{"id":9924,"date":"2013-02-20T08:49:02","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T13:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=9924"},"modified":"2013-02-20T08:49:02","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T13:49:02","slug":"interview-piano-was-the-only-option-for-venezuelan-pianist-gabriela-martinez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/02\/20\/interview-piano-was-the-only-option-for-venezuelan-pianist-gabriela-martinez\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: There was no option but piano for Venezuelan Gabriela Martinez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Monica<\/a>
(Monica Trejo photo.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five generations of women have played piano in Gabriela Martinez<\/a>‘s family, but she calls herself a black sheep because, unlike the others, she didn’t earn another degree as professional backup.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old Venezuelan pianist makes her Toronto d\u00e9but as part of Roy Thomson Hall’s more intimate programming at the Glenn Gould Studio on Friday night.<\/p>\n

The charming, lyrically minded pianist is presenting a fascinating programme that begins with Sergei Rachmaninov and ends with that pianist-composer’s Polish contemporary, Karol Szymanowski.<\/p>\n

There are interesting detours in between.<\/p>\n

Rachmaninov’s Moments Musicaux Nos 1 & 4<\/em> are followed by the Ballade<\/em> by Samuel Barber, the Canadian premiere of Nocturne No. 1<\/em> by contemporary Belgian composer-conductor Dirk Bross\u00e9 and the Op. 33 Bagatelles<\/em> by Ludwig van Beethoven.<\/p>\n

The Bross\u00e9 piece came about at Martinez’s insistence. They had worked together as conductor and soloist. He had never created a piece for solo piano, so she kept bugging him about it until he wrote her a set of seven Nocturnes<\/em>, which she premiered.<\/p>\n

The second half of Friday’s recital opens with Franz Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet No. 104<\/em> and segues to contemporary American composer Mason Bate’s White Lies for Lomax<\/em> before ending with the B-flat Major Variations<\/em> by Szymanowski.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like short works for piano; I love to be able to tell a story in 6 minutes or 7 minutes and then compare it to something else,\u201d says Martinez from her Upper West Side apartment in New York City. \u201cI like the idea of including pieces that have a variation feel and flair to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez also gets inspired by music that has a back story or some sort of extra-musical connection, like the Liszt piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe music is beautiful and lyrical and pretty, and then you read the sonnet and you\u2019re, like, holy cow, this is really dark!\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

The pianist isn’t sure whether she’ll read the sonnet — about someone who hates the world because of a love affair gone wrong — at the recital, but she does believe in trying to speak a little bit about the music she performs.<\/p>\n

She’ll probably say that the Ballade<\/em> was Barber’s last work for piano, a commission from the Van Cliburn competition in 1977. She’s also likely to explain that the Bates piece is an homage to enthomusicologist Alan Lomax’s love of Delta blues.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s very distant representations, but I\u2019m always fascinated to see what composers do with different ideas,\u201d says the pianist.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an audience member, when I go to a concert, I\u2019m more inspired when I have a personal connection,” Martinez explains. \u201cI pair these pieces for a reason, and I feel maybe it\u2019s interesting for people to know more.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is conscious, though, that audiences come to hear her play — “what I do is piano, not speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martinez was born into a long line of good amateur pianists. Her grandmother had a PhD in philosophy. Her mother, who has an architecture degree, straddled both worlds by giving piano lessons when Gabriela was growing up.<\/p>\n

Despite piano lessons being available at home, Martinez recalls her mother had other ideas: “She really didn\u2019t want me to be a musician and she especially didn\u2019t want me to be a pianist. It\u2019s a hard lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Martinez was handed a violin, which she hated to the point of daily tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, my Mom caught me trying to play by ear,” she recalls. “Her students would leave and I would run to the piano. So finally she gave up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The piano lessons started at 5 1\/2. By age 11, Martinez’s parents realised their daughter needed a better teacher, so the whole family moved to New Jersey so she could go to the Juilliard School’s pre-college division.<\/p>\n

Although her family, including two brothers, moved back to Venezuela once she began studies at Juilliard proper, Gabriela stayed behind, and has lived in the United States ever since.<\/p>\n

And she has never second-guessed her choice of career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no memory of a point of saying, oh this is what I want to do. I have always wanted to be a musician and known this is what I was going to do. It never occurred to me that there is anything else I could do or wanted to do. It\u2019s me,\u201d Martinez declares.<\/p>\n

She has a doctorate and has done the competition circuit. Now she is working on the really hard part: Building a solid career.<\/p>\n

In a lot of ways, that process is similar to putting together Friday’s programme. \u201cIt\u2019s a long story told in short segments,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

For details on Friday’s recital, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is a sample of Martinez at work, performing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3<\/em> with Gustavo Dudamel and the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Youth Orchestra in Venezuela:<\/p>\n