Pianist Kathleen Supové’s career resists labels and easy summaries. She’s an award-winning performer, a soloist with a busy schedule, a sought-after collaborator, and a champion of contemporary composers. The list of works she’s commissioned is lengthy and continues to grow. She’s a rebel and an iconoclast — but what else would one expect from an artist who presents her solo concerts as a constantly evolving multimedia experience which goes by the title "The Exploding Piano"? Electronics, theatrical elements, vocal rants, performance art, staging, and collaboration with artists from other disciplines are all permitted. Equally at home at Carnegie Hall and clubs like the Cutting Room, the Brooklyn resident is also a member of the art-rock band Doctor Nerve.
Supové brings "The Exploding Piano" to San Francisco’s Center for New Music on Friday, October 17, for a program called “Digital Debussy.” The concert is presented by The Artist Sessions, a relatively new music-and-conversation series on the San Francisco concert scene which shares Supové’s explosive goals when it comes to redefining the recital experience. Conceived, curated, and hosted by pianist Lara Downes, who is also known for her own brand of boundary-breaking performances and recordings.
The Artist Sessions have given Bay Area audiences up-close-and-personal encounters with trendsetting artists such as Christopher O'Riley, Gabriel Kahane, and Anthony de Mare. The series is currently a pop-up enterprise, with shows scheduled this season at a range of venues, including the Center for New Music, the Asian Art Museum, and the Hotel Rex Salon. Guests this season include composer Mohammed Fairouz, the Del Sol Quartet, pianist Awadagin Pratt, and cellist Erik Friedland.
Here are a few brief answers Supové gave to my questions about her show.
How did you develop the concept of the Exploding Piano? What does it mean, and which aspects of the traditional piano recital do you think are most seriously in need of blowing up?
I came up with the title for my enterprise, "The Exploding Piano," with the help of a friend who worked in advertising. I loved that it could mean exploding conceptions or exploding with emotion. Taken in the context of pianist-doing-a-recital, it was supposed to explode ideas of how one should dress, and even more crucially, what one should play. Things have changed some — people dress a little better, there’s a little imagination, but the musical fare served up at recitals by even the most wild acting and looking soloists is still pretty traditional. I always wonder how much they’re getting tired of it. I see myself aiming for a different kind of explosion: one where you break away from ensembles and institutions, have visionary and often solitary projects and journeys, and they may not fit into any of those institutions neatly.
You’re known for the theatricality of your performances, as well as your unique personal style. Tell me about how they connect with your musicianship.
There is a moment when you're preparing a piece to be performed when you see how it should be “delivered.” The expression, or expressions, in the piece take shape musically, physically, and pianistically. The pyramid of priorities stacks up, but also you see it as a totality: what the mood would be, what kind of theatrical conceit might frame it, and what you might look like as you’re delivering it, in terms of wardrobe, etc… There is variation from piece to piece, but of course the identity of the interpreter has its own integrity, and having that integrity gives credibility to the interpretation as it’s put forward. It’s uncanny how that can happen, yes?
Regarding the Digital Debussy project, you’ve said “Debussy suggests a state of mind, one that is envisioned in a crystalline way by each individual. Each of us sees it differently.” Can you elaborate on how the works you’ll be bringing to The Artist Sessions next Friday reflect upon Debussy's state of mind?
Well, it probably says more about the states of mind of the composers whose works I’m performing, though I’d certainly love to know what was in Debussy’s mind. We have three composers represented on October 17, and each revealed something about him or herself in how they responded to the Debussy mandate. Annie Gosfield said she almost, and maybe she really did, lose her mind grappling with Debussy, when she wrote her piece. Maybe the “demon” she was fighting was how to infuse a pianistic palette of a bygone era with her demonic and ultra-modern compositional energy. I think she won! Daniel Felsenfeld is a tremendously skilled and inspired composer, and he turned “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” into a three-part, personal confessional, not only in his program notes, but in the music itself. And who else would have thought of having a political movement for “Golliwog’s”! Finally, Randy [Woolf, Supové’s husband] channeled Debussy the world traveler, but stripped of the Romantic flourishes, not only the world music aspect, but an inner state of consciousness traveling from sector to sector, and ending up on a different planet, greatly resembling the one you left. I can relate to all of those aspects.
I also want to mention that while the Digital Debussy project is my baby, so to speak, I also have a group of composers that I consider to be in my own artistic inner circle, and Neil Rolnick is on that list. I'm performing a piece of his that is a signature work of mine, Digits, along with a new piece called Dynamic Ram and Concert Grand on October 15, at the same venue, when Neil will be performing a group of electroacoustic keyboard works.