Pictures from Paris recital and Nationalmuseum recital

Thusrday July 3:
Thank you everyone in the audience last night at Nationalmuséum! It was a difficult program, and quite long. My sister thought it was too long, actually. I was a little tense in the beginning, the Stenhammar are very difficult to play, awkward in the hands and really tricky to memorize. Not until the Chopin waltzes in the second half did I relax and could enjoy playing. This is one of the thing that one has to be good at as a pianist: to handle the feeling of being tense and not let it get to your playing.

I loved the hall, the athmosphere, and Stockholm is so unbelievably beautiful on a summer night like that.

I am waiting for the pictures from the concert, also on the folks who bought CD. I promise I’ll put them up as soon as I get them!

Tuesday July 1:
Looking forward to my three next recitals, one at the National Museum of Arts in Stockholm ( picture above), and two at the Chopin Festival in Paris. Stockholm on Wednesday, and Paris Sunday and Monday. My teacher when I was at the Paris Conservatory, Dominique Merlet, is also playing at the festival, as is Marc-André Hamelin and Francois-René Duchable. Wonderful company, indeed.

Paree!

Nationalmuseum

Part three Beethoven concerto Masterclass (part one and two see below)

A series of pictures showing a strong chord excellently played by Akane Kusanabe, watch how she uses the weight of the arms, and how well she lets the energy bounce back with the elbows coming “out” in a round motion:

Masterclass from last year’s Piano Festival.

I teach Akane Kusanabe.

Part two:

Romuald Sztern teaches Maria Verbaite.
To be continued very soon.

Part two:

Part three and so on will follow…

A new video called “Trappsnack” is up in the Video section…

Now with English subs.

So beautiful…

For fun, I made a MySpace page:
www.myspace.com/elviramadiganconcerto If you are on MySpace, please add!
A little more Mozart…

OK, let’s get one thing clear first: I do NOT compare myself with Ingmar Bergman. But, in this interview, he speaks about things that I feel is very close to my temperament and personality. As many of my friends know, I learned how to record, how to edit, how to mix a CD. I know how to put up every stage of equipment in a recoding, and I know how to experiment with microphones to get different sounds.

Generally, these skills are viewed as “non-artistic” in the classical world. But I have noticed that if I don’t do it myself, it will never be done with the same passion of getting every note, every little detail just as I want it. Then, if someone doesn’t like it, fine, it’s all on me.

If you know your stuff, you will be inspired by problems and how to solve them. This is a wonderful interview, enjoy:

I see they have really good artists in Uppsala brand new Concert Hall!
To hear some Kapustin that Shan-shan plays ( she performed the same piece in Uppsala) you can click here

Thank you everyone who made the Tengstrand-08 Festival so fantastic. I will write more on this later, but I have to go back to the editing room and continue the work with Karl’s concerto. In the meantime, ( if you read Swedish) you can read Christina’s very funny and well-written story about her trip to Växjö:
http://spokskrivarn.blogspot.com/2008/05/weekend-i-vxj.html

Back later with more!

Watch videos from the festival in the “Video” section!

May 5:
I had a potato in the audience today! One of Lenin’s little potatoes, just like the girls and boys in this video:

What kind of a twisted person comes to a concert just to try to destroy it by shouting to me that I am “oförskämd” (without shame) to call Lenin “cold-hearted”? This was not a political program, but I intended to speak about how someone who was responsible for the telegram below could still feel strongly for Beethoven’s music. What a pathetic, tragic person. And a Potato.

The following is a telegram sent by Lenin to the communist authorities in Nizjnij-Novgord, 11 August 1918. Source: Library of Congress exhibition.
“Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak volost’s must be suppressed without mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our final decisive battle with the kulaks. We need to set an example.
1) You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers.
2) Publish their names.
3) Take away all of their grain.
4) Execute the hostages - in accordance with yesterday’s telegram.
This needs to be accomplished in such a way, that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: let’s choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks.
Telegraph us acknowledging receipt and execution of this. Yours, Lenin
P.S. Use your toughest people for this.”

——————————————————————————————————————

Great photo by Majsan

Ze Encore…

Time for the concert at Restaurant PM tomorrow, that is SUCH a great place. The food, the people, the atmosphere…amazing! And then, on Monday: Lenin and Beethoven!!!

April 29: I e-mailed something to all the people who guessed…some e-mails bounced back, so send me a message if you didn’t recieve it!

OK, today I’m all set to start e-mailing the thing I have promised everyone who guessed in the contest! It will take a few hours, have patience…

Hmmm…I hear that someone called “Arsinoe” or something like that on The Ark forum, had 4 correct guesses in the Arkeology Contest. I can’t believe we missed that, Jonas and I doublechecked all the guesses so many times. But, there were 5 people who had 4 songs and we e-mailed them all but one didn’t answer with the final question…maybe some e-mail problem? Anyway, contact me if you see this!

April 28:
Sorry I didn’t write today, it was crazy with the concert with Sven Wollter and the wonderful musicians. But, better late than never!
PARTY! This is a picture from someone’s hotel room at 4am Sunday morning…I’m behind the guy to the right. This is how it is when you have a concert with Trondheim Soloists, FUN! I have to say that we look a lot more sober than we were…(well, except this guy playing with the lamp)

OK, I have recieved this from Jonas. I had to torture him and threaten him to never play the piece again before he would give the list, HAHA.

TATA! Here is the list!

From Jonas:
So, here we are. The announcing of the 8 songs included in AN ARKEOLOGY. First the list, and then some thoughts:

AN ARKEOLOGY

* Absolutely No Decorum
* All I Want Is You
* Hey Modern Days
* Echo Chamber
* Let Me Down Gently
* No End
* Thorazine Corazon
* Calleth You, Cometh I

I talked to some of you after the concert in Växjö, and was very pleased that very many of you actually heard many of the songs included, even though I have moved all of the songs from the Ark world to the classical world. Almost everyone heard C Y C I, No End and A N D (except the journalists from the local newspaper! ), probably because the themes/melodies were played just as heard with The Ark (but of course played by piano or violin instead of sung by Ola).

Echo Chamber turned out in a completely new enviroment, and I have cut the theme/melody into very little pieces and moved them around. But you were many that heard it. Excellent! Thorazine Corazon was played in a beautiful piano version, and was very far away from the original.

The three last songs were all extremely difficult to hear… Mainly because I didn’t choose the actual melody (verse or chorus), but maybe a thing from a guitar, bass och piano…

And don’t forget: writing music is just the first part of a concert. The work from Per and the orchestra brings all my papers of music to life. Fantastic work from all of them! I will never forget Per playing C Y C I like time had stopped. Magic. Magic…

Thank you for coming to the concert, thank you for all your kind words, the beautiful flowers and for the major applause in both concerts. It’s because people like you all that we continue to work!

All the best from a very tired but satisfied conductor/arranger/composer,

Jonas

Hello Everyone!
Thank you everyone who came to Växjö Konserthus last night…for us on stage it was magic. So much fun, so many incredible moments (the new version of Calleth is just one example). And I was so happy to be able to “meet” Ola’s fans…I loved having them as a big part of the audience. I think Ola has the best fans in the world, because he is the man he is.

Until the last minute before the concert it was quite chaotic. We hadn’t had the computer work ready for Kalle (McFaul)’s concerto until one hour before the concert, so we didn’t really know how the drum loops sounded, but I thought they were really cool. I was constantly forgetting where I put my sheet music also! But once the concert started it felt like fun…I loved the dancer in the beginning, and one of the funniest things was when we talked a little on stage the second show and I tried to do some Bellydancing, I must have looked SOOOO stiff! It is VERY hard to do what she does, I can tell you that.

We had fun backstage, but sometimes Ola and I get into an interesting discussion and we forget that we will be on stage in two minutes. But once on stage, Ola is 200% the artist, and it’s fascinating. Not many artists has that gigantic stage charisma, and then off stage they are so free of being pretentious or just thinking about themselves. Ola is one of a kind, and I’m honored to be able to make music with him!

I will write more later, last night hasn’t really sunk in yet…anything you want ask, go ahead!
Thank you everyone who came to Växjö and who comes to this site, and thanks everyone for guessing the Arkeology Contest. I’m sending out a gift to everyone who guessed today, and will also announce the songs here later tomorrow!

What a night…I just have to get something to eat, but I did create a new post where you can post any thoughts or greetings or anything else. It’s here.

April 26:
OK; the countdown is now in HOURS not in days.
Here is interview and funny video from today’s Smålandsposten…

April 25:
So far, so good with the tooth, not too bad. Just have to get used to chew with one side for some days…Today, interviews and rehearsals late tonight. Ola will meet the orchestra for the first time, this will be so much fun!!! See you all tomorrow (well, many of you…). Ola’s new song rocks!
There is no radio from the concert, though…sorry

April 24: TOOTHACHE!
Toothache, just a word when you don’t have it, but when you have it…Shan-shan told me his great Chinese saying: “Toothache doesn’t kill you, but it takes your living away”.
So, I have an appointment to get my wisdom tooth pulled out 2 days before the concert…perfect timing! It’s in about an hour…I will write more when I get back. We had a blast rehearsing last night, the music, the music…is so fantastic!

April 22:
Smooth flight! OK, so about the Arkeology contest: Jonas and I will look through all the results on Thursday and it seems we have more than one person with the best guesses…so now we have to find a way to have some kind of Play-Off here! Any ideas?

April 21: OK, time to leave for Sweden…and then right away to Norway to rehearse with Trondheim Soloists. It seems like a pretty empty flight, let’s hope so…this is how it looks like from where I’m sitting…this is a boring day at work for a pianist:

It will be an intense week for sure, but it will feel so good to make some music and to meet the audiences. And so far, no crisis yet…

April 18:
Time is flying, and there are so many notes…spring has really arrived here, it always does right before I have to leave for Sweden. Leaving on Monday night, so tomorrow Sunday will be stressful as always…oh well. With all the work here I didn’t have time to visit any hairdresser, so I squeezed that in on Monday before the flight. Right now I look like those guys in the Björn Skifs Video in Silly Stuff.
All the people involved for the AND-concert seem to be ready to rock! I love the discussion on the forum, take a look!

How cool is this! Emma, that is great work…
http://i28.tinypic.com/2cofv54.png

April 15:
Spent the night in the famous Steinway Basement on 57th street: that’s where Rachmaninoff and Horowitz met for the first time, and they played through Rachs 3rd concerto. It’s truly the best place in the world for practicing, some hundred grand pianos around you undergroound in complete isolation. Wonderful. Got the beginning of Jonas arrangement of Calleth: …it…will…be…so…incredibly…OK, I should stop hightening the already high expectations!

April 13:
A good day…I did some good work at the piano, some organizing stuff with the festival, and NJ Devils won against NY Rangers! Hope to keep up the work with the music, so many notes to be played in this festival. It’s wonderful, though!

It’s amazing how many little details has to be taken care of for a show like this…and then, when it happens, one has to forget about it and just give the audience it all! But we have the best people possible on stage for exactly that…

April 12:

Yay! I have several pages of “Spallation Source”, the third movement of McFaul’s concerto! I will start practicing hard tomorrow. Take a look at the little teaser on the “Forum” page!

April 9:

Did you know that Lenin was obsessed with Beethoven?

Take a look…

The festival program is here, and I’m really proud of it…Tengstrand-08 is the extremely humble name of the festival.

Well, here is a trailer for the first concert with Ola, Jonas and the amazing Trondheim Soloists.

If you would like me to e-mail the program book on PDF, just shoot me and e-mail: per.tengstrand@gmail.com

April 7:

OK, an important announcement for the competition: if you have already submitted your list, and you feel like “heck, I should have put in that piece instead”, just write a new one, and that’s the one that counts! This is all a fun and friendly thing, so we are relaxed here…
I can also tell you that we are cooking on some surprise for all of you who have guessed…Dadadadaaaa…I won’t say no more…

April 5:

Working at the piano…calling Kalle McFaul to stress him to send me the last movement of his Concerto. Trying out a very interesting accelerando in “An Arkeology”. Hmmm…wonder what Jonas would think of it.

April 4:

I red about the chaos with Malmö Opera and tickets, Jesus Christ!

I hope everything has been smooth in dealing with this festival?

April 3:

I have read in some forums that it’s hard to find affordable travel to Växjö on a Saturday…well, SJ sucks sometimes. I found this bus from Stockholm for 390 (300 for “ungdom”) one-way and 780 (600) both ways:

www.svenskabuss.se

It gets to Växjö at 15.30, so for the 16 concert it might be tight, but for the one starting at 19 it should be fine. Seems like that bus company is going to and from many places . If anyone has more ideas how to get there, please leave a comment!

The Arkeology contest is on, just click on the contest button above…we are having so much fun following your thoughts, it’s great! Oh, Jonas asked me to clarify that there are 8 songs INCLUDING the one in the trailer. Guess away! For those of you who have already guessed on this thread we give you the choice of staying with that or you can put a revised one in the new thread.

April 1:

OK, some news (and it’s not an April’s fools joke

1) I just got off the phone with Ola, and we decided on the encore for the concert on the 26th…all I can say is that I thought this concert couldn’t be better but it just did…wow.

2) Christina’s comment here is really interesting, and we are thinking of having a competition on guessing which The Ark-songs will be in the orchestra piece: there are eight in it, one you can hear in the trailer. How about you sending your list of eight and then the one coming closest will get the score with Ola’s autograph on it? What do you think?

The evening will be absolutely magic…

I just read this on The Arks website-forum:

Pressklipp Smålandsposten 2008-04-26

“Ett stort antal flyktingar från Arkadien har begärt tillfälligt uppehållstillstånd i Växjö. De har slagit upp sitt tältläger utanför konserthuset sedan igår kväll..”

“A great number of refugees from Arkadia have applied for temporary visas to Växjö. They have put up their tents in front of the Concert House since yesterday…”

Hahaha…that is so funny.

I’ll send it to you as soon as I will see it. There is all the info you possibly need. I will also do some good old bloggin’ about how things are going, so check back

Finally back home!  Last stop was L.A., we played at CSU and met some wonderful people. Two absolutely fantastic Steinways and a great hall. The masterclass was fun, we managed to not interrupt each other! Loved the sunny sunshine in California, but we are happy to be back home. Shan-shan has a new, really cool website, take a look!

www.shanshansun.com

Paris is the most amazing city on earth. I love every second of being here. Since I lived here before I feel like unparisien and not a tourist which does make it more magical.

I have been practicing at the Swedish Institute in the Quartier Marais (if you know Paris you know what that means…the picture above is one of the streets) and it’s amazing: I sit there looking out at those fantastic buildings playing some Rachmaninoff and Ravel.

The rehearsals have been at the Republican Guard, and there is the orchestra and 300 horses that are just so beautiful. Those horses have been selected through hundreds of years to be parading when Presidents and Rayalities visit. They are all bred to have the same, perfect features. Very, very impressive and powerful. The only thing is that I need to make sure to not step in horse-poo on my way to the rehearsal, that’s a first!

I have been away for more than four weeks now, but there is only a few more days and then I’m on my way to meet Shan-shan at the airport and we go to L.A. together for a concert.
Until I leave, I will enjoy Paris…and the concert!