Always,

with these two, my Sam and my Katie.

On an Ending I'm Not Sure I Like

"So what are your plans for the trio, now that Sam and Katie are graduating?" This -- always asked by elegant socialites with silver hair, expensive scarves and high-heeled shoes, their husbands trailing behind their heavily perfumed and circuitous paths, glasses of wine or hors d'oeuvres in hand -- has been the most frequently asked question Sam, Katie and I have encountered in the past whirlwind of university events, concerts and functions at which we've performed. I never really want to answer this particular question, as it's the question that causes me to tense as my little heart gets rent while I examine the truly honest answer: our Tria Fata is most likely coming to it's close.

The three of us have each said it at least once. Sam is probably most realist in this whole "end of an era," and I'm the one who's most doggedly hanging on to it, fantastically hoping the Tria won't end -- we were discussing the opportunity to play on a concert we really don't want to play and Sam said something like, "I want to end trio on a high note. The Beethoven is really the last big hurrah we've got." I wanted to hit him for saying it. But it's true. How can the Tria continue when we're at opposite ends of the country?

We've been playing so well, I keep thinking. How can we think of stopping now? Recently returned as finalists in the MTNA National Chamber music competition, we were invited to play before the amazing Amelia Piano Trio as part of a fundraising concert for the Cultural Affairs Department at our school. We've been center stage for scholarship events. We've been in the paper, on the web, in the community. We've got friends and supporters and (dare I say it?) fans in Northern UT. I feel like we're just on the verge and now we're just letting it go, even if we are letting it go for grad school.

I want to fight to keep Tria Fata alive.

I feel a bond with Sam and Katie that I haven't felt with any other human beings I've ever met. Making chamber music together has taught us how to read each other, how to empathize with and forgive and facilitate one another. We understand in each other the depth of things we can't discuss in words. Our breathing and our movement and our ears and fingers and feelings all sync up with each other when we play; it's only when I'm playing with Sam and Katie that I feel the most safe and the most invincible and the most in tune with that which is greater than myself. There is nothing else like it: the three of us becoming part of the divine by collectively making this thing called music.

I am afraid of what I will lose without my two pals. Musically speaking, they offer a safety net. They can cover for me when I'm technically weak. They offer two different sets of detail-specific ears; two foreign philosophies about how this or that should speak; two instruments of perfectly opposite construct and sound than my own. Their playing has changed my playing, and I hope my playing has instructed theirs, too. Personally speaking, they offer a liberating, risk-taking force (usually Sam) and a voice of conservative reason (normally Katie) in many of my personal desires, beliefs and actions. I trust them more than most, and often consider what both Sam and Katie have to say more heavily than words of advice from other friends and peers. They have become a very important part in how I have shaped my life within the past three years, and I guess I fear that I will lose a hefty part of me when they aren't near.

I've been content to see myself -- and let myself be seen -- as part of this group. The split of the trio frightens me because it will mean I will need to reconsider who I am -- as a student, as a pianist, as a human merely being -- when I am again totally on my own. I will be an individual again very soon. I feel unsettled when considering this.

"What happens to Tria Fata now?" Always, at every function, we field some variation on that question. My question would be this: "What happens to Sam now? What happens to Nic? What happens to Katie?" We are the Tria, but we each are more than the Tria and the Tria is more than any of one of us alone. I think we deal with that strange duality, that I am both this and that as we prepare to leave Tria by.

Each time that question is asked, at every event, I silently go through all of that stuff above, get anxious and uncertain, and look my Sam and my Katie both in the eye, searching for some reassurance that they're cut through by it, too. Then, one of us will take the breath, smile at whoever has made the query, and say, "Oh, you know, we're not really sure. It depends on where we end up..." while the other two stare in silence at the empty cups in our hands.

Arvo Pärt and Tria Fata

Sam, Katie and I were eating pizza the other night, discussing plans for our next concert (coming up on the 18th of February) and musing, however tentatively, and with a tender, sad foreboding, on the future dissolution of Tria Fata.  I freely admit, I've cried over it.  We have each commented at various times on how we've each felt stretched and expanded by playing with each other.  Of the many things we do together as colleagues and friends in a trio, one of my favorites is doing "trio-listening" when we get together and just listen to new music we may want to learn.

Sam found a piece he wanted Katie and I to hear.  Especially excited about this new piece, he called three times this morning while I was at work.  I got to school, went to class and then met Sam for a pre-grad audition performance and critique.  He didn't play for me, but ended up leading me to the DPA lab, where he sat me down at one of the computers, inserted a CD and bade me listen to Arvo Pärt's Mozart-Adagio.  It's incredible.  It's been the only piece of music I have wanted to listen to all day.  We've ordered the music.  We're playing it on the 18th.  It will be one of our last performances.  A perfectly appropriate musical setting for such an emotional close for us.



Pittsburgh Piano Trio, St. Petersburg Conservatory, March 2006

My Christmas Carol

I locked my heart to the holiday spirit this year.  Yes, I played in holiday concerts and yes, I wished everyone holiday cheer, but I just didn't want to feel it.  But Christmas is insidious, winding and slithering its way into the heart of even the most stony Scrooge, and there were a few nights when I was caught up in the glimmering, hearty holiday and invited to ponder on the reasons why Christmas is so special.

Sam (my cellist), Katie (my violinist) and I (our pianist) were finishing finishing up a Tria Fata rehearsal last Monday.  It had been a great rehearsal -- we'd made some noticeable progress in the Mendelssohn C Minor, and the Babadjanian was just as exciting as ever; an added bonus: Sam's fiancee, Anna, had done a superb job of turning my pages.  As Sam was putting his cello back in its case, he said we'd been invited to play in "a living room concert" at the home of one of his students.  Katie wasn't too keen on the idea, and my only focus after a rehearsal is finding the nearest place to eat, but we decided we'd all go after, of course, finding Nic some food.  We needed the practice performing anyway, as we were preparing for an upcoming competition in Hawaii.

We giggled in the car on the ride over about Katie's newest crush and told her she should just go for it! I smiled as Anna scolded Sam over driving too fast around the icy corners of the twisty canyon.    And we all fawned over the loveliness of Anna's lemon-head-scented lotion while slathering it over our arms and hands.

We finally drove up to a beautifully lit, big and inviting house, its long front drive packed with minivans and SUV's.  It was a gorgeous house.  We're playing in there? I thought. We've played in mansions before, but this takes the cake.  A walkaround porch framed the perimeter, and large windows let their lights spill out on the snowy ground.  We knocked on the the heavy wooden door, soon to be ushered into a large foyer littered with shoes and coats and mittens of all sizes.  A brawling herd of five- and six-year olds ran, zipping around us to climb the stairs as we added own winter wear to the haphazard collection.  A big black lab sniffed at our instrument cases, and deciding we weren't a threat, wagged his tail and licked at our hands.  Paintings of a beautiful mother and each of her seven children smiled warmly, looked thoughtfully and embraced us quietly as we walked down a short hallway to the kitchen and music room  where everyone was gathered.

I was buzzing with the invisible, effervescent pillars of joy pulsating throughout the house full of adults and teenagers and children, all gathered to sample holiday treats and listen to a myriad of carols played by an array of performers.  I could not stop smiling.  Anna was standing next to me, "Can you feel the happiness?" I asked her.  She turned and looked at me, grinning that specifically elvish, Anna-grin.  "Yes," she whispered.  The mother-in-the-paintings came from the kitchen to greet us, welcoming us and telling us about the little girl who was at the piano, playing an Easy Note version of Jingle Bells.  She halted every time a new line of music began; she played a few bad notes; her rhythms weren't always perfect, but when she stood up, she was beaming.  So was everybody else, and we applauded like we'd just heard Krystian Zimmerman perform Beethoven's three last Sonatas at Carnegie Hall.  It was supreme, and it was delightful.

We heard all sorts of performances that night, all of them accompanied by the racket of boys chasing each other on the floors above us.  Some performers were beginners.  Others were a bit more experienced.  Some played classically rendered holiday favorites, others were a bit more down-home and twangy.  We heard fathers playing violin duets with their young daughters; middle-school girls singing sweet hymns penned by Christina Rosetti; and we watched young mothers directing their toddling youngsters  in dances about Santa Claus and sugar-plum fairies.

We were announced, and we went to the front of the room.   As Sam and Katie set up their chairs and stands, I stood up to say a few words.

"Oh, you guys," I said to the room full of happy people sitting on folding chairs from the nearest ward building, "We have had so much fun watching and listening to all of you who've performed!  As a trio, we play a lot of music over and over and over, trying to get it just perfect.  Sometimes we forget that music can be just a lot of fun.  Each of you has had so much fun!  Sometimes we classical musicians need reminding that music can bring people together, like it's done for all of us tonight.  Thanks so much of reminding us of that."

And then we played parts of our Mendelssohn and Babadajanian.  It wasn't seasonal music by any means.  We couldn't really hear each other.  We couldn't really see each other.  But we played, and we loved it.  And our audience loved it.  And it didn't matter that babies were crying or that dogs were barking or that the dishwasher was running on its highest cycle.  We were making music in a house that was brimming with love and merriness and cheer, and that was what we all needed.

The holidays are special because they do give us what we need -- Christmas invites us to take time to reflect upon the love in our lives.  It gives us means to recognize the need we have to share love with others.  As my best friend, Corey, put it in his blog,

"No matter who you are, how you were made (or how you believe you were made), or how people treat you, there are good people out there that love you in this world. There is no greater Christmas lesson than that."

I'm so glad I was reminded of this lesson in time to appreciate spending my Christmas with the people I love most.  I hope you had Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, too.