麻豆影院

Start with the score.

That鈥檚 David Korevaar鈥檚 method as he sits down to a new piano piece. It鈥檚 also the advice he gives all his students.

鈥淎 lot of musicians get to know a piece by listening to a recording. And that鈥檚 something I almost always discourage. You have to start with notes on a page. That鈥檚 the primary source.鈥�

Korevaar, Helen and Peter Weil Professor of Piano at the College of Music, talks about the score as the root of context for any musical work this Friday as he presents 鈥淭he score is alive 鈥� with the sound of music.鈥� The lecture-performance is part of the CU 麻豆影院 Research and Innovation Office鈥檚 series.

Korevaar is the first music faculty member to be awarded the lectureship, which is awarded annually to faculty based on peer nominations and the nominee鈥檚 body of academic or creative achievement and prominence, as well as contributions to the university鈥檚 educational and service missions.

鈥淢y primary focus is not on what鈥檚 conventionally considered research, which makes this even more exciting,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he research component of my career tends to be very performance directed.鈥� 听听

The event will focus on three very different works by three very different composers鈥攁nd the three very different processes Korevaar goes through to prepare the pieces for performance. He鈥檒l run the musical gamut, from Fr茅d茅ric Chopin to early 20th-century Italian composer to living composer and friend Lowell Liebermann.

Each piece, the Juilliard-educated pianist explains, presents its own unique challenges to the performer.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e all at different parts of the process. Chopin is a completed project for me; Liebermann is still alive, so I can get feedback from him whenever I want; and Perrachio is a composer that [Professor of Musicology] Laurie Sampsel and I discovered while we reassembled the collection at the music library here.鈥�

Unlike Chopin, whose work has a rich history and a long tradition of performances and recordings, Perrachio is a relatively unknown composer. His scores are rarely seen; recordings are even more rare.

鈥淸Perrachio was] much less intimidating than Chopin,鈥� Korevaar explains. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have the anxiety of influence. You feel irresponsible if you can鈥檛 hear all the recordings that are out there before you play a piece by Chopin.鈥�

But, he says, there are other pressures associated with being one of the first people to perform a piece鈥攅ven if it is 100 years old.

鈥淣ow you鈥檙e the beginning of the performance tradition. You have to look at the notes on the page and begin to interpret them鈥攖o figure out what the composer was trying to say鈥攚ith only the score as your initial point of reference. From there you begin to grasp, through an understanding of the time period and the place the composer was active, a world of sound that is preserved in the page.鈥�

And then, in this case, Korevaar will have to talk about how he arrived at those conclusions.

鈥淎s a pianist, you spend a lot of time alone. You don鈥檛 often have to put your thoughts into words. But when you鈥檙e teaching or demonstrating, you have to decide what鈥檚 important and translate emotions into coherent verbiage.鈥�

For Korevaar, who has taught at the College of Music since 2000, the process of teaching鈥攚hether it鈥檚 students or a crowd of scholars鈥攊s also a process of learning.

鈥淭here are plenty of pieces that my students play that I鈥檝e never heard, and I learn through them. And when I present this lecture, it鈥檒l be aimed at an audience of people who are perhaps much more adept than I am in some of the fields I鈥檒l be dabbling in, such as language or philosophy or history.

鈥淏ut that鈥檚 what makes it so exciting to be here in 麻豆影院. We鈥檙e surrounded by people who are extraordinary in their fields, and we get to collaborate with them. And back in my studio, the better my students get, the better I get.鈥�

is this Friday, Feb. 24, at 4 p.m. in Grusin Music Hall. For more information, visit the Events page.