Pianist Rants

Stress and fatigue. How could they possibly have anything to do with a classical musician?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about gender, and now I have a lot of questions. What I don't have is answers, but if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

I had the very great pleasure of playing the keyboard in a Turandot production this August. There's no keyboard in a Puccini orchestra, you might think, but that's where you're wrong. An arrangement for 15 players by Enrico Minaglia (Ricordi) includes indeed a keyboard, from which emerge the alluring sounds of harp, celesta, chinese gongs,...

​I was accompanying a viola master class in July. During Spring I'd mainly worked with singers, so this felt like a very different business. Here's me trying to pinpoint how, exactly.​

Many people dislike auditions, and I can't blame them - it's unpleasant business trying to convince others you're great in six minutes or less. To make the experience a bit more pleasant, I thought I'd share some basic insights on how to prepare. I didn't think anyone needed to be told some of these things, but all of this I've...

Two singer colleagues asked me to join them to make music in the time of corona, and yesterday we recorded Stabat mater by Pergolesi. We're publishing it on YouTube as an Easter offering. I'd never heard this Stabat mater before we started rehearsing (shocking, I know) and I thought it would be fun. It was. Here's what I learned in the process:...

I've never used so much whatsapp in my life. Finland has been shut down, and all music schools have moved their teaching into Internet World. The past week has been a crash course on online teaching, and the biggest surprise for me has been just how much time it takes. "Normal" teaching doesn't actually require that much planning - of...

In the beginning there was something weird in China. Well, nothing that concerns us. Then yesterday the Finnish government announced that everything will be closed from now until forever. It happened pretty fast. A week ago I was rehearsing Turandot - the premiere would have been the upcoming Saturday. Then they cancelled all performances of more...

New Bärenreiter opera scores
The score wants to be closed. It has absolutely no interest in being open for you to see the notes inside, so you'll have to hold the score with one hand and play only with the other. That's a meaningful contribution to music, right? Don Giovanni, the left hand version? Bärenreiter folk, a friendly...

Dear Santa, would you please send me...

Hi! How are you?
Hi! I'm doing great! Super busy right now, so many interesting projects going on that I hardly have time to sleep! So inspiring!
(...and when I would have time to sleep I just can't because my to-do list keeps spinning around in my head getting longer and longer, I have no clean socks anymore...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the history of classical music is a predominantly white male effort. I find it weird that I never questioned this until a few years ago. It wasn't a good or a bad thing, it was just a fact, like water being wet. A debate about whether female composers should be more present in...