Philadelphia based pianist, Adam Neiman, will be performing at the Music in the Loft on Saturday, January 17^th at 8:00 pm and Sunday, January 18^th at 3:00 pm.  He will be joined by fellow Julliard graduate violinist Gary Levinson on January 18^th to perform works by Brahms, Fauré, Prokofiev and Matthew Tommasini.

Having made his concerto debut at the age of 11 in Los Angeles’ Royce Hall, Neiman has gone on to perform as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Belgrade, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas and San Francisco.  In 1995, Neiman became the youngest ever winner of the Gilmore Young Artist Award.  The following year he went on to win the Young Concert Artists International Auditions.  Mr. Neiman has been recognized by the Chicago Tribune as a “genuine rarity [who] plays with imagination and authority.”  Throughout his young career, Adam Neiman has also continued to devote time to composition.  On Saturday, January 17^th, we will have to opportunity to hear his work“Vision” along with works by Beethoven, Franck, Ravel and Szymanowski.

Continuing with Music in the Loft’s artist introductions, I present the following Q & A with pianist and composer Adam Neiman.

DRJ: As stated in your credo on your website, your original intention was to become a composer.  What was your original motivation to create and how has that evolved over the years?  Also, how does it differ from that which drives you as a performer?

AN: When I first started in music I wanted to be a composer because I loved the idea of exploring the sounds I heard in my head. I wanted to find a way to bring them out of me, like giving birth. Because I became a pianist, my time has always been limited for composition and it took a slight backseat to my performance activities. Yet I have found that the process of composing is, in some ways, similar to the process of interpreting music, in that there is an inevitable process of translation that occurs when deeply involving myself in the emotional and intellectual impetus that inspired a given piece of music, whether it be my own or someone else's. It's like getting to know someone: while there are personality differences and/or language barriers that divide you, when you transcend those differences and explore the core of who we are we find that we are built quite similarly, and this is what we hold on to in a friendship.Composing is like becoming friends with oneself; performing is like becoming friends with someone else. The end result is the same: you feel a sense of communion and deep spirituality, yet the means to that end reveal diversecolors and atmospheres, and provide a different human experience altogether.  For me life would be far less interesting if I only did one or the other.

DRJ: Even with ademanding performance schedule you have managed to compose several works.  What is your creative process as it pertains to composing?  Do you escape the city for a secluded cabin in the woods or does the city noise add itself to your process?

AN: I compose only when I am inspired to do so, and there can be stretches of months or years between works. I find that I can compose in both a busy noise-filled environment or a quiet secluded environment: it makes very little difference to me, since I am one who can quite easily concentrate inwards and filter out the external environment.

DRJ: As an artist, what overlying statement do you strive to communicate to your listening audience through both your compositions and your performances?

AN: I can't say thatthere is any one overlying statement that I try and reveal through my performances, because for me it is much more important and fulfilling to try and act as a medium for the composer, so he/she can reveal what he/she wants to say, and this varies from piece to piece. My thought is that my individual emotions and intellect are the least important thing to bring across to the audience, yet my own emotions and intellect are what enable me to understand and transmit the message of the composer to the audience. It's like acting: you can use your own emotions and life experiences to help you relate to the character, but ultimately is has to be about that character you are portraying, and this only happens through a synthesis of the individual's emotions with the composer's/author's. It shouldn't be an autobiography of the performer.

DRJ: At what age did you feel that you truly found your voice as a performer and as a composer?  Also, how did you know that your voice had been discovered?

AN: When I was 8 years old I found my voice as a performer. In fact, when I've listened back to recordings of my playing from that age I hear in them the same vitality and emotional power that I bring to my performances as an adult. The only difference is technical precision and intellectual wisdom that help choreograph the structure of my performances better in my adulthood. As a composer I found my voice right away, at 5 years old, because the music that came out of me then was honest and revealing of who I was at the time. As I change and grow, my musical voice changes and grows with me, so I am always in touch with that genuine voice. Certainly my technique as a composer grows with every work I write, but even my earlier works come from a place of honesty and purity. May be this is because I have never had to write anything that I wasn't inspired to write. As for how I knew my voice had been discovered, I knew simply because I heard it singing through my music. I've never relied on anyone else to tell me that I've attained this or that; I rely on my own judgment and I am brutally honest with myself, so I trust myself implicitly.

DRJ: What advice would you give an aspiring performer in search of finding their voice within the classical music genre?

AN: The advice I give young performers trying to "find their voice" is to attain as much technical mastery of their instrument as possible. Without that fluency, one's consciousness remains locked up, imprisoned by doubts, weakness, and anxiety. When mastery is attained, only then can the true release occur. The trick is to never allow one's emotional core to be dried up by the process of practicing, otherwise one can attain technical mastery and then find that there is very little or nothing to actual express with all that equipment. This is what happens quite often with performers, even with many of those who have attained stardom, and as a result those performers contrive a false sort of creativity in order to cover up for the major spiritual deficit in their music making. One should live a rich life. Yes, there should be intense discipline and focus, but there must also be love, pain, heartbreak, joy, success, failure, etc...in order for the person to even have a shot at expressing the full range of emotions that music contains to power to express. The performer will ultimately only be as interesting and inspiring as the person. A boring person will be a boring or fake performer, etc...so one must become the highest version of oneself as a human being. Then the artist one becomes has the ability to elevate and transport the listener.

DRJ: On Saturday, January 17^th, you will be performing your piece “Vision” for solopiano.  Can you tell me more about that piece?  What was your inspiration for “Vision” and what picture did you hope to paint while writing it?

AN: Vision is a work I wrote in 2004 that was based on a "vision" I had while daydreaming.  I thought of the wind, and toyed with the notion that perhaps as it touches our skin and then passes on, perhaps it breaks off a small fragment of our soul and carries that fragment with it. This piece is like a cinematic presentation of the journey of that soul fragment traveling on the wind, traveling through many mountains and valleys, in light and dark, and maybe even passing on out of this world and into the next. It is a mystical and spiritual work that tries to encapsulate a very large experience in a very short time span (the work only lasts 6 minutes).

DRJ: As part of your program with violinist Gary Levinson on Sunday, January 18^th you will be featuring a piece by the 08-09 Music in the Loft composer-in-residence Matthew Tommasini.  Can you tell me a little bit about his piece?

AN: The work seems to be beautiful with the piano acting as a luminous figure providing the harmonic backbone of the work while the violin expresses rhetorical sentiments through fragmented phrases. Should be a fun work to listen to.

We hope you will join us for these exciting concerts!  Please check our website at www.musicintheloft.org for additional information and directions to the venue.