WKXL - New Hampshire Talk Radio
Artful Living | The Avaloch Concert Interviews
(upbeat music) - Good morning everybody. This is Jane Cobier, your host, WKXL New Hampshire talkradio.com, and you are with Artful Living today. So we have really cool interviews that were taken in late June at a program that I was lucky enough to MC and participate in at Avelock Farm Music Institute. And those of you that listen to Artful Living know that they are the sponsor for Artful Living right here at WKXL. And the Avelock Farm Music Institute is in 1912, Dr. Fred Tauber brought this cultural gem to Bosquein, New Hampshire. And he created a space, it's a retreat that's designed for musicians. And as they've grown and as the program has really become fairly well known among the performing artists of the country, we have weekly, usually weekly concerts now that are offered with no real entrance fee. They ask for a suggested donation, I think it's $10, which is kind of fun. But you can go and hear world class talent here at Avelock Farm Music Institute. So on June 28th, I attended an evening at Avelock and got to speak with some of their cool artists. The first interview you're going to hear is Arum Ramamorti and his wife, Trina Basu. And they are sort of Indian classical music musicians. They play many styles that's fused through this Indian classical type of music. And so we're gonna listen to Arun and Trina who are both wonderful violinists and hear what they have to say about their presentation at Avelock. Good afternoon everybody. This is Jane Cormier, your host for Artful Living. WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. And we are recording live here at Avelock Farm Music Institute today. We are going to be able to speak to some of the wonderful artists that are performing this evening in concert. And our first guests today are two, I guess they're married folk, yeah? We have Arun Ramamorti and Trina Basu. And they are going to be, I guess, are you starting the program today? We are, we're starting the program tonight. Awesome, awesome. And so they will be performing some, I guess, South Indian classical quasi genre. Yeah, so we bring together various different styles that we are rooted in and are very inspired by, including South Indian classical music, which is also called Carnatic Music. And along with the languages of Western classical chamber music and jazz improvisation and folk style. So we really bring together a lot in our own way. Absolutely, well, I was listening to a little bit while you were practicing and it was glorious. So really wonderful, Arun, tell us a little bit 'cause you know what? Everybody loves to have the story behind the scenes and it's always nice when you're married. So how did this all come to fruition here? Right, well, we met many years ago, I'd say about 15 years ago. Is that right? Maybe 17 years ago, I think is when we met. And we met in New York City where we were both violinists. I was playing in an Indian classical group and the band leader was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna bring another violinist into it, I want to flesh out the band. And so I went to the rehearsal and it was Trina, which was amazing. And now actually the story goes a little further back. I should mention that Trina was actually in India studying Carnatic Music and she was there in a scholarship and she met my teacher in my sort, my sort of manjanaat, a wonderful violinist. And she happened to go to his house 'cause she was going to a wedding in the area and went to my teacher's house who then emailed me and then he told me, hey, you know, this violinist came, she lives in Brooklyn, so you gotta let her know about all the Carnatic concerts that are happening. So then when I went to this rehearsal that day and it was Trina, we realized, oh, we've been communicating. - This is the violinist that my teacher told me about. So my teacher now laughs and jokes that not only did he give me music, but he gave me my wife, too. - And you know what? I tell you what, doing these little radio things that we do at WKSL, there's always a story like that behind the scenes, isn't that strange? I knew there was one, I just knew there was one. So around you, you have a very cool sound that you guys put together. And you know, when I was reading through your materials, you did mention something in there about ancient that really struck me ancient to contemporary. For a listening audience, what does that encapsulate? - Well, Carnatic music has roots that, you know, they say go back to thousand years. So the music is considered somewhat of an ancient art form, but art forms are constantly in evolution. They're constantly growing. So over the years, you know, it's obviously changed. And today, you know, and I should also mention that Carnatic music is improvisational, you know. So the music is, it's like a language that you can speak through these ragas or modes that have certain characteristics and movements. So through those ragas, you can express yourself. That's the purpose of this music. There's compositions, but then it's very much heavily improvised. So I would say that, you know, in every generation, given the people that are performing the music, there's an evolution or changes that happen to the music based on that current generation. And I think now being born and raised in the USA and collaborating with a lot of different musicians and the music that we're making is taking a step further as far as connecting very intimately and deeply with other styles of music. So while we are expressing the way Carnatic music does and using some of the fundamentals of the ragas, the rhythm structures of Carnatic music, we are also, you know, I think have an understanding of Western classic music and jazz from the inside of those spaces. So the way we're trying to connect them and bring them together, honestly, sometimes is conscious and sometimes is not. It's just something that's already in us. So when I hear "Trina" play, it makes me think of many other things that, you know, will bring out different aspects of me that I wouldn't have done alone or in a Carnatic context and I think vice versa. - Yeah, really interesting how much jazz, of course the American art form jazz, right, has that growth thing happening. Great jazz continues to evolve and it sounds like you've incorporated that here too. So Arun, what part of your playing together do you enjoy the most? - Well, I think once we've, you know, really lived in the music, we write music together. So we write mostly all of the music we play as original. We do play some arrangements of traditional tunes from India and different parts of the world, but a lot of the music is original and I, you know, I just, I love when you've lived with the song for such a long time that every time you play it, it just feels better and better. And I think music is so healing and you can be having a bad day or, you know, frustrated with something and just not things aren't going your way that day, but you sit down and you play music together with somebody that you really connect with and that you've built this relationship with musically and personally and it just, it feels so good. - Yeah. - So that's- - You know what, it's interesting people on the outside that haven't experienced sort of working and playing as like musicians do together. I think they can, they really can't grasp the concept of how tight you can become, how close you can become. - Through the music and, you know, it just is natural thing that the relationship and the music grow together, I think, when you perform. 'Cause it's not easy sometimes, but yeah, it's not easy sometimes. So this evening, when you play, what are you going to be sharing with the audience? - You know, we're still figuring that out completely, but I believe we're gonna do a song called Tempest and it's on an album that we released last year called Nakshetra. And yeah, Tempest is, you know, a lot of our music, or I'm gonna say a lot of it, but some of it is related to nature. And actually we're here at Avilock now to work on some new music for our next record and we're trying to center it around nature, some of the natural elements. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is a perfect place to do it. And that's what we love coming here. And so Tempest, a storm, a really big storm is something that we're envisioning when we wrote this song. So it's also based in a raga. Actually, we're gonna play with three different ragas today and incorporate them in different ways. So yeah, I think that's the plan for tonight. - There you go. So listen, let's tell our listeners here how they can get to your website and connecting with you in that regard. - Definitely, you can find us on Instagram, of course. That's Arun Trina Strings, that's our handle. And then we also have an album as Arun was mentioning, available on Bandcamp. It's called Nakshetra, we released it last year. You can find that, I'll spell that. And Nakshetra means constellation in Sanskrit and you spell it N-A-K-S-H-A-T-R-A. You can find us there. And we have websites too, so you can find our individual websites online. - Separately. - Separately, yes. Okay, and that's Arun Ramamurti and Trina Basu. And we look forward to hearing you. So thank you for being with us. - Thank you so much for having us. - You're gonna have a great concert. - Thank you, I think we're looking forward to it. - We are too. Thank you. All right, that was the conversation. You know, I wish we had a little bit more time. We could play some excerpts for you, but you have all the information there. If you wanna jump online on how you can hear the music from Arun and Trina from Avilock Farm. So we are gonna take a little break here, WKXL 1450 AM, 103.9 FM Conquered in 101.9 FM in Manchester. And when we come back, we will talk with some more guests from evenings at Avilock. (upbeat music) - Welcome back. Jane Cormier, your host here on Artful Living. WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. And if you're just joining us, we are listening to some wonderful performers that were at evenings at Avilock, who's this evening of concerts at Avilock Farm Music Institute in Bosque and in late June. And we did some interviews with some of these instrumentalists and performers, and they were pretty, pretty fabulous. So we wanted to bring some of these conversations to you. Our next conversation, our next chat is with a group called the Moaning Frogs. And this is a group of gentlemen who play saxophone, all of the saxophones that are in the saxophone family. And they were fabulous. I think they kind of were the star of the night for the concert. And they gave us a great little interview. So this is the group called the Moaning Frogs. All right, we are now on our second interview. WKXL is here at the beautiful Avilock Farm Music Institute, WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. And we're speaking with some of the guests for this evening's concert, which looks to be quite a great event. And we have a group here, which is pretty cool. When I was looking on the site, it's called the Moaning Frogs. And it is a saxophone group, right? And we have two gentlemen from the group. We have Eddie Goodman and Gabe P.K. And we'll start with Gabe. Gabe, the Moaning Frogs. The one thing I had when I read about you was like, where did that name come from? - Yeah, so the name came from two early 20th century tunes called the Bullfrog Blues in that Moaning saxophone rag. And it's part of this thing that was called the saxophone craze of the turn of the century where saxophone was the thing to do. It was comedy, it was entertainment, and it wasn't taken as seriously as it is today, but that's kind of the origins of the name. Is these two songs? - How very cool. Yes, I was wondering about that, thank you. And six guys coming together, where did this idea Eddie Goodman come from? - So originally the group started as a student group at the University of Michigan. And so a lot of us were in the same state. And so that was very ideal. And as you can imagine, over time, a lot of us graduated, people were getting jobs and we had membership changes. And we ended up all over the US. Gabe is in Ohio, I'm Arizona. We have someone in Canada. And really it's just our passion for the music that we're playing and just this ensemble. We've just found a way to make it work. And there's a lot of ensembles, professional groups that do similarly like us. But it is a challenge, but we've made it work for since 2011. - Holy moly, I mean, I didn't stop to think that there would be such like, I have never known groups to be so split apart, like, you know, different locations and to come together. You must be really committed at what you're doing, that's for sure. So six saxes. What, tell our listening audience who knows nothing about this type of thing. How does this all work together as a musical? You know, musical force. - Yeah, so the saxophone is a member of the Woodwind family. We play on reeds. And there's the thing that's interesting about the saxophone. Similar to clarinet and flute is that, you know, you can have a normal flute and then a bass flute and a normal clarinet and a bass clarinet. Well, same thing with the saxophones. And we, in our group, with six of them, we have a bass saxophone, a baritone saxophone, a tenor saxophone, an alto saxophone, a soprano saxophone, and a sopranino saxophone. So the way it works together is when these instruments were designed, they were all designed as a family. So they sound well together. They look good together, I think. (laughing) But it's really part of the, one thing that you get with saxophones as opposed to a mixed chamber group, like a Woodwind quintet, is the homogeneity and like the blend of sound. It's really, really powerful and very, very exciting. - Yes, that's what I was thinking. You know, since it's all the same family, I was wondering is there may be a challenge to put that together, but it sounds like you've got all these separate instruments covered. What are you playing tonight, Eddie? - So, my instrument? - Yeah. - I'm playing the soprano saxophone. - Oh, I'm wonderful, okay. - Yeah, and everyone in the group, as a part of our own training, we have all practiced and played. The sax ones that you're gonna see in the concert. So each of us can play the soprano, alto tenor, berry. Not many of us wanna maybe play the bass for say, just because that's very rare, it's very challenging. And Lucas Hopkins, who is the bass player, that's a real specialty. Like, that's something that's really unique, I think to his playing and like people like, when you say, talk about the bass sax, they know about Lucas. And similarly, Jonathan Elton Cohen is gonna be playing the sopranino, which is also a very rare instrument. And it's smaller than the soprano sax, and also rare and challenging to play, but you wouldn't know anybody. 'Cause they play so well. - Yeah, I mean, this is gonna be so much fun. You're going to be preceded by an Southern Indian classical group, and then the moaning frogs. I mean, talk about different styles. This is so cool. Jazz, is jazz a large part of what you do? - Yes, it's not the only thing that we do. As saxophonists, we're generally associated with jazz, but the funny thing is that all six of us are classical saxophone professors and educators. So we've studied classical saxophone, and as we develop in that, we do have to embrace jazz, which we have, but we also do popular tunes. We do, we have some klezmer. We have, what else am I missing, Eddie? - We have rock. - Yeah, we're like, Bohemian raps is something that we do. We play Bach, we play. We try to cover our basis, 'cause like kind of in the saxophone community, like the culture is that you do everything. And so that's kind of what our group tries to achieve a lot is, like when you think of saxophone, what is all the rep or genres that it's associated to, and we try to cover that the best we can. - It sounds like you cover everything there. Here's a question and excuse my ignorance because I'm a vocalist. But when you play an instrument, you know, as a woodwind player, and we say we call it play the rack, you know, we're playing all the different woodwind instruments, correct? Does saxophone player normally play all the different saxes, or do they find, like, specific saxes only that they play? - Yes, in general, we do play all of them. They're similar enough to where we could just pick it up, but more specifically, we tend to gravitate towards two or three of them, so me personally, I play primarily soprano alto and baritone. - Yeah, and I really like the alto and soprano. That's what I mostly will play. - Wow, I'm impressed that you could play them all. - I didn't know that we did that. I thought that, you know, you sort of centered on, I knew you could play, technically speaking, it's the same instrument in some ways, but I really thought maybe you'd just do, but you play it all. So tonight, what kind of music are we gonna hear? - You're gonna hear a little bit of opera. - Which opera? - The Rosini Largo alfactotum. - Oh my goodness, are you serious? - It's a surprise. - That's fabulous, I can't wait to hear it, okay? What else? Anything else, Rosini? - We're gonna be doing some in the mood, so yeah, so you're gonna get a little bit of jazz there from us. - That's fabulous, and is there another piece or just those two? - We do have another piece. We're also playing Star Cross Lovers by Duke Ellington, an arrangement that was made for us. - Wow, beautiful music. I can't wait, I can't wait to hear what you're doing tonight. So where do you come from, Eddie? - Yeah, so I'm based in Tucson, Arizona. - Mattra, you said that at the beginning. And you, Gabe? - Well, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. - Cleveland. How many times do you guys actually physically get together as a group? - Oh my gosh, it really depends on the gigs that we have in a given year. I would say that ranges, and Gabe, you can help like five times a year, maybe eight times a year. Next year's gonna be quite busy for us at 2025. Well, we have a lot of performances. We have one to two almost every month, and it's very exciting, and Avilock has been really essential to our preparation for all of that. And so just because, as you can imagine, us being everywhere, it's like we don't get a lot of rehearsal time. And as Gabe mentioned earlier, when we arrived to a gig, we might play a rehearse that day. The same day is the performance. And so Avilock, it's like, oh, we don't have any performance. It's this week, it's just been rehearsing, getting to watch so many amazing artists here and gain inspiration from that. So yeah, it's every year's a little different, but yeah, we're getting busier, which is a good thing. - I think it's great that you guys come to Avilock because specifically for you, if you're getting together so few times, you can come to one place, it's beautiful. You don't have to worry about anything. Is it a good thing? - Oh, it's a great thing, and the food here is incredible. (laughing) You know, I've heard that three times today, so it has to be true. We'll see, because tonight we're gonna have dinner. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - This little taste for the Monan Frogs, they were just exceptional at that last concert. We don't want you to forget, July 25th, 730, Artisan Residence Concert at Avilock Farm Music Institute. So this is tonight, you're going to hear this concert. Get over to Avilock. We're at 16 Hardy Lane in Bosquein, and you will hear a fabulous concert tonight, July 25th at 730. We're gonna take a little break, come back with some more wonderful musical, talented guests, and so you just stay right where you are. We'll be back in a moment. WKX Sound HampshireTalkRadio.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome back. Jane Cormier, you are with Art for Living here on WKX Sound HampshireTalkRadio.com. WKXL1450AM, 103.9 FM Cogord, and 101.9 FM Cogord. 101.9 FM in Manchester. If you're just joining us, we have a wonderful, different kind of segment today. We are talking to guests from Avilock Farm Music Institute who had a concert in late June at the beautiful barn that they have on the space at Avilock Farm Music Institute. And these guests gave some wonderful interviews. So we are going to speak with right now a couple of gals, Hannah Depreast, who is a soprano, and Shelby Yamine, who is a violinist, who we're singing and playing some music together. And we're going to highlight their conversation right now. Okay, here, we are continuing our segment with the artists at Avilock Farm Music Institute before their concert tonight, Friday the 28th. And WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. Jane Cormier, your host here, Artful Living. And we have two more great artists here. We have Hannah Depreast and we have Shelby Yamine, who are going to be playing together. One is a soprano vocalist and another is a violinist, right? So Hannah, we'll start with you as the vocalist. How did you two come together to form this group? Well, we've worked together a few times on different gigs. We both do a lot of Baroque music. So we've been on a lot of gigs where we've been kind of hired hands, but and we really quickly kind of connected, but we hadn't yet had an opportunity to do something where we really had artistic ownership over the product from start to finish. So this residency at Avilock is really the beginning of our story as a duo. We brought a bunch of rep that we'd never worked on before, and it's been an incredible week of exploration and discovery. How great is that, huh? Is this your first time, both of you, for being here at Avilock? It is, and it's so magical. It's such a gift. Well, I think everybody gets a gift here. Avilock has a gift for having you. You have a gift for having Avilock, and the audience wins both ways. So there it is. It works all the way around. So here we have Shelby Yaman, and Shelby, you're a violinist. You play in the Baroque or the modern violin. So I have both instruments, and I play whatever instrument is more appropriate for whatever rep I'm doing. So I do love Baroque rep in a historical 18th century, 19th century. But for this concert, I'll be playing my modern violin. You know, I'm a vocalist as well. Great here, I know I'm sort of retired, but let me ask you a question. Baroque violin, as opposed to the modern violin, I've always wondered, what is the difference for the quality, for the violinist playing it? How does it differ between the two of them? So for anyone who's starting Baroque violin, I always say it feels different for the player because there's no chin rest or shoulder rest. Those weren't, those are modern, relatively modern inventions. So for a modern violinist going to play Baroque, there is a, you know, a little bit of a technical speed bump to get over, but the actual sound, you know, that technical difference doesn't really affect the sound. What affects the sound is the gut strings and the bow. The bow is shaped differently. And so you kind of are in this sound world because of these, the equipment brings you into the sound world for this beautiful color and the change is really. Do you have a preference, just personal preference of which sound you like the best? I don't, well, it's a great question. And especially having been here this week, exploring REP that I had never played or really heard programmed, this soprano violin REP is not very frequently performed or composed for. Like there's really not that much, it's not a standard combination. So having played this music that brings the violin into this such a different role, I, you know, like I play a lot of Baroque music and if I'm playing Baroque music, I'll say, I prefer playing that on a Baroque violin, but doing this, I'm like, this is amazing too. I think it's just really a rich, having all these options. Yes. So I get to pick what works best and for this, it's definitely modern violin and it works great. So you would know, you would know. So we're going with what you say tonight. So Hannah, you have a beautiful voice. I was listening to some of your media on your site, beautiful, pure, controlled, nice size. You know, for an opera singer, right? That matters, right? My question to you is, do you see early music being your father? Or do you see yourself as a younger singer that will grow into maybe a different style of all of classical music? That's a really great question. I, you know, I turned 30 a couple years ago and-- You're a baby. Thank you. And I feel like it was really kind of around then that I really started to discover my true voice. And it's something that we've talked about a little bit this week. I think one of the great gifts that Baroque Music has given me is a sense of playfulness and freedom in terms of discovering different colors and bringing a lot of vocal effects to the music that I work on. And this music, which is by and large, composed in the 20th century, but it's art song, you know? And there are some really fantastic highs and lows, lots of vocal drama and lyric lines, which I love to sing as a lyric soprano, but also some incredible, fine, delicate moments that we're able to achieve. And Shelby is such a sensitive player. And we've really challenged ourselves this week to try to match each other's sound as much as possible. And a really egalitarian pairing that's very exciting. It should be very fun to hear this because you're obviously both really good at what you do. And I've always said that the violin, in so many ways, is really a voice, a singer voice, because if you were a great singer, you sing like a violinist would play. And putting that together, I think, is a great... Whose idea was this? Oh, I don't know. It just kind of needed to happen. It was a collective, yeah. Wow, we haven't thought about that, but we just kind of have always really loved each other's creativity and artistic vision. Like we both have such a similar design. Take on music. And so we just, I guess it just happened. Yes. You know what? This is great. And what you said is so true about there not being, at least in my mind, music really composed for these two. You would think that would be a natural thing, wouldn't you? I mean, come on, you know, violin and voice? We'd love for there to be more. The music that is written, and we'll do a little bit of this tonight, is tensed toward kind of folky, inflected pieces. And also some incredibly sort of mystical songs. And I think that there's, yeah, there's a lot of love here, a deep friendship, and a very ever-growing mutual respect, I think, for each other's musicianship. It's going to be wonderful. What pieces are we hearing tonight, Shelby? So we'll start with a collection of songs by Rebecca Clark, which is a set of three English songs. And then we'll play snippets from other collections that we've explored this week. We recorded last night a couple pieces by Gustav Holst. He has a sweet, it's gorgeous. Oh, my goodness. It's reverent, and just it fills, you know, just with one instrument and one voice, and it just fills the whole landscape. It's just gorgeous. So we'll actually, it might not be on the program, but we'll do a movement from the host, because we couldn't resist. We really wanted to share it. I hope we hear it. That's going to be a beautiful piece. And we'll end with another, a song from another set by Rebecca Clark from her Irish set. Rebecca Clark, I'm an American composer. She was American, but she lived a lot of her life in England. And her songs, I fell in love with her art songs. I think if there are any violists listening, you probably are a big fan of Rebecca Clark already. Her songs and her way of setting poetry is, to me, ingenious. And what is the year frame? I'm not familiar with her. Was she 18? 1920s when these songs were written. Wonderful. Well, you know what? I'm not familiar with Rebecca Clark. So you will be educating Moa. Thank you for that. Ladies, thank you for coming out today, and you have a great hour break or so. And then we'll start the show. I can't wait to hear you tonight. Thank you for coming in. Thank you, Jane. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. My pleasure. Have a good book. Yes, they were delightful, delightful ladies that performed a wonderful set of music, vocal and violin, one voice, one violin. And it was pretty glorious, pretty beautiful music. For those of you out there that are just joining us, July 25, we have an artist in residence concert at Avilock Farm Music Institute. And this concert is 730 Start Time, right in Bosco in. And it will feature David Kaplan on piano, Ashley Bathgate on cello, and Jessica Tong on violin. And I know Jessica and Ashley are both sort of directors of the program at Avilock. And it will be great to hear them. So July 25th concert, which is tonight at Avilock 730. Don't miss it. We're going to take a little break here. WKXL, New Hampshire, talkradio.com. And hang right there, because we will be coming right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back, WKXL, artful living here, Jinko Meer, your host, WKXL, 1450 AM, 103.9 FM Concord and 101.9 FM in Manchester. And if you are just joining us, you're in for a treat. We are talking to artists from Avilock Farm Music Institute. And that's Avilockfarmusic.org. If you're interested, because don't forget tonight there's a concert, July 25th, Artist in Residence concert, David Kaplan piano, Ashley Bathgate cello. And Jessica Tong violin. I believe that the concert will include music Schubert and Smetna. And this will be a great time for us to hear some beautiful music in a beautiful environment. Our last interview at this concert that we attended in late July was with another married couple, Alexis Dier and Derek Hartman. And they gave a beautiful concert. They played a monster piece by Maurice Ravelle called Le Vaus, which is the Waltz. And they are really, really fabulous pianists. But let's hear their conversation at Avilock. OK, we are back here. WKXL, New HampshireTalkRadio.com. And we are here at Avilock Farm Music Institute. And we are speaking with some of the performers that are going to be performing tonight at the wonderful concert, June 28. And we're going to speak with Derek Hartman and Alexis Dier, duo. They have a duo. And let's hear a little bit from Alexis first, because you're from Romania. That's right. I'm from Romania. I was born and raised there. But my family is actually Hungarian. So that's my mother tongue. Oh, my goodness. So how many languages do you speak? I speak Hungarian, Romanian, a little bit of German, and English, of course. Yes, you know what? I loved it when I was living over in Europe, because people really were more lingual than they are here. They buy lingual, try lingual. I mean, depending who you're talking to, so many. You can't count. But you know, very interesting. We have the Derek Hartman, Alexis Dier, duo. What are we going to be hearing tonight with you and with Derek? We are going to be playing one of the most epic pieces of music by the French composer Maurice Ravel. And it's called La Valz, which means the Waltz. And it's basically a piece of music which was written at the very turbulent time in European history, just after the outbreak of World War I. And you can hear how the music starts off very peacefully with the Viennese Waltz, you know, aristocratic happiness. And then it just turns into this kind of crazy outburst of energy. And then you can hear how the aristocratic tradition just tumbles, my goodness, you know what? That's the one thing that great music can do. And that is bring forth in another format, so to speak, history, live, you know. And through that music, that's what we get from Ravel. So Derek, you are, you know what? I didn't even write here, my bad. What instrument do you play? - I'm also a pianist. So we are a forehands piano duo, which means one piano, both of us seated next to each other, bumping each other out of the way. So you gotta like each other. - That's right, that's right. - So Derek and Alexa are a couple. And I'm sure that that helps everything as far as the musical product. Do you practice a lot? - That's right, yes. Well, we're solo musicians as well, working on our solo careers. And so we practice a lot that way, and then we also rehearse a lot, which we can do because we're a couple, so. - There's a benefit. - That's right. - Fringe benefit. And so have you been to Avalon before? - This is our first year here, and we are having such a great time, really, really enjoying it. - Yeah, nothing in the way, right? Just a beautiful place and some beautiful music. - That's right, we get to wake up to all the birds chirping, and there is coffee, and any kind of food we can possibly imagine. And there's nothing in the way for us to just practice and really dig into the music here. - Yes, that's kind of heaven. And I'm not sure that we have enough of that in our world. We go so fast and we go so hard, and sometimes we can miss the really graceful things in front of us, and Avalon Farm Music and it's a graceful thing for sure. So what brought you guys together? I'll go to Derek first. How did you guys get to meet each other? - Well, we actually met because we started our master's degrees at the same time at the Yale School of Music, just not too far from here. And so that was in the fall of 2019, and then of course COVID outbreak was shortly thereafter. And so we had met and we had connected, but then moving forward, it was difficult to find performance opportunities, and so we decided that marketing ourselves as a forehands ensemble was really attractive to concert presenters in the wake of COVID as we were getting out of that. And so we've done some educational programs kind of geared towards kids. We've performed on concert series across New England, and so we're just keeping it going. - You know, what creativity, the ones that after COVID hit, there was so many in the artistic world, not just even music, that really had to reformulate everything, because the world had changed, the world went through a huge change, and the creative aspect of great musicianship, I think, grew out of necessity, because you had to keep going, right? You couldn't just shut it all down, like what was happening. So you guys are obviously a creative duo. You know, Alexa, I see that you have a company that you started in Romania. Would you tell us a little bit about that? - Absolutely. So I started a chamber music festival in my hometown, and that came by because I wanted to kind of contribute something to my local community. You know, I left when I was 15 years old, I moved to Scotland and then to the United States, so I always enjoy going home and playing for the local orchestra and giving concerts, but I wanted to connect these two worlds. So my colleagues from the Yale School of Music and colleagues I met from all over the world, they come for a week to play chamber music with the local musicians, offer chamber music workshops to local music students, and it's just a wonderful opportunity, and we are very lucky that this year is going to be our second edition, this summer, second year, and that's right. - Good for you. What about doing you guys are to think big? You could bring them here to Avalon. - Exactly, that's right. - Ah, great minds, great minds, I love it. So this company is called Contempart, Contempart Art. - Contempart Art, yes, Contempart Art, yes. - And does it just do classical music? What other kinds, does it just do one genre? - So we do a music chamber music series, which kind of focuses on the tradition of classical music and we really promote contemporary music. So we actually have a program which is geared towards young Romanian composers, which offers them the opportunity to come and workshop their works, and we give them an opportunity to have their voices heard. - That's great, I mean, that is really what it's all about. To keep evolving, you have to offer the opportunity. Derek, what part of your duo do you appreciate the most? - That's a great question. There are so many fun challenges when you move from being a solo artist to suddenly having to share that space that for 20 years has been our own at the piano. And it's, you have to really approach the piano completely differently. You have to kind of untrain some things that you've learned when you play solo in order to accommodate that extra person. Sometimes you have to move inward towards the piano, like in the keys, and then so that the other person can come underneath and little things like that that we would never think of playing solo. And those challenges make it a really fun time. - Yeah, you sort of have to work that out. What do you do with pedals? - Great question, we fight over it. No. (laughing) Normally whoever is playing secondo, so on the bottom half of the keyboard is in charge of the pedal. But there are some exceptions to that, and it's kind of a case-by-case basis. - I'm sure I'm sure the music, what the music content's to, you know. It's like going over the other side might too, depending on what music you're playing. So this evening we're gonna hear Ravel. Are we gonna hear any other pieces? - That's the only piece we're going to perform tonight. - How long is it? - It's about 10 minutes. - Oh, I'm-- - That's short. - Okay, that's good, that's good. And so what do you see your side, guys? What do you see yourselves doing in the future? Are you gonna continue a duo? Do you think that you'll go more solo, what do you think? - Well, I think to be a successful musician in the 21st century, we have to do a little bit of everything. And that's actually not just that we have to, but also that we enjoy that aspect of it. As a musician, we get to teach and throw our heart and soul behind teaching and mentoring. But then we also get to perform, and we get to perform in a wide variety of settings. So that's what we're doing now, and we just hope to continue doing that. - That's fabulous. And certainly with your company, you're already doing that, especially nurturing new composers. - That's right. And actually, Derek and I are going to also give a forehand piano recital at my festival this year. So this week at Avaloch was great for us to prepare the repertoire for it. And when is that gonna happen? - Between the 22nd and the 27th of August. - How exciting, huh? And are you gonna be there a while or are you just going for the concert? - Well, actually, I have a few concerts in New York, so I'm going to be flying in the week before, and I'm very lucky that I have a team at home who are supporting me, including my parents, you know? So, yes. - Hey, we know it takes a village sometimes, right? - It sure does. It takes the entire town of Satomare. - Good for you. Well, it sounds like you guys are doing great, and you know what, you have great personalities. That matters because it comes out in the music, believe it or not. And I can't wait to hear you tonight. So we will thank you very much, Derek and Alexa, the Hartman Steer duo. And we look forward to hearing you tonight. - Thank you so much for this opportunity. - Oh, it's, it's, thank you so much. - Yes, they were very delightful young musicians, and I have to say they ended the program with such an emotional and just ferocious piece. It was great. So, that was actually the Steer Hartman duo, not the other way around. So I want to get the name right, Steer Hartman duo. And don't forget, tonight, 730, there's a concert at Avilock Farm Music Institute, 730. And we hope that you will join us there. So, thank you for joining us here on Art for Living WKXL. New Hampshire TalkRadio.com, Jane Kormer, signing off. Everybody out there, have a great day. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]