<<  -- 3 --  Gordon Rumson    VLADISLAV KOVALSKY

Currently the Executive Director of the Monmouth Conservatory of Music in Red Bank, New Jersey, just outside New York City, Mr Kovalsky has performed widely in Europe, America, Canada, Japan and Korea. He has taught many students at all levels, giving countless masterclasses and lectures, and performing at many festivals. In all of these activities he brings with him the ideals and methods of his experience.

One feature of this is that music is not background noise, but something to be attended to and concentrated upon. That's already quite different from so much around us. Vividness is obligatory.

Listen -- example 2 -- Scriabin: Poem, Op 32 No 2

(Live performance. Musical Mosaic 15, November 23, 2003, Calgary, Alberta. Engineered by Harold Harrison and Gordon Rumson. Used with permission. Steinway and Sons Piano Courtesy of Irene Besse Keyboards Ltd.)

Vladislav Kovalsky, who is a Steinway Artist, is also a superb teacher and one of his great gifts is to adjust his comments to the level and potential of the student. In every case he deals gently with the student and guides them towards a better understanding. A favourite adage of his is 'Those who listen better, play better.' One of the most amazing things is how he can demonstrate simply and effectively how to listen better, using imagination and historical knowledge for the same purpose.

At one master class a young student played the Prelude in B minor of Chopin and Mr Kovalsky most good naturedly said 'Let's have a better make of cello.' But he also spoke of the sound: 'Sound has qualities of all that exists in the world -- taste, smell, roughness, smoothness, you can have a triangle sound and a round sound. Here in this prelude it is round, spherical -- it circles forever.'

[Listen -- example 3] -- Robert Schumann: Romance Op 28 No 2

(Recorded June 2002. Engineered by Gordon Rumson. Used with permission. Recorded upon a 1902 Gerhard Heintzman Grand Piano. Restored by and courtesy of Artur Gieck, Calgary Piano House.)

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