Us young people have this website called facebook that we use to aggressively waste time. 3 days ago a pianist friend shared this picture with me:



Which is unfortunately very relevant for concertgoers, as I went to a recital 2 days ago and this happened right in the middle of a Schubert sonata.

Anyways, from this picture I clicked on a youtube link and voila, I was on the channel of a Mr. Richard Grayson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssseEQ7tDNo

His playing immediately struck me as brilliant, and much of it is quite enjoyable to listen to. It's rare and delightful to see someone able to improvise that well in so many different styles. I was reminded of Gabriela Montero, whom I had the pleasure of seeing last year.

He stands strong behind the study of Bach, as he states in this interview ( http://www.pianofortenews.org/Html/PF_RGrayson.html ), which probably means he'll get an immediate seal of approval from some of you. His interview was inspiring, as I'm interested in improv but have always been intimidated by the concept of it.

One last piece, and I hope you all enjoy his playing as much as I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upFQcITxX9A

I've had some choice experiences with cell phones going off during concerts too. Very annoying!
Anyway, I had not heard of Richard Grayson before. The James Bond/Pink Panther piece is fun!!

Ok. I think THIS - MAN - KNOWS - MUSIC! He is increadible.


I saw many of his video posts and wonderfully ended up back at one of my favorites of all time: Victor Borge. I laughed and laughed, and when I saw the post below I cried laughing over and over! I hope you enjoy too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMKIE8vj ... re=related

Absolute genius ! His technical and interpretative mastery of every style is amazing.
Thanks for that link - I'd never heard of Grayson too.

A thoroughly trained musician in the old style. He has a method, however and a great musical culture. The structure of all pieces could have been composed beforehand, but his genius shows by knowing exacly how to graft any given melody to any of those pieces. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star comes out very well and is always recogniseable, though, to me, the melody to Singin' in The Rain is simply not there.

No wonder we are amazed, though how little we seem to realise that Mozart, for example, as well as Beethoven only wrote the barest of sketches for the piano part in their concerti and improvised happily as they progressed or that Bach, Handel or Scarlatti could improvise a fugue on any given subject.

I could not for the life of me hear 'Good vibrations' in his Bartok pastiche. But as Bartok-style playing, it sounded well-nigh perfect and if anybody had said this was a newly discovered work of the master I'd have no trouble believing that.

I agree totally! The same goes for his Prokofiev IMO. And his Beethoven was very good too, encorporating his late style. Truely gifted.