Gabriela Montero's Gift

How A Piano Virtuosa Rocks The Music World By Improvising Old Classics

(CBS)  Her performances are often half and half: first, the classics, played as they were written, and then improvisation, based on a suggestion from the audience.

"The reason why I started asking the public for a theme was because they wouldn’t believe me otherwise. They just think it’s something that’s been constructed, written, and I’ve learned," she explains.

"With the public the improvisation brings this closeness and this interaction. And we live in a very interactive world. So I think it’s very appropriate now to start breaking barriers and to bring this free element into the classical world," Gabriela adds.

Asked what her process is, how her mind works, Gabriela says, "I don’t know. My interviews tend to be quite short because it’s always the same answer. I don’t know how it happens."

Safer tested her talent for making it up off the cuff, suggesting some popular themes to play with.

Asked to play the "Star Wars" theme, Gabriela took the theme not back to the future, but back to the past.

"Do I detect a little Bach and Beethoven in that Star Wars?" Safer asks.

"Oh absolutely, absolutely," Gabriela says.

Asked to play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" as a tango, she improvised and played the nursery rhyme in a Latin style, with a big finish.

And "Yesterday," the lovely Beatles anthem, took on equal parts McCartney and Montero.

"You say it goes different places. But you send it different places," Safer notes.

"I don’t really send it. It sends me, you know, the more I get into it. And let’s say, after a few improvisations it just becomes really wild. Something takes over which leads me in some direction," she explains.

She was born in Caracas, Venezuela, where her musical life started, literally, in the crib. Her mother taped Gabrielita figuring out songs, like "Happy Birthday" and such on a toy piano.

At the time of the recording, her mother estimates Gabriela was 17 or 18 months old. The toddler could play the piano and pick out a tune before she could even walk.

By age 11, she was at a crossroads: already a big fish in a small musical pond. Her parents decided to bring her to the United States to study.

"I think they felt it was their responsibility to provide everything they could for me to develop. And that’s what they did," Gabriela says.

The family settled in Miami, where as a teenager, she was profiled on television. It was a carefree portrait of the artist as a young woman.

But privately, there was doubt and frustration. Gabriela’s teacher questioned her talent, and belittled her improvising.

"I was told that there was nothing special about it. In a way, almost making it sound like it was embarrassing. And in classical music, there was no space for this. So I didn't. And I started to feel ashamed," she recalls.

Yet she dutifully rehearsed the classics, note for note. But as her teen years gave way to young adulthood, she soured on the musical life altogether.

"Those were the hard years. Those were the years where I really lost my way," she says.

For two years, she didn't touch a piano. She became a nomad, wandering back to Caracas, then back to the United States, to Canada, to Europe.

[goodsamarata]

It is because of Gabriela Montero that I learned classical music had always had elements of improvisations in it until someone in the early 20 century came up with the idea that classical scores should be rigidly interpreted. How boring it is to hear the same pieces done exactly the same way by just about everyone and that's why I avoid going to classic music concerts. There are, of course, some classical pieces that I just can't resist seeing them played live. But I hope Montero will inspire a change in this industry before it goes the way of Catholic priests who are not allowed to marry: Forgotten and ignored by most, while driving newcomers away because of their frigid ideology.

[kiwiak]

It is so sad that we as people do not understand that music is alive. Gabriela Montero gives new life to old music, not in an effort to interpret the original writers vision but to expand it. I really enjoyed hearing what she is doing with the music. Listen to all the Masters, once they mastered the music they extemporised.

Inspiring !!!
THANK YOU CBS
Please provide the video online !!!
Classical music needs to reinvent itself and hopefully this is a sign of better times ahead.
d|b