By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Muse-ique; Rachael Worby, host/conductor
Monday, March 19, 2012 • Pasadena Civic Auditorium
Next event: April 9 at Autry National Center (Griffith Park)
Information: www.muse-ique.com
Three pianos (and six pianists) were at the center of last night's Muse-ique program on stage at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
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Rachael Worby’s new organization, Muse-ique, began its first full season last night. This summer they will play three outdoor concerts (including two at the Olive Garden at Caltech) but the four “Uncorked” events are the heart of what Worby hoped to accomplish when she founded this new program last year.
Each of these events (don’t call them concerts) will be in a different, unusual location; last night, everyone — performers and the audience — was on stage at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. With tables and chairs grouped around three grand pianos, the venue felt like a nightclub or perhaps a large living room of a century ago. Worby even encouraged people to turn ON their cell phones to Tweet or provide Facebook updates and take pictures (she even announced a video contest) — this is definitely not your standard concert or recital.
Each of the “Uncorked” programs lasts about 90 minutes; last night began with 30 minutes of cocktails and schmoozing and the musical portion of the program lasted 75 minutes. Worby (who for 10 years was music director of the Pasadena Pops Orchestra) acted as host, raconteur (something she does exceedingly well) and musical guide through snippets of the history about the piano (thus the title, “Ebony Meets Ivory”).
She was joined by six local pianists who performed individually, in two-piano settings, and using four-hand and even six-hand arrangements. For the grand finale, all six played on the three pianos in Stars and Stripes Forever.
The evening began with writer-actress-pop culture analyst Sandra Tsing Loh reading Ogden Nash’s sardonic poem Piano Tuner: Untune me that Tune, which morphed (naturally) into Worby and a youngster playing Chopsticks (if you don’t know why that would be "natural," you can find the answer in the poem HERE). From there, Worby began with Bach and took the audience through a quick history lesson, touching on piano music through the centuries.
None of the selections in Worby’s eclectic format are lengthy but there were pleasures aplenty. Joanne Pearce Martin, principal keyboardist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and her husband, Gavin, began with a pristine, graceful two-piano arrangement of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, and Joanne returned for a spritely rendition of Mendelssohn’s Spinning Song.
Markus Pawlik played the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata with gentle sonority, and Caltech professor Julia Greer reprised her performance from last summer, playing Bach while trying to explain what exactly it is that she does in the laboratory. It’s hard to decide which is more difficult, although Greer demonstrated anew that she is quite an accomplished pianist. Pawlik and Greer then joined for a four-hand arrangement of music by Ravel.
Bryan Pezzone and Kirk Wilson offered different styles of improvisation. Pezzone created his version of We Shall Overcome through the lens of Beethoven with an occasional foray into jazz, while Wilson played jazz riffs while Loh read Carl Sandburg’s Jazz Fantasia.
The highlight of the evening came when the Martins offered a gripping rendition of Lutoslawski’s Paganini Variations. Both Worby and Gavin Martin provided the backstory.
To earn a living during World War II, Lutoslawski played piano-duos in cabarets with fellow composer Andrzej Panufnik. One of their arrangements was of Paganini’s famous 24th Caprice (far better known for its inclusion in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). When Lutoslawski fled Warsaw just before the 1944 uprising, this was his only piece that survived the destruction. Unlike Rachmaninoff’s dreamy arrangement, Lutoslawski’s version is more jagged and angular; the Martins played it superbly. Pasadena Symphony concertmaster Aimee Kreston introduced the tune on her violin, which helped people understand from the variations came.
To conclude the evening, Martin & Martin joined with the other four pianists for a splashy rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever, which — if nothing else — proved that Sousa’s piece is indestructible.
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(c) Copyright 2012, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.