Louisiana Alive!; Leon Bates

This week Louisiana Alive visits Port Allen for a look at classical pianist Leon Bates. [Silence] (Applause) Thank you.

Thank you very much. (More applause.) It's a pleasure being here with you this evening. And I must say they've done wonders to make the gym such a wonderful place for all the people here. The sound is good. Since I've been here, I guess just about half of my stay is completed now. I've been here since Sunday evening and I've had a chance to appear at a number of different places and to play for some different audiences and the most recent was this afternoon at Port Allen High School. And we had a very good gathering over there. And I've been having a wonderful time in my stay here. Leon was a guest of the Arts and Humanities Council of West Baton Rouge as part of the Community Artists Residency Training or CART program. We chatted with Leon at the Port Allen home of Horace Wilkinson, where he was a guest during his stay in West Baton Rouge. Leon explained the nature of the CART program. CART residency is

an opportunity for particular communities around the country to have an opportunity to bring an artist into their community for a period of time to basically get to know the folks there and have the folks in the community get to know them -- as artists, as human beings, to find out how they work, how they present their programs, and basically how they function as performers whether they be dancers, singers, pianists, whatever the case might be. And the CART residency program is a smaller version, a one-week version, of a larger residency program which is a part of the parent organization, Affiliate Artists. And that is an eight-week residency program. And I've had the opportunity to be a part of two residencies of that sort, one of which just ended in the Atlanta area. And so to have this one come back almost immediately after that, you know, is... really catches me at a very good time because I'm still very very up and and just ready to go right into it again. In the CART program, you have to perform in places that people do not always.

(laughing) In fact in a few minutes, you're going to go to a supermarket and perform. Are you at all apprehensive about that? No, as long as the weather is good, I feel marvelous, you know. I think it's a great way of catching people perhaps in a little bit more comfortable setting. Lots of times people feel a little bit out of place. I shouldn't say out of place. Let's just say that they don't feel as comfortable as they would be, say at home, in the concert hall. Sometimes there's a feeling of, well I've got to dress up and I've got to put on certain clothes, and I've got to really be very quiet now because the concert's going on and all of this, and so they don't really perhaps feel as comfortable as they might be in some of the settings that they might be in during the working day or just everyday chores or whatever. So in catching people on their home ground, so to speak, I think it makes them a little bit more relaxed, and a little bit more receptive. [Piano Music by Leon Bates]

[Music Continues] And during your performance or before, you actually talk to the audience. That's right. And I think that's terrific, to really put your audience at ease. It's not as formal as a performance in a concert hall. Right, it's much, much less formal than that. And I think for a very good reason. I think really people just need to feel that the artist is really looking forward to being there and playing for them and is expressing it verbally in such a way that they have a chance to maybe just chat with them just as if they were sitting in their own living rooms. And you seem so at ease in the little talk that you gave and I think that this perhaps is unusual. So often an artist feels at ease in his own genre,

but talking to an audience or something like that. You just sounded great. You had no trouble at all. Well, I guess I'm fortunate in that respect. I do feel comfortable. I am from Philadelphia and all of my training such as the piano and musically otherwise was in that city. And my real involvement with piano began when I was about six years old. That's when I started taking formal lessons. And throughout my life from then up until now I've been involved with the piano and with music generally. My formal training extended from the time I was six until I was 23. And during that period I studied with three different teachers for any extended length of time and briefly coached with another very well-known concert pianist. My first teacher was Christopher Zinjahne in Philadelphia whom I studied with for about six years and it gave me a very basic solid background in the fundamentals of piano, the scales and exercises, the Clemente Sonata, sonatinas, whatever and all that sort of thing. My

first real involvement on the stage or in front of an audience, when I was about seven years old, and at that point I'd been studying about a year and you can imagine about the level I was playing. But having a chance to be in front of an audience that at that early age really gave me a chance to develop a lack of stage fright at an early point. That made it so much easier for me to be on the stage and to do exactly what I'm doing now. By the time I got to junior high school, I had switched teachers and gone on to Irene Beck who was a graduate of the Warsaw Conservatory. I studied with her in Philadelphia at the Settlement Music School and she then progressed me on to a higher level in terms of performance. She started teaching me things about interpretation, how to make a piece of music totally and uniquely my own. This was a new experience for me and, along with that, I had an increased opportunity for exposure and a chance to play for a wide audience in Philadelphia. Some of the earlier

things I had done had been on a very small basis in my, with my own teacher's studio. But now some of the things that I were doing were being rebroadcast over the radio and this sort of thing. So that was another experience in itself. By the time I finished high school, I went to the Temple University and studied with a very well known concert pianist, Natalie Hinderas. And I worked with Natalie for approximately five years. I also worked with Mrs. Beck for about five. And during that time I had a chance to enter a number of national music competitions that were held in different areas of the country. And I was fortunate enough to win a few. And this gave me an opportunity then to play with some symphony orchestras: the Cincinnati and Philadelphia orchestras, the Symphony of the New World in New York and also to do a number of solo recitals in different colleges and conservatories around the country. So all of this gave me then the necessary background that I needed and the experience for doing exactly what I had decided at the age of 13 I wanted to be my career. Audiences don't bother me, and I think the main reason for that is that I recognize

that really when you're in front of an audience they really are wishing you well. They really want you to succeed. I'd love to hear about your background, how you got started as a pianist. I understand, I think I heard you on a talk show on a radio talk show started at 6. Is that right? That, that's right. And you had a kindergarten teacher who played classical music. Yeah she was the one. Right. - Well, you were fortunate. - She enjoyed it and played a lot of recordings and let us fool around and play on the upright piano that was in our room. You were very lucky - Really - to have a kindergarten teacher like that. Right place at the right time. But it's that term that keeps coming back in musical careers all the time. Yes it does. So is that when you started playing the piano? Well, I didn't start in kindergarten. I guess I started really being interested in the instrument and fooling with it at that point, but I started taking formal lessons at 6. And I would see I was like four or almost five or something when I was in kindergarten. So I think that once I started my

formal lessons, I just moved right along. I enjoyed it so much. Practice and all of that was no problem at all. That's interesting because I'm sure you are aware that there is a controversy about children and piano lessons. You know the parents say practice, you'll thank me for it when you're 20 years old. And the kid says, I want to be doing anything else. How do you feel about that? Well, I really feel that if there's a genuine interest from the child as far as studying or an interest in music or whatever then I think that certainly it should be followed upon, followed up on by the parents. They should really give that child as much support in terms of that instrument or whatever it is that they want to do as they can possibly give. But at the same time I feel that lots of times people want their, their children to study piano or some other instrument or whatever because they want them to have a certain degree of culture and to really become very refined human beings and I think that's

fine and marvelous except that lots of times the children are not too concerned about it at that point. And I think that it has to be a very gentle kind of persuasion. If the child has not expressed a particular interest in music or for some other area, then I think that's probably a good idea to maybe have certain things be present there in the home for them to partake of when they decide that they want to take advantage of that. But if they have something that's pushed at them, you know, like vegetables, you know, there's going to be a certain degree of rebellion unless they really want it on a natural basis. And I think that in order not to get into a situation like that where the child will, will just repel whatever directives are being given, I think it's necessary to just allow them a certain degree of freedom of choice. You know if, if certain things are there, you know, we have encyclopedias in the home. The dictionary is there and certain other things that the child can go to when they want them. And so if the, you know, the recordings are there or perhaps the playing of

different radio stations. If they can hear this and begin to differentiate between one kind of music and another, these kinds of things. Maybe books on composers, books on music, that they can perhaps get to when they decide that they might like to pick them up, you see. So, I think that will help. You never had any trouble with the dedication that it takes. No, no I didn't. Once I started, it was a matter of just going down one particular track and following, you know, that particular inclination. But I never had any problem with practice or anything like that. I was always very enthusiastic. And when did you start thinking seriously about a career as a pianist? I was about 13. About 13. At that point, of course, I'd been studying about seven years and I'd had enough opportunity. I guess mine was more or less a rather unique situation in that while I studied and while I practiced and took lessons like every other child, I had tremendous amounts of

opportunities to play in front of audiences and that could have been the deciding factor, the thing that made the greatest difference because here was something that I had at home, which I practiced every day, but it didn't remain at home and it didn't remain some kind of abstract off-in-the-closet kind of thing. I had a chance to show, on very frequent occasions, exactly what it was that I was learning, what I was studying. So it gave me an opportunity then to get some feedback from that which I had already learned. Thereby a great deal of self-confidence and enthusiasm and encouragement was always being fostered by a previous experience in front of an audience, you see. So it made it very easy for me then, I think, to, to make up my mind and decide that that was what I wanted to do because I had a great deal of success with it, you know, in fourth and fifth grade assemblies and playing little piano solos and all of that. Did you ever find that you outgrew your teachers? No, no, I didn't. I always felt that there was still a great deal

for me to learn. My first teacher I worked with for six years and he gave me a very, very solid background. And, you know, the fundamentals and all that I needed to know at that stage in my musical development. When I went to my second teacher, I began to learn more and more about interpretation in terms of learning a piece and learning all of the notes on the page and then beginning to really make a true performance out of that which I had learned. And, of course, then my exposure was on a larger basis, not only for the small select group of people at my teacher's studio, but for a much larger audience of people who came from all over the city of Philadelphia, you see. My next teacher then was in college. At this point, she was really aiming me towards a real career because I had enough training and background in the earlier two stages to have gotten me to the point where I could then begin to direct myself towards national competitions and I had

learned sufficiently difficult works, I think, to have competed on that level. And that was the next training ground. And, again, there was always something else to learn about really being a fine performer because at this stage I had to think in terms of not playing on the level of a teenager or playing on the level of an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old. But I had to always think in terms of my performance as being as good as it possibly could be on a level with everyone else who was playing professionally. So this always had me shooting for some particular obstacle that was a ways away, which was the perfect situation for me. And, of course, now that I am no longer studying and am teaching myself and performing, there are still obstacles and still horizons to, to achieve because there is always a new repertoire to learn. And, of course, we always want to move our performances on to even higher artistic levels, you see, so

that what we have to say is said even more concisely, is more to the point and is even more articulate than it might have been at an earlier stage. Have you ever finished a performance and said to yourself: That is the very best that I could possibly do? No, it's never happened and I really don't know when that will ever occur. Part of the reason, too, is that interpretation is such an individual and constantly changing kind of part of a performance. What I might think to do at this particular stage might be totally different in another five years because I will be, in part, a different person. I will have had certain experiences in my life that will have changed me to some respect as a person and, as that happens due to the fact that so much of what I do at the piano is simply a reflection of my own personality characteristics, it's bound to change. It's bound to be different and I don't think there's any such thing as arriving at a point where maybe I might be doing my... Well, let's say it this way. I could be doing my best playing that I've done to date

at this particular point in my career mainly because I feel that the accumulated time and experience and actual playing time has built up to this point and I would hope that I'm playing better than I was five years ago in that respect. And certainly artistically speaking, considering that I'm still very young, I would think that I'm still improving at such a rate, you know, that each and every time I approach maybe the same work again that I worked on two years ago, or perhaps get into a new work, I will have something always that will be a little bit new and a little bit different because I'm still very young and still, I think, very impressionable in terms of a lot of what music has to offer. But as I move onward into a later part of my career, more mature period in my, my life, and in my performing career, I'm sure that there will be higher artistic levels that I will be able to achieve. But perhaps maybe physically, in terms of the technical demands that are put upon me in the composition, I may not perhaps be able to outdo what I could do now at the age of 30. But

artistically, that's the area where we're constantly always growing and where we always need to grow and become more mature. Recentl,y I heard a performance. It was on the, the public television network -- Rubinstein at 90, a program which aired in Philadelphia just a few months ago. And I was particularly moved by Mr. Rubinstein's performance of the Grieg piano concerto, a work which I had pretty much taken lightly for years. And to hear him handle it, at the age of 90, there was such an insight, such a maturity in playing. Something that I hope that perhaps maybe when I reach that age, I'll be able to duplicate. In your little talk before your performance the other night, you mentioned that you were very interested in bringing your own style to a piece. I'm always learning new music, always trying to find a new challenge, a new obstacle over which to overcome and it

puts me in a situation now where I feel that I'm really doing exactly what I want to do. And that's to recreate music on the stage. So that if I sit down to play Chopin or Beethoven or Rachmaninoff or anything else -- while I'm playing those particular composers, I'm giving them my own particular style and interpretation. And this is a wonderful situation to be in and I'm hoping that as I continue my career.... I'm hoping for a big international success at some point in my life. As I continue along that path, I'm hoping that I will have a unique style unlike anyone else of interpreting various different composers and I'm hoping that people will be willing -- like you are this evening -- to come out and listen to what I have to say and what I have to play. I'm going to hold the verbal part down at this point and I'm going to go to the piano and play Ballade in F minor, and it's a bit of a task for the pianist. I mean, you know. I've worked this piece and I learned it and I must have known it for about a

year and I said I don't like the way I'm playing it. So I just, you know, I practice it and I work on it. But I just didn't want to play it anywhere because I didn't have it to a point where I really felt comfortable with it. Well, I've played it a few times now and I think I've gotten to that point and I'd like to play it for you tonight. I'm in that kind of a mood for playing a little Chopin. And I know that there were a few people who asked me, I think just last evening, if I would play some Chopin tonight. And for those of you who are here, here's your Chopin. You mentioned something in your introduction to the performance the other night that I found interesting and it

was about interpretation. That interpretation can be very personal and I wonder if you ever get to a point where someone hears a piece and it's not only recognizable as Chopin, but as Bates playing Chopin. Yeah, I think that that can certainly happen. You can arrive at a certain point in your interpretive abilities and in your career where you start to do certain particular things so frequently. And there are little things that you might do that are particularly distinctive, you know, and characteristic of you as a pianist and people will begin to recognize them as being a part of your style. Of course, I don't know if I would really consider myself falling into any category like that at this point because I think that I'm still going through so many changes and so many developmental stages. But maybe by the time I reach the age of 50, you will see that. I have a great deal of respect for older musicians who have been out here in

the musical world for so many years, because it takes a great deal to be able to sustain yourself over a long period of time and certainly interpretively, I'm sure, that unless you can work with a particular composition and then put it away for a certain period of time and come back to it, you could very easily reach a point where there's nothing else to say with that work at that point. And that can be very frustrating. On the radio talk show that I was listening to that you were on, you had some excellent advice for young people, people with talent talking about talent but. Talent wasn't, isn't all. Oh, yes. All the talent, you know, is. It's kind of like, you know, going out and buying... Well, of course, we're in the South and everyone knows what grits are. Plus, I was raised on grits, so you know it's nothing new to me. In Philadelphia? Yes. But you go out and you buy a box of grits, you know, and it's wonderful. But unless you can mix in all of the necessary ingredients and let it stir, stir it in the pot, let it cook for a while and everything, you're not going to come up with a delectable

item. And I think that talent is not unlike the grits in the box and that we all, I think, come with a certain storehouse of that. But unless we can find out exactly what it is and then put it to some particular good use and have an opportunity to, to work it and to develop that talent, it's not going to ever reap any rewards for us. And I think that we always have to be willing to work and to work very hard. And I think that that is just simply one of the basic facts of life: that hard work and achieving some particular goal is going to have to be there in one line or another, whether it's music, art, construction or at archaeology perhaps or, you know, whatever it might be. I think we simply have to choose and find something that is going to make our lives rewarding and worth something. More so than just going out to work 9 to 5 in order to collect a check. Now granted we all have to eat and we do have to collect that check. But I think it's much more

enjoyable and exciting if we can be doing something we really love and enjoy and something we feel is really enriching our lives as we do it. It's kind of the development of the total human being. I can't think of a better way to end it. Thank you, Leon, It's been a pleasure.