Meral Guneyman with Dick Hyman April 2012-Richard Stockton State College
http://intraweb.stockton.edu/eyos/page.cfm?siteID=208&pageID=4
Friday, August 19, 2011
Walden Steinway Concert
Meral Guneyman, as a Steinway Artist, was invited to play a Special spotlight Performance on the Walden Steinway at St.Joseph Hall, Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia Saturday, May 21, 2011.
The concert was a celebration of the Chestnut Hill College becoming an All-Steinway School and was a collaboration between Ron Losby, President of Steinway&Sons-Americas and Carol Jean Vale,SSJ, Ph.D., President of Chestnut Hill College.
The Walden Woods Steinway Model D Art Case Concert Grand Piano is a One-of-a Kind Instrument and Work of Art created for the non-profit Walden Woods Project by the venerable Steinway&Sons and world-renowned marquetry artist Silas Kopf.
The concert was a celebration of the Chestnut Hill College becoming an All-Steinway School and was a collaboration between Ron Losby, President of Steinway&Sons-Americas and Carol Jean Vale,SSJ, Ph.D., President of Chestnut Hill College.
The Walden Woods Steinway Model D Art Case Concert Grand Piano is a One-of-a Kind Instrument and Work of Art created for the non-profit Walden Woods Project by the venerable Steinway&Sons and world-renowned marquetry artist Silas Kopf.
AIMA-Ayvalik International Music Academy
In the winter of 2011, I had the honor of being invited to the Ayvalik International Music Academy in the Western Coast of Turkey.
The invitation came from the founder of the Academy, Professor Filiz Ali.
In 'AIMA', world renowned Artists, Musicians and literary Masters come together every summer to teach Master Classes and workshops.
I was invited to give a workshop on "Improvisation" as well as play the annual fundraising concert on July 23 rd.
After months of preparing, I outlined my Curriculum which was going to concentrate on developing the ability and freedom for "Creative and Self Expressive Improvisation". It was no easy task! As a classical pianist, I improvised all my life. From my childhood on, I always liked jazz and popular music and I played anything I heard on the radio, in the movies, etc...As a jazz lover, I have been working on adapting my traditional education and skills to the 'ever so free but simultaneously complex' jazz idiom. I needed to combine it all in a way that speaks to the young and inexperienced student. It needed to be coherent and authentic. So with all the ideas, resources and papers at hand, I started, or better said, dived into unchartered waters. With interested and talented students, one's work is always cut in half. Enthusiasm is contagious! So the Program worked itself very smoothly. At times my student and I worked very methodically and other times we just improvised our way through the improvisations:) We improvised on Scarlatti, Bach, Corelli, Beethoven, the color green in E Major:) and others. We improvised with each hand accompanying harmonies, we flew with scales, modes, motives, triads, 7ths, 9ths, suspensions, arpeggios....It was something like, watching a baby learn how to walk, but something more. Success and big smiles guaranteed...
All the hours we had did not suffice to finish the entire Program that I prepared. Now, the curriculum is ready for any size of classroom and for more advanced levels. I thank Professor Ali, her assistant Mr. Ilke Boran, and the entire staff who made my stay so pleasant and comfortable. Filiz Ali invited me for another season again. I will happily oblige!
The invitation came from the founder of the Academy, Professor Filiz Ali.
In 'AIMA', world renowned Artists, Musicians and literary Masters come together every summer to teach Master Classes and workshops.
I was invited to give a workshop on "Improvisation" as well as play the annual fundraising concert on July 23 rd.
After months of preparing, I outlined my Curriculum which was going to concentrate on developing the ability and freedom for "Creative and Self Expressive Improvisation". It was no easy task! As a classical pianist, I improvised all my life. From my childhood on, I always liked jazz and popular music and I played anything I heard on the radio, in the movies, etc...As a jazz lover, I have been working on adapting my traditional education and skills to the 'ever so free but simultaneously complex' jazz idiom. I needed to combine it all in a way that speaks to the young and inexperienced student. It needed to be coherent and authentic. So with all the ideas, resources and papers at hand, I started, or better said, dived into unchartered waters. With interested and talented students, one's work is always cut in half. Enthusiasm is contagious! So the Program worked itself very smoothly. At times my student and I worked very methodically and other times we just improvised our way through the improvisations:) We improvised on Scarlatti, Bach, Corelli, Beethoven, the color green in E Major:) and others. We improvised with each hand accompanying harmonies, we flew with scales, modes, motives, triads, 7ths, 9ths, suspensions, arpeggios....It was something like, watching a baby learn how to walk, but something more. Success and big smiles guaranteed...
All the hours we had did not suffice to finish the entire Program that I prepared. Now, the curriculum is ready for any size of classroom and for more advanced levels. I thank Professor Ali, her assistant Mr. Ilke Boran, and the entire staff who made my stay so pleasant and comfortable. Filiz Ali invited me for another season again. I will happily oblige!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Review-London, U.K. November 2010
TALENT UNLIMITED.
St. James’s Church, 197, Piccadilly, W1J 9LL. Thursday. 4th November at 7pm.
MERAL GUNEYMAN. The Great Turkish pianist, now resident in the USA.
Scriabin * Godowsky * Say * Ravel * Ellington * Gershwin.
I went along – without knowing exactly what to expect- at the invitation of Canan HYPERLINK "mailto:Maxton@hotmail.com" Maxton@hotmail.com her UK agent. She and Meral, by the way, are great friends with my favourite Turkish pianist Idil Biret. So, when Meral plays in Ankara, Idil with her husband Sefik Yuksel are there in the audience to hear her. So, Watch this Space!
The Church is full of dignatories....Meral’s programme is a demanding one, so expect no compromises. She is there to display her many sided gifts and virtues, and I sit in the front row with a special view of her commanding, powerful and sensitive figure as she seats herself on her stool, facing the Faziola Grand. Her evening dress is interesting: not exactly one reminiscent of the ‘coat of many colours’, but mostly those of Autumn Brands – leaves, icons, effigies, and so on, in yellows, browns, golden hues – seemingly skin tight across the lower shoulders down to her feet, the sleeves like a see-through reflection – all closely fitting to the body but seemingly skin tight, yet flexible, so that the upper part is free for the arms, hands and the fingers to stroke the keyboard. Like all fine artistes, her high heels are in touch with the pedals constantly, yet the right leg and foot is the magic touch that conjures up the lovely sounds and splendid fortissimos from the sustaining pedal starting from the neck muscles, down the shoulders, into the wrists, and then those slim hands and fingers, resulting in the desired sounds and phrases so perfectly suited to the composers and their musical masterworks. Her hair is also long, graceful and tantalizising to control. Parted down the centre, it meets the V-cut at the top of her off,the-shoulder dress. But I am dreaming, It’s not the same as the photo, but some new creation that makes male heads spin around in crazy fashion.
Scriabin Sonata 2 is for openers. Early Alexander Scriabin, the Russian composer who was a Chopin music lover before he started experimenting in colour spectrums both stationary and moving – give him another 30 years he would have been working with Cecil B. de Mille. Her touch was heavenly, spell-binding, meltingly beautiful – one whole chord followed by two quicker replies lower down.. About three minutes in, the instrument suddenly took off. Something like Horowitz and Rubinstein combined – in a surging display of cadenza like runs, figurations high up, across keyboard, then down to the bass clef and lowest stretches, with the left hand providing all those chordal harmonies while the player without warning changes the key, introducing a new subject. The work, in one continuous movement is all highly motivated, yet suggestive in its complexity at the same time, unraveling the intrigue from the angst to produce those lovely colours that build up towards the grand climax. A Prelude for the Left Hand only followed. Here we had this rare object in phraseology with a time span that sorts out the long from the shorter notes in conjunction with the music’s singing tones. People have to realize that correct rhythm and touch using just the one hand is sometimes far more problematic than using both. Phrases must be even in pace and nuance to convey poetic meaning. Chopin-Godowsky, on the other hand, is an almost exact replica - equivalent of an original Chopin Etude (Study) – No.6 in E minor, Opus 10, with an Andante marking the legato line. Control, expression, song like with a sadness shining through each key change, rise and fall in line, and just a glimmer of the major key prior to the close. The audience appeared mesmerised. In similar vein, Fazil Say, himself a Turk, is the author of Three Poetic Impressions: In Bursa’s Prison. ‘Your lover is a communist.. a prisoner for ten years’ (1947); From Whence we Came, to Where are we Going?: ‘The Beginning’ – ‘The Call’ (1962); Little Girl.’I come and stand at every door’(1956). Meral has transcribed them for the piano. To end Part 1, she played Ravel’s La Valse. The version for solo pianoforte which is far more difficult and problematic than the composer’s full orchestral transcription. I remember turning the pages for the late Polish pianist Jan Smeterlin. Just before Smety died he had been persuaded to learn then play it for inclusion in a future recital. I found it very difficult to sight read... and it kept falling off the piano stand, so he finally threw the score into a corner of his room! Meral, complete with gliassandi up and down the piano, did marvellously well>
Part 2 consisted of Jazz transcriptions by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. Using ‘Solitude’ as the main offspring, Edward Duke Ellington’s famous hits
congregated over the years to form his Signature Tune for all his Big Band and Small Group appearances, jn London typically at the Hammersmith Palais, and this format became the subject of Meral’s brilliant potpouri. The Gershwin Song Book, on the other hand, was the stunning arrangement of the late American Concert Pianist, Earl Wild who died, not so long back, in his 90s: Embraceable You, Fascinating Rhythm,
Oh, Lady be Good!, The Man I Love, Liza (All the Clouds roll away), Somebody Loves Me, I Got Rhythm.
Incidentally, these titles are also the same compilation of Meral’s CD with Jazz pianist and amanuensis Dick Hyman, where the former plays the Etudes and the latter provides the Improvisations. Also featured here is Indiana Variations (Back Home in Indiana, Ready or Not, Escape from the Woodjies, Big Finish). Django, and
Three Raps for Two Pianos: Moderato, Andante, Allegro. The overall title is ‘Playful Virtuosity’, the CD record number RCD 10913 and the label RYKO. Meral records exclusively for RYKODISC.
BILL NEWMAN
Music&Vision, London, UK
St. James’s Church, 197, Piccadilly, W1J 9LL. Thursday. 4th November at 7pm.
MERAL GUNEYMAN. The Great Turkish pianist, now resident in the USA.
Scriabin * Godowsky * Say * Ravel * Ellington * Gershwin.
I went along – without knowing exactly what to expect- at the invitation of Canan HYPERLINK "mailto:Maxton@hotmail.com" Maxton@hotmail.com her UK agent. She and Meral, by the way, are great friends with my favourite Turkish pianist Idil Biret. So, when Meral plays in Ankara, Idil with her husband Sefik Yuksel are there in the audience to hear her. So, Watch this Space!
The Church is full of dignatories....Meral’s programme is a demanding one, so expect no compromises. She is there to display her many sided gifts and virtues, and I sit in the front row with a special view of her commanding, powerful and sensitive figure as she seats herself on her stool, facing the Faziola Grand. Her evening dress is interesting: not exactly one reminiscent of the ‘coat of many colours’, but mostly those of Autumn Brands – leaves, icons, effigies, and so on, in yellows, browns, golden hues – seemingly skin tight across the lower shoulders down to her feet, the sleeves like a see-through reflection – all closely fitting to the body but seemingly skin tight, yet flexible, so that the upper part is free for the arms, hands and the fingers to stroke the keyboard. Like all fine artistes, her high heels are in touch with the pedals constantly, yet the right leg and foot is the magic touch that conjures up the lovely sounds and splendid fortissimos from the sustaining pedal starting from the neck muscles, down the shoulders, into the wrists, and then those slim hands and fingers, resulting in the desired sounds and phrases so perfectly suited to the composers and their musical masterworks. Her hair is also long, graceful and tantalizising to control. Parted down the centre, it meets the V-cut at the top of her off,the-shoulder dress. But I am dreaming, It’s not the same as the photo, but some new creation that makes male heads spin around in crazy fashion.
Scriabin Sonata 2 is for openers. Early Alexander Scriabin, the Russian composer who was a Chopin music lover before he started experimenting in colour spectrums both stationary and moving – give him another 30 years he would have been working with Cecil B. de Mille. Her touch was heavenly, spell-binding, meltingly beautiful – one whole chord followed by two quicker replies lower down.. About three minutes in, the instrument suddenly took off. Something like Horowitz and Rubinstein combined – in a surging display of cadenza like runs, figurations high up, across keyboard, then down to the bass clef and lowest stretches, with the left hand providing all those chordal harmonies while the player without warning changes the key, introducing a new subject. The work, in one continuous movement is all highly motivated, yet suggestive in its complexity at the same time, unraveling the intrigue from the angst to produce those lovely colours that build up towards the grand climax. A Prelude for the Left Hand only followed. Here we had this rare object in phraseology with a time span that sorts out the long from the shorter notes in conjunction with the music’s singing tones. People have to realize that correct rhythm and touch using just the one hand is sometimes far more problematic than using both. Phrases must be even in pace and nuance to convey poetic meaning. Chopin-Godowsky, on the other hand, is an almost exact replica - equivalent of an original Chopin Etude (Study) – No.6 in E minor, Opus 10, with an Andante marking the legato line. Control, expression, song like with a sadness shining through each key change, rise and fall in line, and just a glimmer of the major key prior to the close. The audience appeared mesmerised. In similar vein, Fazil Say, himself a Turk, is the author of Three Poetic Impressions: In Bursa’s Prison. ‘Your lover is a communist.. a prisoner for ten years’ (1947); From Whence we Came, to Where are we Going?: ‘The Beginning’ – ‘The Call’ (1962); Little Girl.’I come and stand at every door’(1956). Meral has transcribed them for the piano. To end Part 1, she played Ravel’s La Valse. The version for solo pianoforte which is far more difficult and problematic than the composer’s full orchestral transcription. I remember turning the pages for the late Polish pianist Jan Smeterlin. Just before Smety died he had been persuaded to learn then play it for inclusion in a future recital. I found it very difficult to sight read... and it kept falling off the piano stand, so he finally threw the score into a corner of his room! Meral, complete with gliassandi up and down the piano, did marvellously well>
Part 2 consisted of Jazz transcriptions by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. Using ‘Solitude’ as the main offspring, Edward Duke Ellington’s famous hits
congregated over the years to form his Signature Tune for all his Big Band and Small Group appearances, jn London typically at the Hammersmith Palais, and this format became the subject of Meral’s brilliant potpouri. The Gershwin Song Book, on the other hand, was the stunning arrangement of the late American Concert Pianist, Earl Wild who died, not so long back, in his 90s: Embraceable You, Fascinating Rhythm,
Oh, Lady be Good!, The Man I Love, Liza (All the Clouds roll away), Somebody Loves Me, I Got Rhythm.
Incidentally, these titles are also the same compilation of Meral’s CD with Jazz pianist and amanuensis Dick Hyman, where the former plays the Etudes and the latter provides the Improvisations. Also featured here is Indiana Variations (Back Home in Indiana, Ready or Not, Escape from the Woodjies, Big Finish). Django, and
Three Raps for Two Pianos: Moderato, Andante, Allegro. The overall title is ‘Playful Virtuosity’, the CD record number RCD 10913 and the label RYKO. Meral records exclusively for RYKODISC.
BILL NEWMAN
Music&Vision, London, UK
upcoming events
May 2, Jacob's Music, Lawrenceville
South Jersey Music Teacher's Association presents Meral Guneyman in an "Informance/Making good music"
May 23, Recital/ Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
July 18-24 Master Class and Featured Guest Soloist-Concert /Ayvalik Music Festival, Ayvalik, Turkey
South Jersey Music Teacher's Association presents Meral Guneyman in an "Informance/Making good music"
May 23, Recital/ Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
July 18-24 Master Class and Featured Guest Soloist-Concert /Ayvalik Music Festival, Ayvalik, Turkey