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ABLE Voices Ep 81: Nicholas McCarthy
12 Plays6 months ago
We are inviting disabled artists and arts educators to be guests and guest hosts on ABLE Voices. Today's guest host is Ben Lunn.
Ben Lunn is a music composer, conductor, musicologist, teacher and associate artist for Drake Music and Drake Music Scotland. As a composer, Lunn’s music reflects the material world around him, connecting to his North-Eastern heritage or how disability impacts the world around him or his working-class upbringing. Alongside this, he has become renowned for his championship of others, which have seen him creating unique collaborations with musicians from across the globe and developing unique concert experiences and opportunities for others. Today Ben will be speaking with Nicholas McCarthy.
Nicholas McCarthy is a British pianist known for being one of the few one-handed concert pianists in the world. Born without his right hand, he has overcome significant challenges to establish an international career, performing in prestigious venues and with renowned orchestras. He is also a sought-after motivational speaker and advocate for musicians with disabilities
Follow Ben online:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blunnmusic/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/benlunnmusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/benlunnmusic/
Follow Nicholas online:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicholasmccarthyofficial/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NicholasMcCarthyPianist/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nmccarthypiano
X: https://x.com/NMcCarthyPiano
The ABLE Voices podcast is produced and edited by BIAAE Operations Coordinator, Daniel Martinez del Campo. The introduction music was written by Kai Levin and the ending song was written by Sebastian Batista. Kai and Sebastian are students in the Arts Education Programs at the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education.
For more information about our programs visit us at https://college.berklee.edu/BIAAE
Follow us for more weekly updates at:
Instagram: @BIAAE
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BIAAE
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Transcript
Introduction of Able Voices Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Music
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to the Able Voices Podcast.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm Dr. Rhoda Bernard, Founding Native and Director of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education and the Assistant Chair of the Music Education Department at Berklee College of Music.
00:00:28
Speaker
And I'm proud to present this podcast featuring disabled artists and arts educators.
00:00:34
Speaker
We are inviting artists with disabilities to be guest hosts for the Able Voices Podcast.
00:00:39
Speaker
Today's guest host is Ben Lunn.
Ben Lunn's Musical Journey
00:00:42
Speaker
Ben Lunn is a music composer, conductor, musicologist, teacher, and associate artist for Drake Music and Drake Music Scotland.
00:00:50
Speaker
As a composer, Lunn's music reflects the material world around him.
00:00:55
Speaker
connecting his Northeastern heritage or how disability impacts the world around him or his working class upbringing.
00:01:03
Speaker
Alongside this, he has become renowned for his championship of others, which have seen him creating unique collaborations with musicians from across the globe and developing unique concert experiences and opportunities for others.
00:01:17
Speaker
He has won accolades from the Scottish Music Awards in both 2023 and 2020 for his work with Hebrides Ensemble and Drake Music Scotland.
00:01:26
Speaker
In 2022, Ben became the first Northeast composer to be selected for the Royal Philharmonic Society's Composer Scheme, which sees him paired with music in the round.
00:01:38
Speaker
As a musicologist, Lund specializes in Baltic music, Horatiu, Radulisku, political ideology and composition, and composing and disability.
00:01:50
Speaker
He has had the honor of lecturing at some of the world's leading academic institutions, and his articles have been published across Germany, UK, US, Russia, Lithuania, and collected by the Arvo Hotcentra.
00:02:04
Speaker
In 2021, Ben also helped found the Disabled Artists Network, an organization which is bridging the gap between the professional world and disabled artists.
00:02:18
Speaker
Hello
Nicholas McCarthy's Musical Inspiration
00:02:19
Speaker
and welcome.
00:02:20
Speaker
I am Ben Lunn and I am a composer originally from the Northeast of England, living and working in Scotland, and I am very honored to be the guest host for the Able Voices podcast.
00:02:31
Speaker
And I am joined
00:02:32
Speaker
by a very good friend of mine, both colleague and just sort of fellow wonderful disabled artist, Nicholas McCarthy.
00:02:40
Speaker
And so without trying to shower too much phrases onto him, I want to just show off firstly, a lovely piece that we're going to hear of his.
00:02:49
Speaker
So Nicholas, do you want to share a little bit about the piece you're going to share for us today?
00:02:54
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:02:54
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And it's great to see you, Ben.
00:02:55
Speaker
And thanks so much for having me on this wonderful podcast.
00:02:58
Speaker
So I think the piece we're going to listen to is one of my own arrangements, actually.
00:03:02
Speaker
I arranged this with a colleague of mine, Arta Simera.
00:03:05
Speaker
And this is my and his arrangement of Rachmaninoff's famous prelude in G minor.
00:03:14
Speaker
The
00:04:26
Speaker
marvellous wasn't that wonderful fantastic so now we've had a little taste of the wonderful playing of nicholas i would like to sort of follow up with a nice question could you just tell us a little bit about yourself your journey into music and
00:04:41
Speaker
what sort of things you get up to now as an artist.
Challenges in Music Education for the Disabled
00:04:44
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:04:44
Speaker
So I had a very late start in my musical journey.
00:04:49
Speaker
And I come from a completely normal background.
00:04:52
Speaker
I'm an only child.
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Both parents just worked normal jobs.
00:04:56
Speaker
They weren't musicians themselves.
00:04:58
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I went to state school, normal school.
00:05:00
Speaker
And it wasn't until I was 14 that I realised that I wanted to become a concert pianist.
00:05:09
Speaker
And how that happened was I was in my school and there was a colleague, a fellow student of mine, a friend of mine, and she was playing a piece by Beethoven, the Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, one of his late sonatas.
00:05:24
Speaker
And she was an amazing, accomplished pianist.
00:05:26
Speaker
And I just had one of those moments, Ben, that
00:05:30
Speaker
you kind of read about or you know an Oprah Winfrey kind of interview it's kind of you these these real moment in my life that absolutely changed the course of my life for forever and I just remembered my friend finishing you know these last chords of this sonata and I kind of
00:05:49
Speaker
emerged from it being in this daze of a performance and just decided there and then that I wanted to dedicate my life to playing the piano.
00:05:59
Speaker
And there was obviously a slight...
00:06:01
Speaker
issue there because I was born without my right hand so you know playing being a pianist certainly isn't the first career choice you'd have thought I'd have picked and definitely wasn't my parents first choice for me either but yeah that's that's that's how it began really so yeah that was my entry into into the world of music.
00:06:21
Speaker
So jumping on from that how did you sort of find that journey into music education at all because there isn't
00:06:29
Speaker
particularly the age we're at, that it's not the same kind of amounts of support for disabled people in the arts education or alternative models of education and all this other kind of stuff.
00:06:38
Speaker
So how was it sort of trying to get yourself
00:06:40
Speaker
the foot through the door trying to learn to play the piano yeah i was very lucky i suppose because you know i i had a good music teacher at school you know just just you know curricular music teacher and when i i discovered that i could play the piano and i started to self-teach and self-learn she was very encouraging and it was nice and encouraging but again it was all very much basic stuff
00:07:05
Speaker
really there wasn't any provisions for me to go on.
00:07:09
Speaker
And it was very much about deciding for myself.
00:07:12
Speaker
And also for me as an only child from two parents who aren't musicians, you know, that was difficult because
00:07:20
Speaker
you know auntie hadn't been to conservatoire or you know great uncle this wasn't a concert pianist you see what i mean so it was very foreign for me to kind of want to go into that world and quite frankly my parents nor i obviously didn't know what the steps were in order to get me to where i needed to be you know quite frankly we didn't know what a conservatoire was let alone you know how to apply for one or when to audition what that what there's what the standard is you know i just didn't know so it was very much kind of
00:07:49
Speaker
trial, trialing and kind of learning for the first time, being kind of a trailblazer, I suppose, within that and trying to fathom it out myself, really.
00:08:00
Speaker
And
Royal College of Music Experience
00:08:01
Speaker
that's just how it was.
00:08:02
Speaker
And because I wanted to do it, you know, because it was me and it was my choice, I was very determined and I was very happy to be carving out and finding out those things that I needed to find out.
00:08:17
Speaker
So, yeah, my own journey was very similar in the sense of,
00:08:19
Speaker
just didn't come through a traditional route.
00:08:21
Speaker
So it was all trying to make sense of it at the same time as then coming across the various different barriers of being a disabled person trying to navigate higher education and so on.
00:08:32
Speaker
And I know we've talked about it a lot in the past about your joys of higher education.
00:08:37
Speaker
So I imagine also the listeners will be very intrigued about it as well, because obviously it's not something that's advertised by any of the music colleges internationally, that they do have
00:08:46
Speaker
left hand pianist classes and all sort of the kind of stuff.
00:08:49
Speaker
So how did you find that particular element of it, which is where you got the sort of the really strong element of your idea?
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, I, what I did was I was, I kind of reached out to, you know, the heads of department, you know, the head of keyboard at the Royal College of Music, for instance, where I went on to study to say, you know, I'm coming to audition.
00:09:09
Speaker
How is the repertoire constraints?
00:09:11
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You know, you know, left hand repertoire has 3000 plus words.
00:09:15
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As you know, it's a really large volume of words.
00:09:18
Speaker
However, when you're going through conservatoire, you have to play a Mozart sonata.
00:09:23
Speaker
You have to play a large scale work by Bach.
00:09:25
Speaker
You have to play a late Beethoven sonata.
00:09:27
Speaker
You have to play, you know, a large romantic work by Chopin.
00:09:30
Speaker
They don't exist for Left Hand Alone.
00:09:32
Speaker
So I could offer alternatives.
00:09:35
Speaker
You know, I could say to the heads of department, look, this is what you want from the programme.
00:09:39
Speaker
Obviously, those composers didn't write anything for Left Hand Alone, but this composer did.
00:09:44
Speaker
And it's the same length and it's the same difficulty.
00:09:46
Speaker
And would you be open to that?
00:09:48
Speaker
And they were very flexible.
00:09:49
Speaker
The Royal College were fantastic with allowing me to take the lead.
00:09:53
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on the repertoire suggestions because I was the specialist, even as a student, you know, it was me, I knew much more about left-hand repertoire than my teachers did, for instance, you know, just because of research.
00:10:05
Speaker
So they were very good and very flexible like that.
00:10:07
Speaker
And I always said to them, you know, the problem, looking back, I wish I'd kind of spoke to them and said about the marking.
00:10:14
Speaker
I wanted at the time to be very much marked exactly the same as if I had two hands.
00:10:19
Speaker
Looking back, I probably would have
00:10:22
Speaker
built into the mark system a little bit of a leeway or a percentage with the view because the repertoire I was playing was very, very, very advanced for what I would have played if I had two hands.
00:10:37
Speaker
So, for instance, in a technical exam, you know, in your first year of conservatoire, students were playing, you know, a Mendelssohn Etude or something like that.
00:10:45
Speaker
You wouldn't play the big Liszt Etudes or big Chopin Etudes in your first year.
00:10:49
Speaker
Remember, it's a four-year degree.
00:10:51
Speaker
Whereas for me, I went in my first year of technical exam, I was playing Chopin-Godowski studies.
00:10:56
Speaker
Well, they're purported to be the hardest piece of piano music in the world, you know, and I wasn't ready for that either, but I kind of didn't have a choice of it.
00:11:05
Speaker
So in that regard, because, you know, the repertoire was so, so, so much difficult beyond my years, really, I feel that...
00:11:12
Speaker
I should have kind of brokered or spoke to them about this kind of difference in marking.
00:11:17
Speaker
But at the time I was very much like, no, I want to be marked exactly the same as everybody else.
00:11:22
Speaker
Not really factoring that in.
00:11:23
Speaker
So yeah, if I, and again, I have obviously a fantastic relationship with the Royal College of Music still.
00:11:29
Speaker
I'm an honorary member there, you know, so the dialogue's very open.
History and Significance of Left-Hand Piano Repertoire
00:11:33
Speaker
And if they ever had a left-hand pianist come through, I'm sure they would reach out to me to say,
00:11:39
Speaker
can you come in and teach them all you know or how can we do things differently from when you were a student here all of those many moons ago i and i think that's the the things you detailed as well as is just the the slight victim of circumstance of the repertoire as well because as um i'll ask you to sort of talk about a bit more in detail is one because there is so much repertoire for the left hand that we kind of forget that it's there because obviously we always love the massive flashy pieces but
00:12:06
Speaker
both hands flying around the keyboard and all the other kind of stuff and we forget that not only is there special specialised concerti for the left hand but also all the various different say party pieces or arrangements and all these other kinds of things which then as you say put you in this wonderful bind where all of these pieces were built as a virtuoso showing off as well and it's not just a pianist doing a little concert so the demands you'd put yourself through were significantly higher regardless yes
00:12:34
Speaker
and all those kinds of other elements as well.
00:12:36
Speaker
So I think just for the listeners of the podcast, I think they'd love to hear more about the actual repertoire, what exists.
00:12:44
Speaker
Who are your heroes within this world and so on.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:47
Speaker
But it's a fascinating, obviously I'm biased, I know, but I'm absolutely fascinated.
00:12:51
Speaker
And as you know, Ben, I'm often wittering on about left-hand repertoire and the history of it.
00:12:56
Speaker
And I find it truly fascinating.
00:12:58
Speaker
It started really in the 19th century
00:13:01
Speaker
So back then, you know, concert pianists, they were like rock stars.
00:13:04
Speaker
I always joke and say I'm sadly in the wrong century.
00:13:06
Speaker
But, you know, 19th century concert pianists, they were really up there with, you know, the Adels and the Lady Gaga's.
00:13:13
Speaker
You know, they were as popular as any of our big pop artists are today.
00:13:17
Speaker
And...
00:13:18
Speaker
often what they would do to kind of draw drive their the crowds even more wild than they already were this fandom that was going wrong you know take fran's list for example you know very well documented fandom around him and women would faint at the sight of him and you know that kind of thing um so to to drive the crowds wild you know even more even further they would
00:13:44
Speaker
Play on irony a little bit.
00:13:45
Speaker
So they would say, you know, you've just watched me play a recital, two hands, obviously two-handed recital.
00:13:51
Speaker
Wait till you see what I can do with my weaker hand.
00:13:55
Speaker
And so then they would play with their weaker hand, which for most people in the world, most people are right-handed.
00:14:00
Speaker
So your left hand tends to be your slightly weaker hand.
00:14:03
Speaker
So this little play on irony, they'd play this amazing bravura piece with just their left hand, their weaker hand.
00:14:10
Speaker
And the crowd would go obviously absolutely mad and they would love them even more.
00:14:14
Speaker
So that's how left-hand repertoire started.
00:14:16
Speaker
And then if we fast forward in time and we get to the First World War,
00:14:21
Speaker
And for the very same reason, you know, most people are right handed in the world.
00:14:25
Speaker
If you're in a wartime situation, a battle situation, you're very highly statistically to injure or lose or damage your right arm.
00:14:35
Speaker
Much higher statistically over damaging your left arm.
00:14:38
Speaker
And so that happened, as we know, thousands of servicemen were coming back from battle, often with missing limbs, you know, right arm, shoulder, everything.
00:14:46
Speaker
And there was this one particular man, Paul Wittgenstein, part of the wealthy Viennese family, the Wittgensteins, brother of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher.
00:14:55
Speaker
And he was...
00:14:58
Speaker
his dream was to become a concert pianist.
00:15:00
Speaker
But in those high society kind of families, it was very much forbidden.
00:15:05
Speaker
It was looked down upon to be any performer of any kind.
00:15:08
Speaker
You know, you can't do that.
00:15:09
Speaker
You know, being shamed to the family name.
00:15:12
Speaker
But so when Wittgenstein's dad passed away, Paul Wittgenstein went out and did his concert debut as a concert pianist.
00:15:19
Speaker
To rave reviews, he's a very fine pianist.
00:15:21
Speaker
And obviously he had two hands.
00:15:23
Speaker
Fast forward in time,
00:15:25
Speaker
months, under a year.
00:15:27
Speaker
The First World War broke out, he was called into battle.
00:15:30
Speaker
He went into battle and within a matter of months, he was shot in the right shoulder by a Russian bullet.
00:15:37
Speaker
He was captured as a prisoner of war and transported to Siberia.
00:15:41
Speaker
And here his right arm was crudely amputated.
00:15:46
Speaker
He was there for a while, but lucky for him, he was repatriated back to Vienna.
00:15:49
Speaker
And it was here that he used his, well, steely determination, really, but also his family connections, his links, his wealth, his family wealth.
00:16:01
Speaker
to commission the leading composers of the 20th century to write for Left Hand Alone.
00:16:06
Speaker
So he commissioned Ravel, Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss, Kornko, you name it, you know, anyone who was an important composer at the time, he was there offering them large sums of money to write Left Hand Alone works for him.
00:16:21
Speaker
And then he redid his debut, but this time as a Left Hand Alone pianist.
00:16:26
Speaker
It was really amazing that, you know, a concert pianist,
00:16:29
Speaker
is, you know, their concert debut is an important moment in a concert pianist's life.
00:16:35
Speaker
And he did too, because he did one debut as a two-handed pianist and then one debut as a left-handed lone pianist.
00:16:40
Speaker
So I have a huge amount of admiration for Paul Wittgenstein.
00:16:45
Speaker
And without, I always credit him, you know, without him, that I wouldn't have the career that I have today because I wouldn't have access to these 20th century titans of composition.
00:16:56
Speaker
You know, if Ravel hadn't
00:16:58
Speaker
wrote that concerto for left-handed, Prokofiev hadn't written the fourth concerto for left-handed, Britten hadn't written the Diversions for Piano and Orchestra, you know, I really wouldn't have the concerto side of things, apart from what I commission now, you know, I'd only have that.
00:17:13
Speaker
Whereas because of him, I've got access to 32, 33 plus concertos and counting.
00:17:18
Speaker
And not all thanks to him, obviously, people have commissioned, including myself.
00:17:22
Speaker
But yeah, there's a large, large set of concertos, which is great.
00:17:28
Speaker
So, you know, there really is a lifetime's worth of work available for a left hand alone pianist.
00:17:33
Speaker
And what's interesting, people always say, you know, and I think people get quite excited to ask me this question, you know, what about right hand?
00:17:40
Speaker
And I always kind of feel I'm letting people down here, but it isn't the case.
00:17:44
Speaker
It's just factually correct.
00:17:45
Speaker
There really isn't much right-hand repertoire at all.
00:17:48
Speaker
It very much is left-hand alone repertoire, and it's written for the left hand for a reason.
00:17:52
Speaker
You know, obviously the commissioners only had their left hand.
00:17:56
Speaker
The tradition was already there in the 19th century because of that weaker hand play on irony kind of stuff.
00:18:02
Speaker
But also physiology, you know, the left hand, if you look at your left hand, your thumb is the strongest finger, as we know.
00:18:10
Speaker
And in your left hand, the thumb is at the top.
00:18:12
Speaker
That's going to be playing that melody.
00:18:13
Speaker
That's going to be projecting that melody line out.
00:18:16
Speaker
And the rest of your fingers are going to be accompanied.
00:18:18
Speaker
It makes much more sense than the other way around in right hand episodes.
00:18:22
Speaker
So there are some right hand pieces, but nothing.
00:18:26
Speaker
you know it would be hard to have a full-time concert career like i have if i was born the other way around because you know ravelle piano concerto played with for left hand played with the right hand people have done that and it doesn't really work it's funny it doesn't you can hear it sound wise you can hear the technicalities it really works beautifully for left hand alone i and i think there's two interesting points that come out of this as well is that
00:18:54
Speaker
What I've always found endlessly fascinating about the left-hand repertoire as well is it's very rarely discussed as a disability art in and of itself because it's been so widely accepted as, well, it's just Ravel's piano concerto.
Left-Hand Repertoire as Disability Art
00:19:10
Speaker
It is a concerto, but just the left-hand, and it's not really treated as something that only exists to the extent as it does because of the likes of Wittgenstein pushing it forward beyond the party pieces.
00:19:22
Speaker
But then also it's the same time, the physiology does help a little bit on that kind of instance.
00:19:28
Speaker
But when we sort of compare it to say like the wonderful advances for accessible music technology with all of these wonderful instruments that have been made for the various musicians that mean you both know, like say, Rowena Smith or Claire Johnson and all these other kind of figures, because they're using brand new technology, they don't have the repertoire and therefore they don't have the same kind of respect, which makes it really hard to actually forge a career on that front.
00:19:52
Speaker
So the point you make about the left-hand repertoire is just a really interesting circumstance.
00:19:58
Speaker
One, because it's not really seen as a disabled art in and of itself because so many non-disabled musicians play at it because it's so accepted as mainstream repertoire.
00:20:10
Speaker
We've sort of overlooked or forgotten that it's that bit which then means that one, there's just this wonderful path that is laid out for you to a certain degree, but also
00:20:19
Speaker
It then means that when we look at say other examples where the evolution of accessible music technology suffers this problem because they don't have the repertoire and they don't have the respect, which means that for them to sort of pursue a career with their instruments.
00:20:34
Speaker
So for example, our dear friend, Rona Smith and her digital harp, she's having to work it out as she goes and makes it up as she goes along because there isn't really something there.
00:20:43
Speaker
But it's in some elements, it's really liberating because it means she can define what it means to play that instrument.
00:20:49
Speaker
But it means there isn't necessarily a path for others to follow.
00:20:52
Speaker
And there's all these very interesting sort of routes and so on.
00:20:54
Speaker
Whereas the one blessing we have, thanks to Wittgenstein and thanks also to that party piece tradition as well, it's meant that there is a whole body of repertoire, which once again, we're both very thankful that you have a left hand and not a right one.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:08
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:21:09
Speaker
And like I say, I always feel bad when, you know, I get lots of messages and lots of things from people and young children and, you know, and they've been inspired by me, which is lovely.
00:21:18
Speaker
But they've been born the other way around.
00:21:20
Speaker
And this is part of the reason that I created the first syllabus for one hand through ABRSM, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music here in the UK, because I created that syllabus.
00:21:31
Speaker
for one hand not just left hand so that people from initial grade up to grade five they they don't you know i wanted them to be able to have that option because then likewise what i'm hoping is if for instance we do get a fantastic right hand alone pianist who's
00:21:46
Speaker
commissioned pieces and whatever we're then expanding another repertoire here you know we're creating commissioning opportunities so that's why i was very much open to i didn't want to kind of close it off just to left-hand repertoire and yes i know there's you know having only a right hand does have its limitations with regards to a career but who knows what that would be like in 50 years
00:22:07
Speaker
If, you know, if we've had someone come through the ranks who's exceptional, who also commissions new work by the likes of you, Ben, and people like that, you know, we don't know what that's going to be like in 50 years, 10 years, you know.
00:22:18
Speaker
So that's why I didn't want to close it off to anyone, you know.
00:22:22
Speaker
Exactly.
00:22:23
Speaker
And like you're saying also with the example from Wittgenstein is he made it happen because he then went on commissioning, but he just needed something small to start with and then build on from there.
00:22:35
Speaker
And so this work with the ABRSM is hopefully a fantastic start for a future right-handed star, which hopefully we won't have to wait 50 years to see it, but you never know how long these things take, do you?
00:22:48
Speaker
So I'd like to focus a little more now directly on yourself and the sort of one, the role you see with yourself sort of engaging with this repertoire, but also in sort of expanding it, because in our sort of previous conversations, when we worked together, the
00:23:02
Speaker
The strange irony with all this lovely repertoire is it sort of stops at like 1950.
00:23:07
Speaker
And it's
Expanding the Repertoire with Modern Composers
00:23:08
Speaker
sort of like, how do you sort of deal with that as an artist?
00:23:10
Speaker
And how have you sort of tried to promote this way of working as an artist as well?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
00:23:17
Speaker
And also, like what we've spoken about, Ben, when we worked together and you wrote that wonderful concerto for me, History Needs.
00:23:24
Speaker
The concertos that are available, you know, they're kind of 20th century, very much firmly sitting in the 20th century.
00:23:32
Speaker
They're huge orchestrations.
00:23:34
Speaker
They're massive.
00:23:35
Speaker
They're often extended orchestras.
00:23:38
Speaker
So on a practical level, it's very difficult for orchestras to put them on.
00:23:44
Speaker
because of cost you know it costs a lot of money for them to to bring in these extra players or whatever versus a mozart piano concerto is very small or you know orchestra that doesn't kind of cost them and so that's when when i spoke to you about it when you said you were interested in writing writing a piece for me i said you know let's do it for for strings that we can scale up and keep it also small as well and and it was great because it gives us that flexibility
00:24:09
Speaker
So, yeah, that moving forward, when I work with other composers, I'm going to keep to that model, I think, and try to provide both myself, but again, obviously repertoire to other people, flexibility in the sizes of the orchestra.
00:24:26
Speaker
Because, you know, to put Ravel Piano Concerto on for left hand, it's very expensive.
00:24:30
Speaker
And it's only a 20, 23 minute concerto.
00:24:32
Speaker
I mean, it depends how fast I play it.
00:24:34
Speaker
But, you know, it's a short concerto.
00:24:36
Speaker
So again, practical-wise, and often, you know, orchestras have asked me, could I play another concerto in the same program, which I've done many times, you know, Prokofiev's 4th Concerto and Ravelle Piano Concerto for left hand, or Benjamin Britten's Diversions for left hand and orchestra and Ravelle Piano Concerto, you know, because then it's, they're getting, you know, there's two short concertos there either side of the interval, and it's quite impactful then.
00:24:59
Speaker
So yeah, it's, even on that practical level, I find it quite interesting why there wasn't
00:25:05
Speaker
these 20th century composers didn't think of that sometimes as well, you know?
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, because it's sort of a part of me to see that when you sort of look at other kinds of repertoire, sometimes pieces like this come about because they've been very specifically commissioned.
00:25:19
Speaker
So sometimes you'll find someone's commissioned a piece to be a partner to it.
00:25:23
Speaker
So this is the most common with, say, like Messiaen's Quartet at the End of Time, the amount of people who have then been commissioned to write for that quartet set up just to be played alongside the quartet for the end of time, which
00:25:34
Speaker
creates its own sort of problems and sort of associations for the poor composers writing it, but it's helped sort of create a lot of repertoire, whereas a partner for a concerto is also very difficult in that instance, because practically it's very hard to do.
00:25:48
Speaker
But it's, yeah, there's sort of all those very different kind of connotations, but then also similarly, between Paul Wittgenstein and yourself, I don't know if there was necessarily a left-handed champion to be
00:26:00
Speaker
that voice in the middle, whereas the concerti, say, like by Hans Abrahamson, which is for the left hand, was written for a pianist with both hands.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:10
Speaker
And so it's a very different dynamic again.
00:26:12
Speaker
And so I'm curious what your thoughts on their particular approach, if you can.
00:26:17
Speaker
how much you know that particular piece as well.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah, I must say, and you know what my musical tastes are like, Ben, so it isn't, you know, it isn't one that I've learnt, not one that I've played, and not one that I'm, you know, it's not on the top of my list to add to my repertoire.
00:26:35
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, people ask me a lot the question about, you know, how I feel about being a one hand, you know, being born without my right hand and being a one handed, you know, being the left handed pianist.
00:26:46
Speaker
But having a lot of two handed pianists play my repertoire.
00:26:51
Speaker
And it's I'd be completely lying if I said sometimes it doesn't really pee me off.
00:26:57
Speaker
You know, if I if if there's a I'm thinking, oh, my God, you've got like so many two handed concertos in your repertoire.
00:27:04
Speaker
And I, you know, I do have lots of concertos in my repertoire, but, you know, I don't have two hands, so I can't step on their toes, but they can definitely step on mine.
00:27:12
Speaker
So I'd be lying if I didn't say that does happen occasionally.
00:27:14
Speaker
But at the same time, literally half and half in my brain, I love hearing, you know, my favorite pianists who are, you know,
00:27:23
Speaker
who will then play on the odd occasion, play my repertoire, because I love hearing their interpretation of it.
00:27:28
Speaker
I love hearing something new.
00:27:29
Speaker
I love the artistry about it.
00:27:31
Speaker
So it's really funny.
00:27:32
Speaker
I'm literally in polar opposites in my head about how I feel.
00:27:38
Speaker
I think in other realms with regards to
00:27:42
Speaker
And as we know, that's been a big topic around race and about how, you know, white people playing black characters or black characters playing white characters.
00:27:52
Speaker
And there's big conversations about that.
00:27:55
Speaker
It's quite similar in my instance, but it's very accepted that two-handed penis will play it.
00:28:02
Speaker
And like I said, I'm very much in two minds.
00:28:04
Speaker
I don't have an answer.
00:28:06
Speaker
And because, like I said, I'm often very happy to hear their interpretation.
00:28:09
Speaker
I'm often very intrigued, very happy.
00:28:11
Speaker
And then likewise, sometimes I'm very cross.
00:28:16
Speaker
But I think also it sort of ties into the fact that like what we said earlier, the problem as well with a lot of this repertoire, people forget that it was written for a disabled person, whereas obviously the sort of cultural connotations on race and so on is a different thing because we very definitely know where things lie.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah.
Performing at the BBC Proms
00:28:33
Speaker
say, example, Skriab and Sonata for left hand, people sort of forget that he lost action of his right hand through injury, so he just wrote something for himself for his left hand.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, they barely did not, yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
So yeah, so it's always really very interesting, and so I think what I would quite like as well as an opportunity to use this podcast to show yourself off as well, could you talk a bit more about some of the upcoming projects?
00:29:00
Speaker
You've already mentioned a little bit with your
00:29:03
Speaker
work with the avrsm but also sort of other concerts because i know there's a very fancy one which i want you to show up to everyone else um so yeah so yeah well it's been lovely and obviously me and you met um during lockdown didn't we um and so you've obviously seen a real shift in my career as well as you know i have and it's lovely you know people think because i was you know i had albums out and things and i was a
00:29:26
Speaker
you know, in inverted commas, deemed a success, you know, in the industry.
00:29:31
Speaker
But people forgot, or I think people assumed that I was playing with orchestras and I wasn't.
00:29:37
Speaker
You know, I didn't do my professional orchestral debut till 2020.
00:29:41
Speaker
So that kind of puts, sorry, 2021.
00:29:43
Speaker
So that puts it into...
00:29:47
Speaker
context i think people the industry didn't realize that i i wasn't being booked to play these concertos that i knew and love and knew i would be able to do very well and then to to give my interpretation of these um so yeah and i and i remembered saying to my to my manager during lockdown i said you know what i said i think i need to make an exit to make an entrance
00:30:12
Speaker
And that's what we did.
00:30:13
Speaker
So we went quiet for two and a bit years.
00:30:15
Speaker
And luckily, I do a lot of public speaking, as you know, for businesses.
00:30:19
Speaker
So, you know, the bailiffs weren't at the door, thankfully, and I'm very in the lucky position with that.
00:30:25
Speaker
So I didn't need to perform and I didn't perform.
00:30:27
Speaker
And then when the pandemic lifted and obviously it took ages for everything to get back to normal post-pandemic, especially in our industry, because things were still closed for ages and whatever.
00:30:36
Speaker
But then all of a sudden, my manager was able to say,
00:30:39
Speaker
It was like a clean slate and it was like people, you know, remember him.
00:30:43
Speaker
And then all of a sudden I started getting booked by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the, you know, the BBC, you know, BBC orchestras and all of these people who,
00:30:54
Speaker
knew about me and thought I was wonderful and had said, oh yes, you must come and play with us, but it never came to fruition.
00:31:01
Speaker
But then all of a sudden, bam, bam, bam, it started.
00:31:04
Speaker
And then now I'm very excited and very lucky, I feel very honoured to have been asked to
00:31:10
Speaker
perform at the BBC proms in London this summer, which will be wonderful.
00:31:14
Speaker
And it's, you know, for any listeners who aren't familiar with the BBC proms, it's the biggest classical music festival in the world.
00:31:22
Speaker
It's 88 concerts that run from July right through to September.
00:31:27
Speaker
in London's iconic Royal Albert Hall, which is a huge venue, you know, six and a half thousand seats.
00:31:32
Speaker
And my poem is going to be televised and it's streamed live on radio.
00:31:37
Speaker
So, you know, it's a really big, exciting thing.
00:31:38
Speaker
I mean, I'm nervous about it, Ben, I'm not going to lie, but I'm also very excited and I feel very ready.
00:31:44
Speaker
You know, I feel ready to do this.
00:31:46
Speaker
This is a concerto.
00:31:48
Speaker
I'm playing Reveille Piano Concerto for left hand.
00:31:49
Speaker
It's a concerto I've played many times.
00:31:52
Speaker
And what I love particularly
00:31:54
Speaker
particularly about me doing this upcoming prom, is the fact that the last time a one-handed pianist played this work was by Paul Wittgenstein himself, who was the commissioner of Ravel's Concertive Left Hand.
00:32:11
Speaker
And he played it at the proms in 1951.
00:32:14
Speaker
So I'm the second one-handed pianist to play this.
00:32:18
Speaker
And obviously lots of two-handed pianists have played it in between, but I'm the second one-handed pianist to play this since Wittgenstein did in 1951.
00:32:25
Speaker
So for me, it's a real full circle moment.
00:32:30
Speaker
And I'm really excited about that.
00:32:32
Speaker
I'm really excited.
00:32:34
Speaker
It's going to be really, really wonderful.
00:32:36
Speaker
And it's also just quite nice that
00:32:38
Speaker
we could also try and market it as a historically informed performance as well, which is always very funny with this kind of repertoire as well.
00:32:43
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah, no, exactly.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yes, and it's going to be utterly wonderful.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I will be glued to my TV when it's happening as well.
00:32:50
Speaker
So you have to remind us the exact date because I don't know if it will be the same date.
00:32:55
Speaker
I have a feeling it's going out live.
00:32:58
Speaker
I presented the proms years ago on television and when I was presenting the prom it got televised about a week later than the actual concert.
00:33:06
Speaker
Whereas I have a feeling, someone said to me, I think they're going out as live so I don't know, I will find out and obviously we can put it in the show notes or whatever with the podcast.
00:33:14
Speaker
Wonderful, so I'm looking forward to that.
00:33:16
Speaker
And I'm very aware that me and you can just chat away for ages and ages but we do have to try and keep focus and be
00:33:23
Speaker
helpful to our listeners and give them bits of advice.
00:33:25
Speaker
So I think what would just be quite a nice way to help sort of round off our discussion is what sort of bits of advice would you give to young disabled artists, either say like with similar disabilities yourself or just other disabilities broadly, if they're wanting to enter into the music world or go through education and music and so on, what bits of advice would you give them to travel through this?
Advice for Young Disabled Artists
00:33:47
Speaker
I would say know your worth.
00:33:50
Speaker
And if you believe that you can do it, absolutely stick to your guns.
00:33:54
Speaker
You know, I was told countless times to, you know, you can't be a concert pianist.
00:33:58
Speaker
You're not going to be a concert pianist.
00:33:59
Speaker
You can't possibly have a career doing it.
00:34:01
Speaker
And I knew, I knew, I don't know how I knew, but I knew in my gut that I could.
00:34:07
Speaker
I knew I could have a career as a one-handed concert pianist.
00:34:11
Speaker
And so I'm a big believer in kind of not always listening to the people who...
00:34:16
Speaker
who know, you know, to absolutely listen to your own gut and your own, because it's only you who's going to go on and do it and achieve.
00:34:24
Speaker
So I would say definitely to, you know, to believe that anything is possible, like I did, and I still believe that.
00:34:32
Speaker
Wonderful, and that's an utterly fantastic note, and I think
00:34:36
Speaker
Realistically, I can't add anything else beyond that, except for everyone, they should check out Nicholas McCarthy's stuff online.
00:34:42
Speaker
As he said, he's already appearing in the proms this summer, as well as also the wonderful work that he's done with the ABRSM.
00:34:48
Speaker
He has multiple albums, and I'd highly recommend you listen to them.
00:34:52
Speaker
And from myself and from Nicholas, thank you very much for listening, and we will catch you next time.
00:34:57
Speaker
Thank you.
00:35:07
Speaker
Able Voices is a production of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education, led by me, Dr. Rhoda Bernard, the founding managing director.
00:35:16
Speaker
It is produced by Daniel Martinez del Campo.
00:35:19
Speaker
The intro music is by Kai Levin, and our closing song is by Sebastian Batista.
00:35:24
Speaker
Kai and Sebastian are students in the arts education programs at the Berkeley Institute for Accessible Arts Education.
00:35:32
Speaker
If you would like to learn more about our work, find us online at berkeley.edu slash B-I-A-A-E or email us at B-I-A-A-E at berkeley, that's L-E-E dot E-D-U.