The Champion Within
This is a series with fascinating and inspiring people, and what it takes to be the best you can at whatever your endeavours may be.
We will learn from others as to how they have handled themselves in their own pursuits, and so that we can apply to ourselves.
We’ll talk about the necessary support and how important it is, to have the best and appropriate systems around us, so that we can be the best possible. We’ll discuss aspects of ourselves that we can all develop.
This is a show with inspiring people, including musicians, artists, athletes, medical specialists, business entrepreneurs and more…in the pursuit of excellence.
I’m Jason Agosta, a health professional and former athlete, and I'm fascinated in people’s stories, my own involves developing certain attributes over time, but also things that were not done well or were significantly missing.
Join me on The Champion Within in discovering that everybody has a story, and everybody has a message.
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The Champion Within
Ep.13 Lisa Moore: A Symphony of Life...Piano, Performance, and the Power of Music
Imagine the world as a grand piano and each key playing its role in making harmonious music. This is what the life of our guest, the renowned pianist Lisa Moore, looks like. Join us as she melodiously orchestrates her journey from her early exposure to music, her experiences in exploring musical diversity, to working with celebrated artists and performing at global music festivals. Lisa’s captivating story is not just for music enthusiasts, it's a symphony for anyone seeking an inspiring journey.
Lisa’s music world, much like her performances, is wide-ranging. She shares her experience of learning 20th century music at the Sydney Conservatorium and her exploration of different styles with the Bang on a Can All Stars. She opens up about her collaborations with legendary artists such as John Cage and Thurston Moore, and how her perspective on music was challenged when she performed with the acclaimed guitarist. Lisa's myriad experiences illumine the diverse ways one can interpret and express music, much like the numerous keys on a piano.
As we bridge the gap between the worlds of music and sports, Lisa draws a parallel between the physical discipline required in playing piano and tennis. She emphasizes the crucial connection between physical and mental preparation, and the art of listening and self-critique. We also delve into the nuances of performing, the differences between pianos, and how musicians can age gracefully in their craft. This episode is packed with Lisa's insights on the power of music, the importance of self-adaptability in a musician's career, and how music, in all its forms, unites people around the world. Tune in and get ready to be inspired by Lisa Moore's incredible journey and experiences in the realm of music.
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Hi there, I'm Jason Agosta and you are listening to the Champion Within show, where we speak with fascinating people with inspiring stories, and today I have the privilege in speaking with world renowned pianist Lisa Moore. Lisa is a New York based Australian musician and is a pianist, recording artist and avid collaborator. Her playing combines piano and lyricism and has been described as being expressive and powerful, whether she is playing the simplest of songs, a solo recital or a chamber score. Lisa has performed hundreds of commission works and world premieres, having worked with many composers, while reciting and collaborating in the vibrant music scene of New York City. She's been described as brilliant and searching, beautiful and impassioned by the New York Times and Pitchfork writes she's the best kind of contemporary classical musician.
Speaker 1:Born in Australia and raised in Canberra, london and Sydney, lisa Moore has lived in the US since 980 and is based in New York City since 985. In 2022, lisa released her second album of music by Frederick Rizuzki. The New York Times remarked the album as being meticulous and clever and hits the gas with controlled force. She has performed with leading artist Philip Glass, meredith Monk or Net Coleman and, of my interest, thirst and More of Sonic Youth, new York City Ballet, american Composer's Orchestra, australian Chamber Orchestra, sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centre, appearing in festivals throughout the world. Lisa is an avid tennis player and we discussed the comparisons between the game of tennis and the playing of piano, of which there's been much written, lisa Moore. So it is my great privilege to be joined by and with Lisa Moore for this episode. Hi, and thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2:Hi, jason, it's my privilege to be talking to you.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it really is my privilege. You're going to an unbelievable history. And I mean, you know, a couple of people have said, yeah, I'm going to speak to Lisa Moore this week and they're like, oh my God, really, really, oh my gosh. That's so cool.
Speaker 2:I'm the most famous unknown pianist.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 2:That's what we used to say about composers like living composers. They're the most famous unknown composer.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, I want to start by asking you what, how did you get into piano and your whole music career, and what really fascinated you?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, all right. Well, my mother played piano and both my grandmothers played the piano. I didn't know my paternal grandmother very well she passed away when I was really young but the maternal one I did know and I used to hear her playing the piano all the time and mum would play the piano at night. So they would play little Schumann and Mendelssohn and Schubert pieces, beautiful little salon pieces, you know, from the 19th century, and I just it's just gorgeous music and I just loved it. And so I wanted piano lessons from a very early age and then I didn't decide to be a pianist until I was like 16 and a half or something like that.
Speaker 2:So I wasn't driven kind of career oriented. I had a kind of general education, you know, but a lot of arts, like you know, I was doing theatre and music and art and for all I thought I was going to be an artist to paint at. But so you know it was a kind of generalized background which was nice because it meant that I use that when I'm playing now like imagery and things like that. You know I've been to a lot of galleries and you know my mother's an art historian, so you know we were exposed to a lot of stuff, but it wasn't really so. I think, yeah, it was when a piano teacher sort of said to me. One of my piano teachers said you know, I think you could you have a shot at something here. Because I did, I started practicing hard. I started practicing four to six hours a day my last year of high school.
Speaker 1:And I just and what did she say? What did? What did she say to you that she saw in you? Do you know?
Speaker 2:Well, it was a he. He just saw a rapid improvement and technique, yeah, technique and discipline. And so he was like you know, you got a shot at this if you wanted to do it. I have to warn you it's a really hard life. But, and so I was like kind of thinking well, pianists are more useful than actors. You know, you can have a piano at a wedding or a piano at a, give piano lessons. You know, I wasn't very ambitious at that point. You know, I wouldn't want to play a wedding at all. That's like no, I don't do weddings, but it was more of a pragmatic thing. Whereas if you're an artist, nobody wants to see if you can draw a vase of flowers, vase of flowers anymore, right, they just they want. You know, what does it mean to be an artist anymore? You know, it's a lot of it's conceptual and abstract, and so that kind of grounded me, I think.
Speaker 1:The terms of like the power of music can resonate with many people and you obviously had that power of music within a resonated with you from a young age and still today. I've read what you've written and heard you say that that this whole journey has been sort of driven by the power of music.
Speaker 2:And well, yeah, the power of music is incredibly powerful. I mean, you know there's no words, and well, not necessarily, but you know this classical music, the emotional range is so great and now you can heal in a way from it.
Speaker 2:You know it's something that just takes away all of the conversations and the arguments and fighting and unites people across the world. And these days, you know, we can access any kind of music we want in a second on any app and you can. You can just go to different cultures and so, from that point of view, it's a very, very powerful, powerful thing. And I, I, what happened was like I, when I started taking it seriously, I started doing little concerts, you know, at the conservatory and everything, and I got really good responses like people like, oh my God, I was so moved, or the hairs went up on the back of my neck, or, you know, I started shivering, I was crying and I was like, really Okay, but it was like they didn't just say, hey, great job, you know, let's go and have a coffee or something it was. It was. So I was getting feedback and I think you know you don't always set out to do something you intend to do, but your feedback directs you in life, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you realize you have a flair for that.
Speaker 1:Well, it's encouraging, isn't it? And gives you confidence, and it's positive drive. Exactly. What's the things like that?
Speaker 2:You have to be prepared to sort of move sideways to that place too, because you could just be rigid and say, no, I want to be a doctor, and then never get into medicine or something. You know what I mean? Yeah, and then you'd be, you know you're, you wouldn't take any compromises. So I think you have to be kind of willing to go with it.
Speaker 1:And has has the attraction to different styles and music? I mean, I'm sure there's something that obviously resonated with you early on. Has but the attraction to different styles and music changed over the years, or like even recently? I mean, I read that you you were saying that as time goes on you become better at a better listener to the depth of music. Has there been a certain style that's really captured you along the way, or has that, has that changed much?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has changed. I mean, when I started out of the Conservatorium I really didn't know much about anything in music, in the history of music, and I started taking, you know, musicology lessons, classes, history of music, and so, and I had a wonderful professor that first year called Richard Toop at the Sydney Conservatorium, who's passed away sadly now. But he immediately started teaching us 20th century crazy John Cage stuff and you know four minutes and 33 seconds, where the pianist sits there and doesn't play anything for four minutes and 33 seconds, and he introduced us to all this fun stuff and at the same time as we were taking Baroque music and classical music and romantic music, and so you get taught a whole cross-section of things. And then I started to meet composers in my first year and young composers who were starting out with their Bachelor of Music in the same year as me and I was like, oh wow, a living composer, you know, that's cool. And so we got to be friends and then they asked me to play their music and so I got a great exposure to a lot of different styles from that.
Speaker 2:But since then, having done enormous amount, I was in a group called Bang on a Can All Stars and we played with Cecil Taylor and Philip Glass and Ornette Coleman and Meredith Monk and you know we've done all sorts of 20th and 21st century music that has its roots in rock and roll, might have its roots in Beethoven, you know that. And that was a huge exposure to many different things, like sometimes I would have to improvise on stage or you know that kind of thing, I wasn't just playing conservatory written notes. So that was a great thing. But over the years, to answer your question, I've actually kind of gone back a little bit and fallen in love with some of the music I did in the 80s, which was this music by Leos Janacek, the great Moravian composer, and you know I recorded a disc of his music on tour poppies, and that was that.
Speaker 2:Music kind of never grows old for me. He didn't write much piano music but it's so beautiful. The melodies are haunting, the harmonies, the sudden shifts of mood and things like that, and I find that I can always, you know I always want to program him into some of my concerts yeah, you know but so you know, you just have your little pet loves.
Speaker 2:But as a pianist, you know you have such a library of music that it's kind of you would be cutting yourself off if you just said I, you know, I only play Debussy, I only play, you know there's just such a wide.
Speaker 1:I think that's the thing from outside Looking at piano, the sort of the depth of what you can do on it, but the it's so broad, you know, really dramatic, and then it's like the music can be heavy and dramatic, really sharp, and then it can be so soft and light and just so just definitely the best.
Speaker 2:It's the best. We have the best repertoire, we have the best, we have an incredible range.
Speaker 1:you know I've got to ask you this. It's really struck a chord with me because I've been such a Sonic Hughes fan for ever and I read that you collaborated with Thurston Moore, who's probably been one of the best guitarists ever this planet's ever seen. Yeah, you collaborated with Thurston Moore. Really, yeah In the face I thought, oh my God, what was that like?
Speaker 2:Well, that was amazing. That was again with the Bang on a Can, all Stars. And I did a bunch of performances with him of this piece he wrote for us called Stroking Piece, and yeah, and it was when he was still with Kim, and so they would actually play together in the piece and they were two guitars and it was just a very simple he was like a man a few words, very simple chords, and they were to get louder and louder and louder and so loud. And you know, first of all I thought this is really simplistic. And you know, because when you play a lot of complex music and it's sometimes a little bit hard to accept that just simple can be just really great as well, so that was that was an amazing experience in the audience used to go crazy, and he's such a rock star you know exactly.
Speaker 1:I think that's what really intrigued me about that reading about you because, like you're reading, or look, doing all this, you know classical music and you're obviously writing this vibrant music, st New York. And then here you are with the absolute, like rock star of guitar.
Speaker 2:Well, what they used to do is he and Kim would? I remember the piece now, it's a few years ago, but they would have these two guitars coming towards each other into the, so they would be on either side of the ensemble or we were a sextet six of players and they would come in and they get more and more distortion, louder and louder as the guitars got closer and closer together. It was like, oh my God, so loud.
Speaker 1:I think from the outside it's like things of that stuff. I know it's like so bizarre.
Speaker 2:I mean, he's been amazing yeah we used to do a lot of music with bang and a can. That was ambient, we call it ambient. We did Brian. You know we did Brian in those music for airports. We did that in airports with Brian, you know there. You know we did that a lot and we recorded it and that was one of our most successful records actually. Yeah, because you know that was written for electronic instruments. I mean, it was just a kind of tape music and so we orchestrated it and then performed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, I was also really surprised, and you have to excuse my ignorance here, but I didn't know that you put lyrics into some of the music that you play. There's a combination of lyrics and, yeah, I had no idea you had that combination going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I know you've. Only you saw me play Bach or Berg variations with another pianist with Sonja.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, that I did. I started singing and playing when I did a piece by Frederick Chesky that was based on Oscar Wilde's words, called day profundus. Oscar Wilde wrote a sort of a treaties, almost a love letter, an 80 page love letter when he was imprisoned in the late 1800s to his lover. He wrote this and this composer, frederick Chesky, american composer who just passed away, he set that to lyrics and I had done a little bit of his music before where we had to do text. There's a piece called coming together, which is taking the words from a prisoner in the Attica State Prison riots.
Speaker 2:It was killed and in those riots and so on. And one of the guys in the band and bang on a can said you know, you got a really great voice and I've done a lot of theater when I was in you know youth theater and I was a kid and I was a leader in the school plagues. I had the loudest voice and you know that kind of thing. So I was like, oh well, maybe this is a way for me to do the theater part that I had originally wanted to do to be an actress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was my first. Ambition was to be well. First ambition was to be a nurse. Then I found out that was not so much fun. So then I thought, well, I'll be an actress. And then someone said that's really hard. So but you know, so I had this voice, so I started doing it. Now I do Randy Newman I think it's going to rain today and I get composers to write me songs. So I do a little bit of Rufus Wainwright and it's only made I've done. You know I don't do that much of it, but it's nice to pop one in a piano or something. You're playing some Schumann and then you put in a song and everyone goes. What?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so different. I didn't expect it like at all.
Speaker 2:Well, but you know, in a way I mean Carol King, elton John, you know, billy Joel, all those guys do, do, do it, and it's actually really hard to do. It's actually really hard to play, play funky rhythms while you're singing. Those guys are incredible, yeah, those people. And so I thought it's actually kind of a natural thing. It shouldn't be so weird, but it sort of added to my intrigue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, thanks. And at the time I think you said Pienas age. Well, yeah, like people can lose their skills, or you know, like hold it. I think you said holding the violin can become really difficult for someone, or what you are getting at also that there's probably, over the years, a depth of listening that you just gain over years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's right. You know, I think the whole thing about playing music and well, about living anyway in a community and with people, is listening to each other, and so the art of listening is really hard, and that's what musicians do all the time they have to listen to themselves and they have to criticize themselves. They're great self critics, they're constantly analyzing themselves, and so they're quite aware of mostly about how other people in a room are interacting. You know not all, but you know that's just kind of a general thing. So, with that being said, then I said about the aging. A lot of pianists have reached their 90s and, like Rubenstein and you know Horowitz and it's like they're in general, there's a kind of you're feeling that you're, let's put it this way, I think piano is good for your brain.
Speaker 2:Because, there's so many keys you have to press and so much you have to do and so many synapses go firing left, right and center and we don't even with arthritis, people like Claude Frank, famous pianist he had arthritis, his hands were like crumpled up. He could still play those Brahms pieces. So you know, it was like even with that, we we can tend to literally do quite well as we get older, whereas it tendency is for violence to get shaky bow after a while and singers tend to not be able to sing in tune after they get a certain age. You know, they sort of peak in their 30s and 40s. So but with pianists there's you keep peaking. And one of the things is, when you're young and you play piano, is you a lot of young pianists are really great, great chops and play really fast and everything like that, but they don't, they don't have a sense of like pacing and slowing down and and like being an old person.
Speaker 2:you know they don't know how to be an old person. So when you get old, you can be an old person.
Speaker 1:That's what I was going to go into is that? Have you recognized that there's a much deeper feel for what you do If you can listen more efficiently?
Speaker 2:you can take step. Stepping back is really great. So, like, sometimes you know you get pumped up with adrenaline, especially when you're on stage, and so you're like well, how do you control that adrenaline? How do I just slow down?
Speaker 1:Right, there's like what tennis players right when they come out to say this is perfect with the second.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pacing around, you know, the back of the court, wasting energy, all that kind of stuff, and some, some are more laid back than others, you know. So the thing is just to kind of step back and listen to yourself, step outside yourself, and it's like as a tennis player, I suppose, watching yourself and saying, ok, what am I doing wrong? Why does it keep hitting the net? Why do I keep hitting it out? You know, you know, just going back to sort of basics of breath and composure. Yeah, composure, exactly.
Speaker 1:I was just about to say that this is no different to when we speak to the athletes about how evaluation is such a crucial part of excellence, or striving for excellence, which is what you're saying Absolutely. Just remove yourself and you know, zoom out and listen and look at what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, evaluate what you're doing and in the in real time it's, it's and it takes practice and it takes practice. You know something that particular thing takes practice. You don't just have to practice your instrument and get all the notes right and in tune and everything, but you also have to practice performing. And you know it's interesting, I sort of you know when you, when you do a concert in a big concert hall, you know you get a rehearsal right. You get a dress rehearsal and I was always like but why would you need one for tennis? It's the same everywhere.
Speaker 2:But it's not that you know they have a practice sessions and get sense of like the seats around them. How many seats? How big is this place? What does the ball sound like? The different pace of the surface, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So what about you? Before performing, do you have like a series of things that you do within your or think about within yourself, or is there like a preparation sort of regime. So panic, like some regime you have within yourself or what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I eat bananas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why is that? Just love bananas.
Speaker 2:Well, they help you not to shake. I think it's the potassium.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah they're good.
Speaker 2:They're good that way. Somebody told me that, so I've always have bananas. No, I try to stay calm. Just try to stay calm, you know. And because sometimes when you have a dress rehearsal, if it's at like five o'clock in the afternoon and you show us at eight, you know you're. There's a whole thing like when am I going to have dinner? You know how's this going to work.
Speaker 2:It's always a bit of a weird game and that morning you might wake up extremely early because your adrenaline is already rushing. I mean, I've heard tennis players. It makes me feel so good when they say I didn't sleep a wink last night before their finals and it's a bit like that. It's a crazy day and you just try to step. You know, I try to plan it and I don't try to do too much. I always do a practice session in the morning and then I try to have a sleep in the afternoon and then I do the dress rehearsal and if I can get in there the day before, that's always good. It's just something about like knowing the venue the day before getting used to the trouble of being a pianist yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And it gets the mystery out of it too. Oh, what's it going to be like. And you know, with piano you have the unfortunate problem of not being able to take your own instrument. So you have to adapt. You have to adapt to another instrument. It's going to be like a tennis player saying, hey, practice with this, play with this racket that you haven't ever played with before.
Speaker 1:Okay, so on that note with the piano. Then, like you, walk in and the Steinway is sitting there and is this tuned a certain way for you, or is it they're just a standard tuning?
Speaker 2:It's a standard tuning and certain in the early days of piano tours and things like that, like you know, 100 years ago people might I mean I know Horowitz asked for his top octaves to be a certain way and bottom octaves to be tuned. So yeah, but I haven't gotten to that level, yet I just I'd like to be. Please just make sure it's in tune.
Speaker 2:Now what is in tune, because some people think that the piano is always out of tune because we can't shift. You know this whole thing about equal temperament and you know so it's. It's a that's a complicated question.
Speaker 1:But the instrument feels different. You were just saying you've got a feel for the instrument, is it?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they're all different.
Speaker 1:Yes, like a guitar or something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the key. It'll be more or less responsive if it's not a great instrument, but it's pretty good. It might have some notes that are weird, that are sounding twangy or nasally. And then you're like, okay, now what do I do? And then they might be a problem with the soft pedal, like the soft pedals not working right. You know there's all sorts of things. So you have to adapt and you just have to take what you get. I mean, the beauty is, I don't have to carry an instrument on an airplane.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I also did violin as a kid, for like nine years. So I know you know it would have probably been better for me to do violin, because I'm a small person and you know piano. You know there's kind of a prejudice in the business about men with big hands and you know we battle that us girls are not taken as seriously. I mean, you have to be like Phenomenally successful to be accepted as a woman in our business. It's a very conservative business, right, but let's not talk about that.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's not very nice stuff, you have just reminded me about the.
Speaker 1:you know there's been a little bit written up about the connections between piano and tennis and what you're talking about is the connections between the physical and the mental side. You'd go to deal with getting yourself together for preparation for performance, walking into, you know, the room that you're going to play in and so you can prepare yourself and visualize practice on the instrument that you're going to play on that night or the next day. So there's a whole series of things that you have to work through to get yourself like so sharp, it seems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you have to sort of like take a deep breath and go okay, so it's not perfect, my situation is not perfect, but I'm going to make the best of it, and that's. You know, if you are a perfectionist, it's, it's. It can be a problem, like you have to. You have to be a perfectionist to be, you know, to be good at something, but at the same time, perfectionists can make it very difficult on themselves. So you have to, kind of you have to, and that's one of the things I've learned over time is that is that we're just human and we're going to make mistakes, and I just wish that it was easier to make. It was as easy as a tennis player to make a mistake. You know on you, because in the end every rally in tennis goes in the net or out, right, I mean, that's, that's what happens, right.
Speaker 2:But you know, in music you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to make mistakes, because we've got used to perfect recordings, and so there's this huge thing hanging over Pressure. Yeah, pressure, it's that's. And that's one of the reasons why I went into playing a lot of contemporary music is because I wasn't expected to memorize. I used to memorize everything, even contemporary music. But as I've gone older and I've just had such a diverse repertoire, I just I don't want to waste my time memorizing stuff. It's just ridiculous. And now we've got iPads with Bluetooth pedals, so so I just I just go take that pressure off myself.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because otherwise I think I would have quit by now because it's so much pressure. Yeah, to have to memorize everything and get up and you know, and everybody goes wow, you know, that was incredible, they did it for memory and I just think, is that what was incredible?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay. So there's no improvising, that's the thing. It's a bit bit sort of depends what you're doing.
Speaker 2:If you're doing all this, you know Beethoven sonatas or something. No, there's no improvising. I mean, there's a couple of fermatas you could, there's a couple of pauses you can improvise in, and Beethoven used to improvise, but almost nobody does those improvisations, but but, but yeah, in general with classical music it's like everybody knows the recordings, the famous recordings, and there's this whole thing and there's this competition.
Speaker 1:That's how it has to be, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's. It's not very creative for a student, for a young person. It's hard to feel like I'm just going to make this music my own, and that's one of the reasons why I love contemporary music is it's made me, when I go back to old music, say, oh okay, so Beethoven was a living composer too. And I can imagine him in the room with me saying, hey, you know what? I know I wrote play loud there, but I like what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Play soft, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I like that it gives you a little bit of creative freedom, because you've been dealing with living composers who are Are you a better player because of this thought process of just trying to just let that flow of music sort of do its thing a little bit or be a bit more relaxed about it?
Speaker 2:I guess I'm saying Well, I do sort of think. Well, I had one teacher who said to me you know, just imagine. Kept saying, just imagine you're in a room making this music up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that, for me, has been huge. I always do that. I'm like, ok, because what you want it to be is spontaneous sounding, right. The music's been there for 200 years on the page. But and you're asking to play, you're being asked to play it and it's played by hundreds of other people and you hear students playing it like wrote, you know, over and over. And so you're like, ok, let's go back to basics, like if I was Beethoven, I'm just sitting here and I'm just improvising and just pretend it's an improvisation when it's not so. That's about discrete little things in timing, those little pauses, the little thought. You know, it's kind of like Bill Nayee when he goes, you know, like he makes it seem natural.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know if he's in a pause box Is that? Are you teaching or mentoring along the way?
Speaker 2:A little bit of mentoring and I did some teaching during covid online by Zoom I had some people across the world that was.
Speaker 2:That was fun and I did have a university position at Wesleyan University but I quit that in like 2008 because I was getting all these concerts and they were conflicting with the semester breaks and I didn't have it. I wasn't teaching at an institution that was very sympathetic to going on tour. Some teaching jobs are great that way They'll let you go and they say go, go, go, recruit, recruit. You know, play concerts, come back and just make up the lessons in your own time. But no, you know, like I was teaching at the University where they were sort of needy undergraduates who had to have their lesson every week.
Speaker 2:And so it became, you know, really difficult, always trying to schedule. So I quit for a bit. And then covid came and, you know, all of the performing went away. So I started advertising online lessons. No, it's good. I bought some equipment. Yeah, you know, got some cameras, got, you know, got the whole Zoom thing happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had an above camera, above keyboard, you know, like showing people what to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the reason why I ask that? Because you get to a stage over many years where you it's so good to impart your knowledge and your skills and what you know and you sound like you've you've sort of learned so much about yourself, about what music does to you, and to pass that on is so important for other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it is. I like passing it on and there's a few inspired people that that come to me. But it's a very strange piano business. It's very conservative and, you know, the famous teachers are really steeped in this 18th and 19th century repertoire and so and there's this sort of competitive institutional teaching. So people at, say, juilliard in New York, you know you, would you go to that person because they're at Juilliard, you know, and because they don't have a teaching job at a university.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I'm more sought after by oddbods you know like kind of very cluey people who kind of know inside what's really happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's, it's a I've came, I've gotten into the finals like a lot of jobs, but it's, I've never gotten the actual job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I don't know why that is. Yeah, and maybe I'm just too ass-boken or something and people don't want me in committee rooms.
Speaker 1:You know you have so much to pass on, though, like you know just what you're talking about, the feeling of it all, like you can feel it through this. I mean, you've just drawn me into your musical world and it's we're just talking about how music can be sort of really dramatic and sharp, and I think I said soft and light. I listened to that piece a more a marrow, a more a marrow as a lover.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sweet, bitter love.
Speaker 1:And that sort of here spot with me as far as, as I was saying, dramatic and then light.
Speaker 2:Yes beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh great, I'm so glad you loved it and I think anyone could look at that and go oh yeah, they're like the. The breadth of what you do on piano is so obvious with that piece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, that piece is. That piece was written for me by the composer and just in the year he died actually, and it's it's kind of a stream of consciousness and also a kind of memory bank of of composer kind of thoughts in a way. Just like you know, I feel like it's got this this, this Di-ba-ba-ba kind of theme and then it just like goes on from there and has outbursts and Little snippets. Yeah, it's a cool piece.
Speaker 1:It's so good, so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me, because it really was just. I just thought it was amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was he's also setting of to his coin, mistress, the song that you probably heard me doing on that album by which is the text by Andrew Marvel. That composer is amazing because he can. He can write. Frederick Chesky can write this huge range of of music from a simple accompaniment song and accompaniment to. Like a big piece, like a more, a motto.
Speaker 1:So how's your tennis?
Speaker 2:How's my tennis?
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:It was a hard game of doubles today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:I was just quite hot and but, but, and I, we had set points but lost.
Speaker 1:I love the how people draw the relationship between piano and tennis and the parallels, and there's been a fair bit written about it that how you yourself and why I can't get it in, and I need to really calm down and just get centered and yeah, I love a game of tennis.
Speaker 2:Well, and also tennis takes as much practice in a way as playing in a musical instrument. You know to be good at it, yeah, but I I love the. I was a singles player for years and then now I'm mainly doubles and I love the exchange and doubles, the teamwork. You know like you cross over the back and you know you know switch, you know go like that, and then should I come into the net, like try to predict where it's where it's going.
Speaker 1:So is that like playing with playing with another musician?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and supporting one another yeah Reading where that person's going to go. I'm Okay yeah, I just also just love the sound of the ball you know, okay, I. I love that sound and the way the ball bounces. It's like the way the ball feels that you know, and I like the sort of the the, the thing that, in order, you know if you watch someone like Federer or Djokovic, whatever, they hit the ball the same way every time they have a distant.
Speaker 2:I mean sometimes when they crammed, they have to improvise, but if they just gonna hit a forehand right, they, they, they distance themselves just perfectly from the ball. Just the same way, they twist their, their their shoulders yeah, I swing, swing their hips and they do this thing and they get their feet in the right position and it's the same. It's I love. I love getting better at that. Yeah, I love it. I love the physical discipline of that and I also love the physical discipline of playing the piano. It's very different because it's tiny muscles. But you know you're like, okay, there's got to be a way to play this. What's the secret?
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, you know that's the thing about patting, practicing patting over and over and repetition over the years and they it becomes automatic, and I'm assuming that's that's what has happened with people Like you. It becomes automatic, you know what note is where and you don't even think about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but every new piece and we do a lot of new pieces we're not just playing one tennis game, we're where you know. Yes, every shot in tennis is different from every other shot. I mean, there's similarities but it's never the same point, right? But with music, you constantly learning new stuff. You're constantly adding to your repertoire and looking for pieces that you're gonna be, that you like and because otherwise, if you just play the same pieces, yeah, and that's the boring part of tennis, and sometimes Well, that's the thing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:with music? You can go anywhere, can't it? And it can keep going anywhere. You can keep learning, it's never ending.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know musicians can be very boring as well. They just talk about their instruments. You know they turn when you talk with musicians, but ones who you know, the good ones, well, not necessarily, but you know you should go to films and read books and think about paintings and imagery. And you know, try to increase your, your. If you're an artist you want to have broad, you know, vision.
Speaker 1:Right, you don't want to just have this little.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm just gonna practice for you maybe day and I just practice and you know that's, that's it. You don't want to get like that, but that there's a lot of. We call, you know, conservatory jocks. You know they just like.
Speaker 1:What conservatory Bratz. But that's what I brought up before about you know you playing with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. I mean, yeah, here we go. It's like one minute You're playing with an Augustine, one minute you're playing with an Augustra, and then you're doing this solo show in the conservatorium or some amazing musical, and here you are with Thurston and Kim. I love it.
Speaker 2:Well, one of my teachers when I did my doctorate, gil Kaelish. He was one of my like my main teacher. Well, I consider him to be my main teacher as my last teacher. He he had a very diverse career, so he played Haydn, sonatas, he played contemporary music. He he wasn't as diverse as mine but of course he was much older than me so he didn't grow up in the era of rock and roll but um so, but that was like I was like I want that kind of career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where I'm playing chamber music, I do a solo concert, I do a little bit here and there.
Speaker 1:I go teaching this and that, because you know you don't want life to get dreary, exactly that's what music sort of seems like to me, and learning an instrument it's just like a never-ending challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, how are your guitar lessons? Right, you have, do you have guitar lessons? Well?
Speaker 1:there's other episodes in this series, um, and one of them is with Shane O'Mara. So Shane and I play a lot with each other and you know he's been known as like the best guitar, one of the best guitarists the country's ever produced. But to learn so much From someone like that and still realize that there's like there's not enough time in this life to actually Do what you think you might be able to do, it's like it's such an endless Journey and I love that. Yeah, I love it yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, yeah, it is. And because you know you're you're here for a finite time and if you don't go on learning and everything like that, you just atrophy. You know you've got to have things that you passionate about or interested in. And yeah, I mean, it's amazing that I'm still interested in the piano. You know, that's the thing. I actually at one point I was um sort of thinking of quitting in my late 40s and and I talked to um someone and about how they stay interested and uh, you know, they said they just keep Listening and keep saying how can this get better at this piece?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm playing.
Speaker 2:How can I, how can I improve it, instead of just going in and going Okay, I'm just going through the motions and going through the piece. And how can? I be, and jockovich talks about that right. Constantly trying to get better, yeah, so what?
Speaker 1:what do you think contributed to getting to that point in your 40s and you were thinking about I just a bit burned out.
Speaker 2:I think I'm just a bit just burned out a bit. Yeah, I think I'm um. I'm not turning around quitting bang on a can. That helped because we were going on tour a lot and we were playing the same pieces over and over again. So getting into some solo projects, um, digging a bit deeper and realizing it was burned out, I think yeah you know and say okay, that's the same as athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a distance runner or someone. There's too much of one thing and repetition Mm. Yeah, okay, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it and I love our chats. It's so inspiring and, you know, really really stimulating. So thank you so much and I better let you go, because you probably got some bread to bake, because I also.
Speaker 2:You're into your bread baking? No, I'm not anymore. That was just a covert thing. I had to stop that that was not good for the girlish figure, you know. Yeah, I was great as a pleasure, jason, and congratulations on this series.
Speaker 1:Oh, my privilege to speak to you, that's for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, Well thank you so much. Yeah, oh, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:You can learn more about Lisa at Lisa more org and on insta at Lisa piano more. Please check the show notes for more details. You can follow and support this show through the show notes page. You can also follow us on insta at the underscore champion within. Once again, thanks to shonomara from episode four of this series for his music and his band, the silver sound. I'm Jason agosta and we'll be with you again soon and thanks for listening.
