Toronto native Chris Donnelly chose jazz over classical piano because he disliked the loneliness of the classical pianist. So it’s pretty appropriate that, on Friday, he will be joining eight other pianists in Piano Ecstasy, a genre-crossing concert being presented by Soundstreams at Koerner Hall.
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Having nine pianists on the same bill is unusual enough. Having as many as six of them playing at the same time in a traditional concert setting is even crazier.
But that’s exactly what’s happening Friday, as Donnelly joins a Toronto who’s who of the keyboard — Jamie Parker, Serouj Kradjian, Tania Gill, Christina Petrowska Quilico, Gregory Oh, Russell Hartenberger, Simon Docking and Glenn Buhr — in a programme of five 20th century works and the premiere of a new commission.
Awe-inspiring works for 12 hands begin and end the programme: John Cage is represented by a late-life homage to the Fab Four and the artists will be desperately fighting their senses in Steve Reich’s slightly-out-of-phase Six Pianos.
Parker and Quilico tackle Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concertino for Two Pianos (from 1954), Docking and Oh will splatter the hall with the magically ordered randomness of Colin McPhee’s Balinese Ceremonial Music, and Docking and Kradjian will test their technical mettle in Witold Lutoslawski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini.
Donnelly steps onto the stage alongside Gill and the composer for Buhr’s 2 Pieces for 3 Pianos.
“It should be an interesting concert. Hopefully everyone likes piano,” laughs Donnelly, whose boyish charm and keen musical insights have been seeping back into the classical realm ever since establishing a professional relationship with Toronto clarinettist Kornel Wolack.
The two have been presenting concerts across the country, and are just about to release their first duo album.
I first encountered Donnelly when he was an undergraduate at University of Toronto, very much focused on jazz piano, but equally at home with classical repertoire. His deeply committed artistry continues to earn the respect of anyone within earshot. And he’s a down-to-earth guy with a ready smile.
I ask him about the way he straddles both jazz and art music.
“It goes back to my training,” he replies.
He grew up in Etobicoke, not too far from Humber College and its excellent jazz programme. Donnelly’s parents took him to the Humber Community Music School to study with one of the senior school’s graduates, Catherine Mitro. She taught a mix of methods, including Orff and Kodaly, to build a foundation for jazz and improvisational playing.
“At the time I was 7 or 8 she suggested I also go study at the [Royal] Conservatory, so I was making my way downtown once a week to study with James Anagnoson my first year,” Donnelly recalls.
But between the anything-goes attitude of his other piano lessons and the freeform influences of attending a Montessori school, Donnelly admits he was ill equipped for the rigours of traditional piano lessons.
“I’m sure I was a misbehaving student, so [Anagnoson] passed me on to Lynda Metelsky,” Donnelly laughs.
“My Mom tells the story how, one time in the Conservatory building, back when they had big windows outside the piano studios, I was playing and my Mom looked in at one point and saw James rubbing his eyes with one hand. I was on the floor, under the piano because I saw an airplane pass by and was pretending to shoot it down.”
But the real reason Donnelly was more attracted to jazz than classical was a group approach to learning and musicmaking.
In his classical studies, it was always a one-on-one situation with the teacher, whereas in the jazz classes, he would be part of a group or an ensemble.
“We were interacting, improvising, playing, dancing with other kids,” he smiles. “I didn’t enjoy my classical lessons, and I think it’s because I was never playing with other kids – ever. I was practicing alone, I was in the studio alone, performing alone. Always by myself.”
Ironically, Donnelly started building his career and discography with two solo albums for Alma Records, but over the past couple of years he has brought other people back into his everyday musicmaking: the Myriad3 jazz trio, with bassist Dan Fortin and Ernesto Cervini; and the Wolack / Donnelly Duo.
The trio came about through a serendipitous series of gig substitutions. The duo came out of a tour application.
Wolack and Donnelly had worked together, but had never considered a formal arrangement until they had both separately applied for Début Atlantic tours. The presenter responded that they would have a hard time booking them separately, but might be able to book them a tour as a duo.
“We talked, we hung out and we had lunches, and we would riff,” recalls Donnelly. “We had to be careful, because he’s not my accompanist, and I’m not his accompanist. He’s a soloist and I’m a soloist.”
“We’ll challenge each other with the programme as well as the music. There are fundamental differences in our music, as well as fundamental similarities,” the pianist explains. “It all comes back to performance. We’re both really dedicated to performing music; everything is about the music.”
The way both of them are equals comes through on Common Ground, their new CD to be released next week on Alma Records. It is a crazy quilt of an album that ranges from the Flight of the Bumblebee and Tico Tico to a very nice transcription of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the Clarinet Sonata by Johannes Brahms. Unifying it is the care and expressiveness of these two great young artists.
It’s great playlist-mixing fodder that tosses genres and categories out the window — a lot like the Soundstreams concert.
For all the details on Friday’s concert, including full programme notes, click here.
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Unlike other musicians, a pianist is at the mercy of each venue’s instrument. This drives some artists crazy. Others, like Donnelly, who has been to more than one small Canadian town, learn to take it in stride.
“I like to free up my mental capital and say I will make music on whatever piano I have in front of me,” says Donnelly.
Then there are the real surprises.
He tells of one jazz gig, where he arrived at the club to discover that the owner had sold the piano. He scrambled to get the closest Yamaha dealer to deliver a piano by sunset — at his own expense.
“And when I got home, the club owner’s cheque bounced, and then the club went bankrupt,” shrugs the pianist.
There’s one Toronto club with an upright so battered as to barely qualify as a piano.
“I can say this is absolutely unplayable, but the truth is, it’s only unplayable for the type of music I’m looking to play on it,” Donnelly explains. “It’s my bias and my repertoire that makes me say this piano is unplayable. If I were to play Brahms it would be awful, but I played Scott Joplin, it might actually be really cool and totally appropriate.”
Think of this as the musician’s equivalent of the half-full versus half-empty glass.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
