win this contest with a July 31st deadline, your winning entry will be inserted into the CD booklet and printed for the world to see! Check it out!! http://www.facebook.com/anneakikomeyers?ref=ts&v=wall#!/event.php?eid=143890358959524&ref=mf

I will be writing about ‘Seasons..dreams’ very soon again…………….happy summer daze!

Sony has just reissued a recording I did with the amazing Andrew Litton and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Dvorak \’Romance\’ So nice to see it and hear it again…I remember that I was 23 when I recorded it in London and was working my tail off. My body was on the verge of breaking down with all the stress of travel and playing. Things seemed to be at a peak-high of intensity and I was just on the heels of being awarded the Avery Fisher Award as well. So many wonderful things were happening and yet I was experiencing numbness in my pinky on my bow hand. I was always into health and fitness and quickly learned that even the body has limitations, especially if the mind is overexerted. I saw a therapist who showed me what I was doing to my body with all that violin playing. Repetitive String Syndrome…:) It truly was. The thing with musicians and athletes is that you must constantly train and yet by doing so, you are repeating the very trauma/injury on the teeny tiny muscles that are helping you be a better player. It becomes a catch-22 sometimes (like much in life) but just the awareness of this and treatment (nice vacation) helped me tremendously, not to mention seeing the fruits of labor be cherished again.

All Things Strings: News and Notes.

Here’s a little news clip that explained my collaboration with Chris Botti….

Backstage with Il Divo

I had such a wonderful time working with Il Divo. They were super friendly and could really belt out those tunes….We started in Toronto and worked with an orchestra there, and worked with the Opera Orchestra of New York in New Jersey, Connecticut and Boston. I played Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’,  ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ , ‘Panis Angelicus, ‘Smile’ with ‘Greensleeves’ and Vernon Duke’s scrumptious ‘Autumn in New York’. We played in an arena at Trump’s Taj Mahal, which was a first for me and concert halls elsewhere. The touring life is grueling with travel most the day, a rushed shower/check-in to the hotel, pressing of one’s stage clothes, warm-up/rehearsal and show. I was amplified for all the performances which cracked me up. Impossible to play ‘acoustic’ violin the way one normally does with an entire orchestra cranking in the background with this special combination of performers. The idea does not even compute, which is interesting in my opinion. They couldn’t believe I would normally go out and play an entire concerto with no amplification! One against 150! There is something to that I think…

Onstage with Il Divo

After that tour, I planned on seeing Chris Botti at the Blue Note for some fun (we met each other when I was a spring chicken of 13 years old at Indiana University)…little did I know that he was looking for me! I found myself furiously memorizing and preparing to play ‘Emmanuel‘ with him and his incredible band a couple days later in Greenville, South Carolina! We went on to play in Portland, Maine, New Jersey, Durham, North Carolina and West Palm Beach, Florida…I loved his brigade of super talented musicians..Billy Childs, Billy Kilson (speaks incredible Japanese!!), Mark the ‘Witty’field, the glamorous and gorgeous Sy Smith, Geoffrey Keezer and Chris Botti. All so funny and down to earth….Who knows who will be looking for me next! Maybe Mick Jagger? oh, that’s right…he is so not cute!

Playing on Stage with Chris Botti

I was in New York City getting ready to record the second half of the new album that would include some of my favorite songs…one in particular was ‘Summertime’ by George Gershwin, from his opera ‘Porgy and Bess’. This music has soaked in my bones for a long time and always fascinated me. One of the renditions of this incredible tune is Janis Joplin’s take on it…

and the opposite end of the spectrum, Ms.Renee Fleming’s version:

Back in recording land, I got a disturbing call from my producer 20 minutes before my pickup time. She informed me there was no piano to be found anywhere in the hall….no piano, but a piano technician/tuner/and recording engineer nervously standing by. Not only that, we frantically called the piano house and nobody had a clue where the piano might be…

This was all very bad news as I was in town playing concerts preparing for these very recording sessions, my pianist was ready to go (the very talented Reiko Uchida) and it was close to impossible to re-book the Academy when everybody could come back and have free time to record again. Not to mention the delay of the recording itself etc.etc. I was ready to cry………the car came and picked my sorry butt up at the hotel to take me to the Academy so we could all wonder where in the world this Fazioli piano might be.

What the?

The piano finally rolled onto the stage around noon….we had to tune it and set up the microphones ASAP. The pitch of the piano kept on slipping as it was adjusting to the warm hall (no AC as it makes noise) and smelly lunches coming from the lounge area. Drama….but we had our piano…..thank God. We finished the recording the following day and everybody was relieved and happy that we had our tapes in the can. I guess you can sum it up as another day in the life of a crazy artist……or a crazy life? Well, crazy is all relative I guess!

As I traveled today from Austin to JFK, I got myself (and my endlessly heavy luggage) to the Hertz rental car counter. I realized that I left my new temporary paper driver’s license at home and proceeded to eat a sandwich before I phoned my manager who proceeded to find a car service to get me to Poughkeepsie, New York, which was a good 2.5 hours away…it was a nasty day here of rain, cold and snow. There was a bad accident on the way up here as well, and ambulances and medical personnel were attending to a car that swerved off the highway. I had a very self-assured driver who made the car feel like it was in his way when driving…we were invincible. I started to snooze in the back seat and when I opened my eyes, I realized how much snow was coming down on the trees and roads outside. It made me think of how I was on my way this next week to finishing my newest album, ‘Dreams’ that will be released early next year. ‘Dreams’ is another interesting assortment of music, very much a la ‘Smile’. People thought the ‘Smile’ program was so eclectic but I found it to be incredibly ‘normal’. Sort of like a 10 course tasting menu with wine pairing-fun, mysterious and delicious….Being that I hate the conventional recital methods employed by the very conservative classical music industry, I always have found so much joy and inspiration having different arrangements of music we can’t even place anymore as it has been played so much-this makes one remember what it was you liked about the piece in the first place!

The album is called ‘Seasons…dreams’ after Wagner’s ‘Traume’. A truly beautiful song that is a dream…and continues with a seasonal bent, including the Beethoven ‘Spring’ Sonata, to one of the most beautiful songs ever written, ‘Autumn Leaves’. I asked the arranger to pair ‘Tenderly’ with ‘Autumn Leaves’ as I have always had a mad crush on both songs….after listening to many versions, including one that was sung by Ella Fitzgerald at my recent wedding, I found one if not the most beguiling renditions performed by Ms.Eva Cassidy.

She takes your breath away and all you do is feel the music…this is how music is supposed to translate and make you feel….and so the snow continues to fall and I continue to dream about the Autumn Leaves…….

Recently, I played a recital with an old and dear friend, Reiko Uchida. As we were practicing Schnittke, Beethoven, Part, Vernon Duke (aka Vladimir Dukelsky..how hilarious is that?) and others in her apartment in NYC, I couldn’t help but remember looking over at her during our appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson…..
He was the classiest guy, having 11 and 12 year olds play complete movements of Vivaldi and Telemann on national tv, and then interviewing us. Who does that anymore? and everybody seemed to forget how old they were or what their name was (except me). And I think I still am going through traumatic stress disorder with my mother allowing the tallest person in the quartet wear knee highs on tv. But that’s another story….As we played in Florida, I had such joy knowing that we had practiced so hard with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld and now almost 30 years later, we were still doing what we loved doing…. feeling the music and making the music speak and breathe.

I was in California  trying to work on my tan..

saw my sister and listened to a fantastic concert with John McLaughlin, Chick Corea and Christian McBride…

I couldn’t believe how relaxed and graceful he was after a 3 hour orgy of  unbelievable music…..the depth of feeling, the passion, the finger work…that’s a man who practices everyday…

I also bumped into an old friend at a coffee shop who remembered when I was a spring chicken of 13 years old in Bloomington, Indiana!!

The super cute and talented trumpet player, Chris Botti..All his fans lined up to meet him at Border’s and he still took time out to meet and greet me! Yippee!

I also had my own CD signing concert at J&R Music World in New York City, which was way fun!

I also played and taught masterclasses in Austin at the University of Texas

and at Queens College in New York…..that was a bit difficult as it was a toasty 90 degree day in NY and the AC wasn’t turned on yet in the hall!

I think I lost 20 pounds there….So there’s my picture story for now.

I am on the way to San Luis Obispo next week, Japan, the week after that and Scotland after that!

I will write about the horrors of packing a bag for trips like that in a future post!

Sayonara!