Jeannie G. Pool interviews Deon Nielsen price in 2013 about New Friends/Old Friends album
Jeannie Pool: New Friends/Old Friends recorded for Cambria Recordings and distributed by NAXOS, contains many of the classical and contemporary musical styles that have enriched your career as a composer and as a performing artist—from child vocal soloist, classical pianist, choral accompanist, choral and instrumental conductor, vocal accompanist and chamber music collaborator. The largest work on this new compact disc is a ballet. Please tell us about it.
Deon Nielsen Price: Yes, thanks to the encouragement and production efforts of Lance Bowling at Cambria, I am pleased that this CD of piano music is available for pianists to enjoy playing the individual dances and for dance companies to produce the entire ballet. I composed the music in May 2013, on a commission from Park City (Utah) Dance, for a ballet based on a French folktale Toads and Diamonds, to be choreographed by one of my granddaughters, Juliana Vorkink (who conducts a pre-professional program and is certified by American Ballet Theater). The folk origin of the story inspired me to base the music on a well-known French folk song, elaborated in various musical styles to represent the characters in the story. Classical Viennese and late19th Century Salon, as well as contemporary are all readily employed. Returning each afternoon from sobering medical consultations following cancer surgery, I was glad to turn to composing these spirited dances. I began composing one on one evening, completing it the next, until I finished all fifteen dances.
JP: In May 2014, you attended two performances of the ballet, danced to this recording which was professionally recorded in your living room.
DP: Yes, my new dream piano, a semi-concert Steinway, has proved to record beautifully in the acoustics in my home studio with its high ceiling and wood floor. However, I was worried that solo piano would sound small in the theater when the ballet was performed, but, in fact, the sound system was excellent and I could hear all the subtleties and detail in the piano music. The intimacy was just right for the storytelling. Sometime in the future I hope to orchestrate the music for subsequent ballet performances.
JP: How would you describe the collaboration with your granddaughter in the ballet?
DP: My daughter, GeriLynn, also a professionally trained ballerina, had brought her daughter, Juliana, along to ballet from age three and she says she practically grew up in the studio. In 2012, Ms. Vorkink received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Ballet from the University of Utah. She performed and toured internationally with the University’s regional company Character Dance Ensemble (CDE) and learned traditional dances of countries around the world. I have watched her dance her entire life. Because we live in different States, our collaboration was mostly over the telephone. We discussed the story and solo characters and I played the draft of each dance for her over the telephone. Her genuine enthusiasm for the first dance I composed—”Rubies” gave me encouragement that I was on the right track with what she envisioned. She was thrilled with each one and sometimes made suggestions, mostly about tempo. She seemed to relish the challenges in choreographing and teaching the often irregular phrases and particularly the two unusual dances that have five beats in a bar!
JP: What surprised you the most when you saw the actual ballet performances with your music?
DP: During the first performance I was exhilarated and a little overwhelmed with the overall physical expression inspired by my music. In the second performance I was more acutely aware of artistic details and of the professional and technical prowess of the dancers–especially those on point. The first surprise was the elegance and beauty of the costumes and sets and the advanced level of the dancers. The second surprise was that this production of music and dance came across as a genuine ballet—a sort of “Swan Lake” but shorter!
JP: Was this your first ballet?
DP: Yes, it was. A time limit for my commissioned work was set at 35 minutes. While I was working on it I met ALLA PAVLOVA (Ukraine/New York), composer of a full two-hour ballet, Sulamith (with a shorter Sulamith Suite recorded by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra on the NAXOS label). We talked about the process and she has inspired me to want to compose a much longer ballet. Why shouldn’t ballet companies have contemporary music by living composers in their repertoire?
JP: Also on this recording is a piece that was commissioned by Mormon Artists’ Group in 2004.
DP: Yes, “Women in Christ’s Line” was commissioned for the 2004 publication Mormoniana, and was first recorded by the late Grant Johannesen on Tantara Records. The five women briefly portrayed are those named in St. Matthew in the New Testament: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Mary. Although strong but ordinary women, cataclysmic events changed the course of their lives and they are mentioned in the Bible because they were progenitors of Jesus of Nazareth. Melody and rhythm allude to their ancient womanly charms but the intrigue in their lives is represented with innovative piano techniques, including arm clusters, crossed hands, and independence of keys in each hand.
JP: When you look back at your career, what role have your musical friendships played in your professional work?
DP: The pianos I have owned are among my treasured musical friends and became a way of life. They have provided beauty, solace, challenge, comfort, artistic expression, productive use of my time, and pure musical enjoyment. Collaborating at the piano with other musicians has broadened and deepened our human friendships. Teaching my own children how to play the piano, I became acquainted with each of them in an unexpected dimension as I observed their mental and artistic processes and we developed non-verbal bonds through making music together. The piano in both my performing and teaching has also provided a major financial source to support my composition projects. Of course, the piano has been first priority when looking for a place to live “Where would we put the piano?!”
My most recent piano friend is my 6 ½ foot Steinway B semi-concert grand. Following the fire in 2010 that destroyed my Yamaha-C7, David Ida introduced me to this “dream” piano at Steinway Piano Gallery in West Hollywood when it was only 10 days old and had just arrived from the factory in New York. The beautiful tone quality and even touch was a surprise and a delight. Once the piano was settled in our temporary home in Beverly Hills Coldwater Canyon I began to discover and incorporate into my playing new qualities of sound and technique, some very subtle, that were possible on this precious instrument. Wanting to share this beauty, my husband and I have enjoyed producing many informal concerts performed by guest artists, as well as by myself, both in our temporary house with its huge concert salon, “Steinway Concerts in the Canyon” and in our permanent home in Culver City, “Steinway Concerts at the Ranch.”
The Steinway B was preceded by my five earlier grand pianos that were my companions: two Yamaha-C7’s, a very old Steinway D; a Beckstein and then a Bluethner when I lived in Germany; and one Baldwin studio upright that I grew up with in Fort Lewis in Washington, Palms Springs and San Francisco in California, and in the Panama Canal Zone.
JP: I’m certain that many pianists and instrumentalists reading this can understand such an intimate relationship you’ve had with your pianos throughout your life. When you were at the University of Southern California in the 1970s, you began to compose for your friends in the music department?
DP: About the time I completed my Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Piano with Honors in Accompanying in 1977, I began composing for the artists with whom I performed. My career then began to focus more on performing contemporary and less established works. These included my own compositions as well as works by numerous other composers, including works by some eighty historical and contemporary women composers. I became an advocate for new music. As a Board member and President of both the International Alliance for Women in Music (in the 1990’s) and of The National Association of Composers/USA (in the 2000’s) I have helped produce concerts promoting music by many living composers from around the world.
JP: You have collaborated in performance with many individuals, including many singers.
DP: The vocalists have included Johnny Mathis, Howard Ruff, Eleanor Foerstl, Diane Ramsey, Dale Morich, Constance Cloward, Ariel Bybee, Darryl Taylor, Deborah Kavasch, and Lucille Field, among others. The string players I have worked with most include Michael Matthews, Ruslan Biryukov, Limor Toren-Immerman, Nancy Roth, Walter and Daniel Gaisford, David Dalton, Karen Lynn Davidson, Patricia Pinkston, Eugene Bondi, Nancy Roth, Ayke Agus. I have performed often with saxophonists Paul Stewart and Douglas Masek, and clarinetists Yehuda Gilad, Stewart Newbold, and my son, Berkeley Price. For several years I was a regular member of the Pinkston-Lynn Price Trio, the Echosphere Duo, the Echosphere Quartet, and in recent years, the Price Duo, with Berkeley.
JP: You’ve also done plenty of touring in your career.
DP: Yes, usually one a year since the mid 1970’s is what I have managed together with my family and teaching responsibilities. My concert tours have been sponsored by State Arts Councils in Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, California, and Wyoming; United States State Department Artists Abroad; U. S. Embassies and Consulates; International Festivals, including Santes Creus in Spain, World Saxophone Congresses, International Congresses on Women in Music, Olympics Cultural Events, National Ministries of Culture of Belgium, Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Panama, France, Spain, and Austria; Church of Jesus Christ L.D.S.; Cultural Affairs Departments in the cities of Los Angeles and Culver City, and in community and university concerts across the United States and in many countries.
JP: A second edition of your book, Accompanying Skills for Pianists, was recently re-issued.
DP: Yes, the first one was in 1990, 2nd edition in 2006. written to assist other pianists who want to collaborate with instrumentalists and/or singers. It has been used in more than 100 university piano departments.