By Carol Montparker

Nothing in my life as a musician stays static, thank goodness. While I was in California a couple of months ago I had two musical experiences that prove that point. Up until the present, my repertoire has basically extended from the Baroque through Classical and Romantic, and into the 20th century, only as far as Bartok, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, with occasional sorties into later works. I have begun to question my avoidance of more contemporary music. I believe that if my chemical attraction for new music had been more vital, I would have found the time. On the other hand, so much of new music requires great investments of time to make itself understood: time I simply do not have.

Prior to my trip out West, a composer named Alex Shapiro e-mailed me, after reading my book, A Pianist’s Landscape. Her letter evoked a sympathetic vibe as she described the milieu in which she worked, close to nature in Malibu, California. Of course, a good part of my book is a paean to my own natural surroundings and how they affect my work at the piano, so a lively correspondence ensued, and Alex invited me to visit her.

The main charm of Alex Shapiro’s home is its location, just a three-minute walk from the Pacific Ocean. From her piano one can watch the birds on her feeder, including bright green parrots and towhees; the Santa Monica chain of mountains is also in view, and the breezes blow directly in from the sea. We walked along a path lined with wild sage, ice plant, and a veritable mélange of herbs, wildflowers and grasses, with a heavenly bouquet of aromas, and came to a clearing called Paradise Cove, quite aptly named. These are the elements that come together in Alex’s music, from the short Intermezzo for Piano Solo, which she generously gave to me, to the more complex chamber works scored for all sorts of instrumental ensembles.

I believe that experiencing an artist’s workspace and the components that feed right into the music makes it easier to grasp the meaning. Walking through that landscape, and then seeing her studio, the actual chamber in which all the complicated recording equipment transforms her musical ideas and notations into recordings and hard copy, I had the overwhelming sense of the solitude and the monk-like devotion required of all us music-makers. Nature is only one powerful source of inspiration; after listening together to a demo CD of At the Abyss, a suite expressing the myriad emotions resulting from 9/11 which Alex recently completed, I found myself responding with deeper understanding to sounds that I might never have thought to interpret myself. My direct association with the composer, her environment, her emotional responses, and some deep conversation, made this music seem exceedingly accessible.

The remarkable thing was that a week earlier we were two strangers; through mutual sharing and respect of each other’s work, and the fact that we shared the sense of music as being derivative, whether it be the sounds of nature or other powerful phenomena, we are now good friends. Alex recalled the changes that snow makes in acoustics when it blankets the streets and mutes the city noises in Manhattan where she grew up and studied at the Juilliard, Manhattan, and Mannes Schools of Music. She thinks like a composer, and worked with an impressive roster of composition teachers including Ursula Mamlok and John Corigliano. She has written for films, television, and the concert stage, won many awards and commissions, and is impressively dedicated to her art.

How easy it is to get too cozy in one’s niche, recycling the same repertoire, no matter how vast, and drawing only from one’s own resources. One finally realizes that the same elements exist in all music, and there are many parallels between learning, for example, a late Beethoven sonata and learning a new contemporary piece. First of all there are no certain truths in any music. We each find our own, whether it be a modern work, or an old masterpiece. The biggest challenge after learning the notes, is communicating what we feel to be the essence of the work. First I plumb my own psyche, exhausting any and all insights garnered through hard work and long processing; ultimately, though, sharing the experience with a peer opens and expands the vista.

That process was precisely what offered the second surprising new element in my musical life during this same trip to California, when I asked a former student of mine, to listen to me play the Beethoven Sonata, Opus 101. I realized from his responses that he had emerged as a full-blown peer. Howard Schreiber, whom both my husband and I love as a son, is a lawyer and a writer, as well as a fine pianist. Whenever we have visited with each other in the past, I have listened to his playing and coached him if he was in the mood. This time he coached me! I suddenly realized how valuable his musical intuitions and educated ear were to me. He was always an extraordinary talent, but his playing has taken on the added dimension that comes from years of experience and discernment. After Howard left my studio he studied with a couple of distinguished teachers, including Seymour Lipkin, whose input added on subsequent layers; all the influences have come together to create the finished artist he is now. He listened devotedly, giving me a few important suggestions. He had fulfilled all the potential I had foreseen in him, which is the highest goal we can set for ourselves as teachers, and for our students. It was great to have the tables turned like that and to acknowledge that one of my "musical offspring" had matured musically to a point where the delineation between teacher and pupil has melted away. I believe he felt the exchange to be as poignant as I did.

In many ways, my teaching, studying, playing, and every other manifestation of my musical life are more enjoyable than ever before. If I had ever wished to become a "lady of leisure" (what is that, anyway?) I now doubt I will ever be one. I think music is THE hardest profession to retire from; as long as you can do it, you want to do it. It’s an entity that owns you, but at the same time continues to bring great pleasures, not the least of which is the friendship and dialogue with other musicians.

I would welcome any responses at cmontparker@yahoo.com