KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

French-born pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet is a busy guy. His touring schedule this year takes him across the globe in orchestral, solo recital, and chamber performances. It’s a schedule that would intimidate or exhaust many, though not Thibaudet, who seems most happy travelling and playing. The pianist finds himself equally at home recording scholarly projects such as the complete solo piano music of Eric Satie, accompanying friends such as Renée Fleming in art song recordings, as well as more commercially-aware projects such as the soundtracks to the films Atonement and the 2005 production of Pride and Prejudice. Possessing a great love for fashion, his elegant concert attire as well as his everyday clothes are designed by Vivienne Westwood.

Graciously taking time out of his busy schedule last week, Mr. Thibaudet talked to Christopher Levin of KCMetropolis about his multifaceted career and his upcoming performance for the Harriman-Jewell Series on January 28th at the Folly Theater. It was a wonderful conversation with Mr. Thibaudet, who spoke briskly and enthusiastically in perfect vernacular English. This is part one of our conversation.

Christopher Levin You keep a very busy schedule with orchestral, chamber, and solo dates scattered across the globe. This season I’ve counted at least 37 different touring engagements in your IMG bio and read that in the past you have played more than 100 shows in a season. How do you find the energy for such a demanding schedule and what spurs you on to program so many dates nearly every season?

Jean-Yves Thibaudet You know, I really don’t feel... Well, you probably know more about my season than I do. [laughs] I just go to places and I don’t count them up at the end of the evening. I keep saying that I do too much and that I’ll take down the numbers, but I don’t think I do. I don’t think I can. At the end of the day, as long as I’m enjoying myself—and I really think I do—as long as every time I go onstage, it’s with a smile and looking forward to the performance, that’s really probably the most important thing for an artist. If ever one day I go onstage thinking, ‘Oh my God, oh no, another concert, I really don’t feel like playing tonight,’ well, then I think I would start to worry about it. And I have the energy, I mean, I’m tired sometimes, but I think I’m even more tired when I am home and have nothing to do. I just like that kind of rolling and going around and traveling. It’s such an exciting life, such a wonderful life. And to perform music, such great beautiful music, with a beautiful orchestra, great conductors, friends—it’s the most privileged, incredible life. I don’t see why I should do less unless, as I said, if I’m not enjoying it anymore. Right now, I enjoy it. I like the variety. I like to play with orchestras, to do recitals, to do things with collaborators, and soundtracks, recordings... That way, I never get bored. If I was doing the same thing all the time I probably would get bored after awhile, but I do such different things all the time, that I don’t have time to get bored, [laughs] I just have to practice to keep it up and that’s it. 

CL One of your last recordings featured the Gershwin Concertos, the F Major and Rhapsody in Blue. Could you talk about how that project came about?

JYT Well, Gershwin always has been one of my really favorite composers and also a composer that was always present in my life and in my repertoire since very early—I think I was 14 or 15 when I played both the Concerto and Rhapsody for the first time in France. So, it really was something that was close to my heart and I’d wanted to record them for many, many years. It just was never the right time. [...] And I have to say it came really from [Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conductor] Marin Alsop. One day she told me that she knew the existence of a big jazz band version, like a Paul Whiteman version, of the concerto. I knew the one of the Rhapsody in Blue, of course, the original one, before it was orchestrated for the symphony, but not the concerto. I thought it was written for the orchestra and never anything else. She said, ‘No, no. Two or three years after the premier in ‘25, Whiteman asked Ferde Grofé [Whiteman’s arranger, who also helped Gershwin prepare the original version of Rhapsody in Blue] to make a version for the big jazz band of the concerto.’ And that started making a little seed in my mind. I said, ‘This could be our new light on the Gershwin concerto. Instead of the big symphony orchestra, we’ll do it with a big jazz band.’ [...] Everybody got really excited [...] and so we did the concerto. I think it’s one of the premiere recordings, I’m not really sure about it. We had to create the parts [...] because they just didn’t exist. [...] Then we played them actually in concert in Baltimore. It was live-recorded in three evenings—all of it, the concerto, Rhapsody in Blue, and “I Got Rhythm” —all of it with big jazz band. And people often don’t really know what a big jazz band is. A big jazz band is huge, it can be 60, 80 pieces. We have violins, a bunch of saxophones, banjo, all different kinds of percussion. It’s just a jazz sound, it really is quite fantastic. I’m really happy we did it and it was very well received and was something I really wanted to do for a long time, so I’m happy. It exists now, which is great. 

CL You’ve done several really interesting, some would say even scholarly, projects like the Gershwin. You have the complete Satie recording project which includes a number of works recorded for the first time. Can you tell us about any other projects such as these in the works for you for the future?

JYT It’s always difficult nowadays to predict a long time in advance recording projects, just because it’s not what it used to be. [...] There’s many things I’d like to do, but there’s one project that I hope we’re going to do soon and that is to record the Khachaturian Piano Concerto. The Khachaturian Concerto is a great piece, I’m very fond of it. It’s a little bit of a distinguished piece [for me] because nobody plays it. William Kapell was the last pianist that really championed that piece and recorded it for a major label. I think that might be the next concerto recording and then another few solo things that we’re talking about but I can’t really say until we see which one is going to be the winner [laughs].

Be sure to check back in with KCMetropolis next week for the second part of my conversation with Jean-Yves Thibaudet when I asked him about his KC recital program, his thoughts on twenty-first-century piano literature, and his love of fashion.

By Topher Levin

Classical Editor and Contributor

Christopher (Topher) Levin is a composer, pianist, music theorist, and music blogger based in Kansas City, MO. His compositions have been performed at music festivals across the US and in Europe. He has spent two summers in Paris, France studying music at the Ecole Normale de Musique through the EAMA program. His trio for clarinet, piano, and percussion is published in the SCI Journal of Scores.

Topher holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (M.M.) in music theory and (M.M.) in composition and from James Madison University in Virginia (B.M.) in composition. Primary composition teachers have included John S. Hilliard, Paul Rudy, Zhou Long, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Claude Baker, Narcis Bonet, Michel Merlet, and João Pedro Oliveira. His piano teachers have included Patricia Brady and Karen Kushner. Topher maintains a piano studio of 22 students.

Having recently completed a Master's thesis on the beautiful complexities of Chinary Ung's trio, Spiral I, Topher turned his writing attention to the more informal blogging medium. He has taken to it quite well, sharing posts on strange and wonderful music and art found across the web with a modest but growing number of blog followers. He looks forward to writing for KCM and sharing with its readers the stories of all the amazing musicians performing in Kansas City.