 Pianist Maria Joao Pires and
singer Barbara Bonney may have very different outward
personalities but their approach to supporting their
respective arts through education and
performance are strikingly similar. by Abigail Wilsher
Regular Classic FM listeners
will undoubtedly be familiar with the pianist Maria Joao Pires
and the singer Barbara Bonney. For these are world class
performers, well respected by audiences, musicians and critics
alike, who both possess a most exquisite talent. A chance to
see performances by both at this year's Brighton Festival
should definitely not be missed.
On the surface, the two appear
to be very different in their approach to performance and
their personal aspirations. Bonney loves giving interviews and
is exuberant and bubbly. Pires, on the other hand does not
have much to do with the press and appears quite reclusive.
She conveys a somewhat detached image as though believing the
performances should speak for themselves.
In reality, however, the two
are more similar. Far from being aloof and dismissive, Pires
is simply down to earth and uninterested in living the life of
fame. She would rather be at her farm in rural Belgais,
Portugal making olive oil, than having her ego pandered to by
a bunch of luvvies. Yet far from being egocentric and self
absorbed, Bonney is keen to pass on her knowledge as much as
she possibly can, to encourage and enrich young singers who
themselves may become the big opera stars of tomorrow.
Bonney was born in Montclair,
New Jersey in 1956. She began piano studies at the age of five
and took up the cello three years later. At 13, she moved with
her family to Maine, where she joined the Portland Symphony
Youth Orchestra. After two years as a Music and German major
at the University of New Hampshire, she decided to spend her
junior year abroad at the University of Salzburg to perfect
her German studies. This proved to be a turning point in her
life, for while in Salzburg she enrolled in the vocal
programme at the Mozarteum and became a soloist with several
Salzburg choral groups. She subsequently secured a repertory
position with the Darmstadt City Opera in Germany, and
following her debut as Anna in Nicolai's Merry Wives of
Windsor appeared in almost every production with that company
during the next four years, singing 40 roles.
Pires was born in Lisbon in
1944 and began playing the piano at the age of three giving
her first public performance when she was just five-years-old.
At sixteen, she graduated from the Lisbon Conservatory, having
studied Piano, Composition, Harmony and Theory with Professor
Campos Coelho and Francine Benoit. She won a Scholarship from
the Gulbenkian Foundation, giving her the chance of a lifetime
to study Piano with Rosl Schmidt at the Musikakadamie and with
Karl Engel in Hanover.
Like Bonney, Pires is keen to
pass on her knowledge and sees the promotion of the arts as
being an important part of her life. Her farm in Belgais is
home to a whole variety of musical and artistic masterclasses
and the 2001 programme makes for fascinating reading. Pires
herself will be taking a course entitled The Phrase, a 10-day
course for pianists in which the finer points of phraseology
from the works of Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt
are studied. Pires has also invited guest lecturers to assist
with her classes and to give classes on recording techniques,
violin concertos and the visual arts.
In an interview given in The
Piano in 1998, Pires talked about the lack of cultural
awareness and arts promotion in Portugal. Whether it was this
in particular that spurred her on to provide facilities for
young musicians in her home land is moot. Her attitude to
performance is quite surprising: far from being the 'be all
and end all', she sees it as a means to an end. She admits to
choosing the life and career of a concert pianist to fund her
real interest - that of musical seminars and associated
projects at her farm. In the interview in 1998, she was quoted
as saying, "Music belongs to life, not the other way
around. I couldn't manage without music, but you don't need to
travel to have it."
In a similar vein, Bonney has
built up a fine reputation for herself in all the major opera
houses around the world but despite this, admits to preferring
small venues and performing songs with just a piano
accompaniment. She herself was recently heard to comment:
"Opera and I have never truly bonded." She is
passionate about teaching and freely admits it is this which
makes her truly happy.
In a recent interview with BBC
Music Magazine, she was quoted as saying: "If I quit
singing in ten years, which I probably will do, I shall have a
career which is something I actually do best. Helping people,
giving out the amazing things I've been given, is exciting.
And that is what we should be doing with music - empowering
people, taking obstacles away. Isn't that what art is, or
should be, if it didn't get wrapped up in the mess and ego of
it all?"
copyright New Insight 2000
|
