About our Interview with David Dubal

The legendary David Dubal joined us with a studio audience for an interview at Klavierhaus in New York City. We had a lively conversation about; growing up in Cleveland, finding his love of the piano, juggling writing, painting and playing the piano, his choice of choosing a piano career instead of an art career, finding peace in enjoying his multifaceted career, his process of writing, planning for his radio programs, working with Aaron Copland, choosing music for his radio programs, his time with Vladimir Horowitz, the making of piano careers today, the difference between being a pianist and an artist and how to become an artist, the difficulty of being a pianist in today’s culture, the great Pianists and the problems with piano competitions.

Links to lern more

• David Dubal's Website
• YouTube Clip
• Article About David

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300"] A photo of David Dubal at Klavierhaus in NYC[/caption]

This weeks guest, violinist, Joyce Hammann, sits down to discuss her own journey from being young and broke to playing on Broadway.  Paying rent by playing music on street corners, to eventually playing Phantom of the Opera for 25 years and becoming the Concertmaster. Joyce lets us in on the duties of being a concertmaster: knowing when to step in, and when to let problems solve themselves. She also opens up about how crossword puzzles and the quite support of her colleagues helped her through her own rough patch dealing with “the pressure of perfectionism.”

New York Philharmonic’s Assistant Principal of Timpani and Percussion, Kyle Zerna talks about his position and audition process.  We discussed his; transition from being a student to immediate professional, the logistics of practicing and learning, the organization of the percussion section, the importance of consistency across all the nine percussion instruments for auditions, path to choosing percussion as an instruments and how he was consistently motivated with new instrument discoveries within the percussion family, recent discovery of his ability to Deejaying and the parallel to playing percussion, timpani tuning and how his teaching has enhanced his own playing.

Janet Rarick, Associate Professor of Music Career Development at Rice University Shepherd School of Music shared how her own career developed and how she found her way to teaching.  We talk about; the importance of taking chances on opportunities, the importance of having support system of colleagues, the process in creating a career class, various ways in teaching career skills, defining a successful career and finding a creative outlet no matter what career path one takes, understanding your inner critic, the importance of performance experience in helping with performance anxiety, the importance of personal skills in getting and keeping a job and the skill of speaking to an audience.