“You have to be ready for anything - a singer’s personal health, their level of fatigue, their level of concentration. “The pianist, I feel, has to be the rock,” said Brian Zeger, a collaborative pianist and the artistic director of vocal arts at Juilliard. And superstar pianists including Yuja Wang, Lang Lang and Leif Ove Andsnes frequently tour as duo partners to singers or violinists.Ībove all, accompanists are commanding respect in a field that values the hustle, learning several languages and being able to sightread on moment’s notice. In November, the inaugural Art of Duo competition in Boulder, Colorado, attracted twenty-four semifinalists, including violin–piano and clarinet–piano teams. Typically, these programs are offered at a graduate level, for pianists uninterested in a full-blown solo career.Ī growing number of song competitions - including the Wigmore Hall Song Competition and the Montreal International Musical Competition - have added prizes for accompanists or duos. More than a hundred colleges and conservatories worldwide offer training programs in accompanying, according to a recent tally by the Collaborative Piano Blog, a website that covers the field. Others have seen their names relegated to small typeface on programs and advertisements, somewhere beneath the boldfaced star.īut the tables are turning. Some have been asked to tone down their attire because they’re upstaging a singer. “You’re playing too loud” is a common complaint, say accompanists. But the episode underscores a hard-to-shake notion that accompanists toil at the low end of the musical totem pole, underappreciated, underpaid and lurking in the shadows while soloists bask in the adulation of their fans.
Katz, who has worked with everyone from Marilyn Horne and Cecilia Bartoli to José Carreras and Frederica von Stade, admits that there are divas in every profession and says he’s rarely the recipient of overt condescension. I never heard from him again and he never heard from me. “I played the first concert and cancelled the other eleven,” said Katz.
I’ll handle the expression,” the violinist said. Hours before the start of a twelve-concert tour, a violinist whom he was accompanying stopped to berate Katz for his interpretation. THE PIANIST MARTIN Katz remembers a particularly stinging comment at a dress rehearsal several years ago. Listen Magazine Feature Revenge of the Collaborative Pianists
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