Our next destination was Israel. It is a country with the incredible history, a real melting pot of cultures and nationalities, and one with never-ending disputes. It seems that no problem there can be solved. Jews, as well as Muslims and Christians are making out that this corner of the world is rightfully theirs, and they don’t want to find any compromises. That land has been under so many governments, has seen so many different religious confessions, and all of them have left something really meaningful and important for their religion and culture. Jews were the first to live there; then came Arabs and ruled there; Christianity started there – so everyone has a claim on that land. They all are living together, in a very small territory, none of them really like each other because of the sufferings their nations have caused and are still causing others, and still they are there. Still they are learning each day how to deal with each other, their children quite often go to the same schools, they have to walk the same streets, and yet everyone tries to avoid sorting out that mixture.
Israel was the most difficult place for us in regard of organization. We started our attempts to organize our concerts and master-classes during the summer and had no success at all. We got either no reply, or the suggestion to ask someone else. Sometimes we would hear that the project seemed very interesting, but their students had the opportunity to perform for the top-stars, and we are far too young to give master-classes. Everyone in the world has a keen interest in this country and it seems to be overwhelming people there. As a result, nobody needs anything, they are just fed up.
So we tried 10 to 15 different places: schools, colleges, conservatoires, universities, etc., and we got a refusal everywhere. We were almost in despair and I did not know which door to knock at when finally we contacted a director in a musical school in a small place called Qiriyat Bialik, and she was the first person who was absolutely happy to help us. She organized two master-classes and recitals (for saxophone and for the piano) in an other town called Qiriyat Mozkin and one piano master-class and concert in her own town, where she has not got a saxophone class unfortunately. We also contacted the Russian Cultural Centre in Tel-Aviv and they were absolutely delighted to have us as performers for one night. Finally we arranged quite a busy schedule for our Israeli trip and it all went really well and was quite interesting.
17/03/2012
We came to Tel-Aviv first to rehearse at the Russian Cultural Centre. A great piano, very friendly administration, a nice concert hall were waiting for us there. We had a couple of hours for work as we were trying to check the acoustic, and I tried to get used to the piano as it was quite new and stiff at first sight; and we tried to find the right pulse and tempis together with Vitaly. We proposed solo piano works for the first half of the concert and the duet as the second half.
18/03/2012
We had to travel to Qiriyat Mozkin, which is a small place near Haifa, where Vitaly gave his master-class and we played a duo recital after it. There were 7 saxophonists, around 8-9-10 years old, from one teacher. He teaches both clarinet and saxophone. I can`t say that the level was great there. Not at all. They hardly knew what music is about and all had difficulties with the sound and techniques. It was not called a school, but they call it “conservatoire” and children study there for 10 years and can go to music college afterwards. But the whole environment was rather sad in this place. We found ragged and tacky walls, a very old piano in the hall, constant rebuilding of the corridors and some rooms.
There were not many people in the audience during the concert, around 20 all in all. People are not used to going to concerts at all, especially not in such small places. There are lots of wonderful concerts going on in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, but tickets are really expensive. We were told the cheapest one is around $70-100 so not a lot of people could afford it. The other reason for the small audience is that all the concerts are quite late: around 9pm (I think because of the climate: most of the time it is too hot to play during the day or early evening) so children are sleeping at this time. As it is possible to imagine, children who are studying music at schools have no idea what being at the concert is like.
It was not easy to play on that old Yamaha for me: the sound of the piano was really uneven, it was loud and disorderly. We did as much as we could and we had some success as we could see from the following events.
19/03/2012
We had to go back to Tel-Aviv to play a concert at the Russian Cultural Centre there. During the rehearsal I thought about NLP, I tried to imagine how I will start the Theme in Symphonic Etudes by Schumann. That Theme is one of the most difficult bits in the whole piano repertoire. How to find the equilibrium, the right tempo, how to play with a great deep sound but as someone would sing it, how to form a structure. All kind of difficulties are in that Theme. So, it needs a very special concentration before you go on stage. The conditions around helped a lot: we had two hours for the rehearsal and the first one I spent on my solo piece, which came out very successful during the performance. People were saying that they were really moved by it, which was a great compliment as it is almost a 30-minute composition with a complicated structure. After that Vitaly played solo one movement from the Bach Violin sonata, and then we played together François Born “Concert Fantasy on the Themes of Carmen”, Vocalize by Rachmaninov and Devil`s Rag by Jean Matitia.
It was a very successful performance. Full house, where there were Russian-Jewish musicians, intelligentsia, who immigrated from the Soviet Union years ago. Some of them did it because of anti-Semitism in the USSR, which hasn’t really stopped even now, some of them were keen to move away from the country where the quality of life is one of the lowest in the world. We felt great responsibility about that performance. All those people are missing their home land despite the fact that life is better than anywhere else, but all of them have some memories from their youth. So, we really wanted to give some pleasure to those people. Immigration is not an easy experience for anyone. Despite the fact that we enjoy being out of Russia, we always feel that we differ greatly from the indigenous people of the new country to which we move. We are always foreigners, people with different mentality, habits and background. Every immigrant has difficult stages at first, and if they survive they are much stronger than those who have not moved. So the energetic response, with gratitude, delight and joy was in the air. All those Jewish grannies, who used to go to conservatories in Moscow, Kiev, or wherever to listen to Richter, Gilels, Oistrakh, they were all there in the audience. The main word after the concert was “gift” as they were thankful for that present that we gave them by playing the concert.
20/03/2012
The last two days we spent near Haifa again. My master-class and the solo recital were planned for that day in Qiriyat Mozkin, at the same conservatoire where Vitaly did it the day before. I had two students, one hour each, and then played a concert. The first girl was with Haydn Sonata. While playing she had difficulties with memory, she sounded as if she was a little cat who is afraid of everything. I immediately told her about three problems – pulse, sound and understanding what we are doing. So I said all notes and right fingering is the last thing of what we have to worry about on the stage. Finally she started to play really well and I was really surprised with it.
I got a letter from her some days later:
Dear and honorable Maria Nemtsova, I am sorry to bother you, but you gave me a master class today (in Motzkin) and I did not have the chance to properly thank you… What you told me about Haydn’s sonata (in D major) opened my mind to wonderful new things, and I just know that it will help me improve my playing so much! Also the way you play and the way you treat the piano – it is noticeable from the first second you touch it… It affected me greatly! And your concert at the end was definitely the most wonderful playing I have ever heard…! I know all the words I will write will not be enough… so I will simply say again THANK YOU! In admiration, Michal.
And her Mother sent me an e-mail as well with these words:
Dear Maria,
Thank you very much for the great master class you gave today to Michal (The Haydn Sonata in D major). She said she will never forget it or whatever you taught her.
That was such a great surprise! Not because of the sweet words, but because it is possible to change a student`s attitude to what they are doing. After the shaking hands, lots of mistakes and nerves this girl started playing in a very decent way. Of course it needs a lot of concentration on the teacher`s part and the wish to learn from the student, but it is more than possible.
The next boy played Chopin’s Valse and had no such great musicality. But still I tried to draw some pictures about Chopin`s character, time, environment, etc to make him play more elegantly, care about each note and turn of the melody, listen to the accompaniment that should be supportive and not disturbing.
The solo recital went really well. The piano was horrible, the same quality as it was the other day during Vitaly`s concert, but I tried not to think about it. The strange thing is – when we have in mind the exact sound that we need and want from that particular place in music, we can do it with any bad instrument. I mean I am not bothered by the quality of the instrument as much as pianists usually are. After the concert one woman wrote to me:
The Piano is awful. So we said that you made it sound for the first time in its history as if it was a great piano. I think that one can more than appreciate your playing.
I was really grateful to receive that message as it is another proof that it is possible to play on any instrument and still impress the audience. That time there were many more people in the audience as there had been rumors after our concert with Vitaly.
21/03/2012
The next day I had a master-class and a concert solo+duo in Qiriyat Bialik, the next town to the previous one. The level of that conservatoire was completely different. All the students were highly professional, all of them played with great technique and understanding. The director of that school cares a lot about the teacher`s level and education. And it works. I had 5 students with List’s Consolation and Rhapsody, Chopin’s Scherzo, Debussy’s Bergamasque Suite, Medtner’s Improvisation, and Beethoven’s sonata. It was a very interesting and productive master-class, where there were some challenges for me as well, where I had to think about the interpretation, how to improve the artistry of some students, etc, etc.
After that I played the first part of the concert solo and we played together. They don’t have a saxophone class in that school, so we were hoping to encourage them to open it. Almost a full house and lots of good musicians in the audience did not give us a chance to lose concentration or relax.
Such was our last concert in Israel.