The Lesson Behind the Birth of Studio Showcase
In 2013, I was a first-year graduate student at North Carolina School of the Arts, studying piano with Dr. Dmitri Shteinberg in a prestigious masters program that I was somehow accepted to but underqualified for. School of the Arts is unique in that it is the oldest public conservatory in the country, and as such, has drama, dance, music, film, and design programs for graduate students, undergraduates, and also high schoolers. In fact, between the two classical piano studios in my first semester there, the most accomplished student was a 16-year-old prodigy, and it was while watching him play that the idea of Studio Showcase began to grow roots.
A visiting concert pianist gave a masterclass for selected students, and our high schooler was the star of the show. He chose to play the prelude in G# minor, opus 32 no. 12, by Sergei Rachmaninoff (my birthday twin!). This is a short but wonderful piece written smack dab in the middle of Rachmaninoff’s life and largely late-romantic-style composing career. It starts with a fluttering open ostinato pattern in the right hand, and after a few repetitions the left hand enters below with a simple 8-note melody.
After the student was done with the first play through, the teacher asked him about that opening melody. They had a quick discussion about its interpretation, and then the teacher asked him to play it again, but to alter it slightly so it wasn’t so…on-the-nose. The student tried to follow those instructions but there wasn’t a notable change, so the teacher rephrased his ask, yet still the student couldn’t quite manage to play it any way other than exactly what was written. They went back and forth a couple times like that, with varying requests each time, the teacher finally settling on something to the effect of “you have to sound like you’re improvising.” They worked for what seemed like the entire lesson on those eight notes, and when time was up and the teacher hadn’t detected the artistic change he was looking for, they both left the stage looking a bit forlorn.
I will never forget sitting in the crowd for this experience, feeling the audience at the edge of their seats, dying to see a lightbulb moment when the teacher’s advice clicked for the student and a new ray of creativity shone through. That moment never came. I chatted with the teacher afterwards, and I so clearly remember his disappointment, not in the student as much as in his own inability to find the words to affect change - the missing ingredient that could have simultaneously given the student and the audience what they came to see. The student was undoubtedly excellent, and has gone on to have an excellent career, but something was absent in that exchange. I knew on paper I wasn’t half the pianist either of those two were, but in that moment I also knew that I perhaps had something different to offer, and more importantly, a mission to share with the world. Thus, the idea for Studio Showcase was born.
Five years, two graduate degrees, and a job at Lincoln Center later, it all started to take shape as I pitched the local library on my idea to host an open-to-all-ages, audience inclusive open lesson series. They agreed enthusiastically and we ran monthly showcases for two successful years before COVID happened. I stayed in my corporate job a little too long as classical music took forever to come back in live events, but in the last couple years I have committed full-time to making this happen. Studio Showcase is back serving local students and audiences in NYC, and is poised for expansion across the country, bringing people together to witness those magic moments when learning your art happens. So, on September 28, we return to the Darien Library for the first time since 2020, and we’d love to see you there.