extraordinary ability: a call to action
It’s more crucial than ever to shout out the specialized skill sets of collaborative pianists. Raise your voice and help - read on and find out how! (included: many shameless links)
The message came at the end of a long email chain that I’d been reading with gusto. A group of us, all members of the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society (IKCAS), have been laying the groundwork for a new project. It sure feels good to help build something in the midst of daily pointless destruction. More on that in a bit.
Anyway, one colleague on the chain mentioned that they’d been at a concert over the weekend with a friend who’s plugged into the Texas classical scene. This friend shared that they’d spoken with a pianist who is applying for a green card. The pianist’s lawyer told them to leave any "accompanying” work (apparently the friend applied the air quotes in their storytelling, they were so mad) off of their application because it would weaken their case as an ‘person of extraordinary ability.’
I’ve seen this kind of thing before. When I’ve written a few letters in support of opera coaches applying for green cards or O-1 visas, I’ve had to emphasize what made them outstanding and hard to replace. How hard could that be? you may ask. After all, these folks know languages, play the piano like nobody’s business, can synthesize the sound and timing of a whole orchestra at the keyboard, follow a conductor, sing all the parts, keep detailed feedback for the cast and orchestra - rare superstar stuff indeed. And yet, for someone outside of the classical bubble, it can be hard to imagine the importance of musicians who don’t appear in front of the curtain for that final bow.
In the academy, accompanists and coaches with discrete skill sets are equally important for student progress and success. Singers benefit from pianists who know language inside out, from phoneme to syntax to prosody, and who can find the flow of text in the arc of their melody and harmonic pacing. Instrumentalists benefit from pianists who know how they articulate and phrase, where they’re challenged by tuning, where they need a breath or a moment to negotiate a perilous string crossing. Everyone benefits from collaborative partners who know their repertoire. Some pianists who accompany in schools are students, and that’s as it should be, and those pianists also benefit when they can see great music-making modeled by more experienced collaborative colleagues.
If you get this newsletter in your inbox, you’ve read my thoughts on how accompanists or collaborative pianists are treated in classical music spaces. We’ve been working for quite some time, we pianists, on changing our status and improving our positions, workloads, and workplaces. We’ve needed more participation from our colleagues - vocal, instrumental, administrative, and (especially?) “solo” pianists - for quite some time as well.
But now, there’s new urgency. Immigration status in the US is subject to rapidly increasing levels of precarity, with our international colleagues subject to a range of escalating threats. Music isn’t the only US industry filled with students and practitioners from all over the world, of course, but it’s the subject of this lil newsletter. Can you imagine our schools and performing organizations without our international colleagues and friends? It’s breathtaking to contemplate the effects of a large exodus on our industry; the economic impact would be catastrophic, and the human loss would dwarf that.
We’ve arrived at this moment with yet unsolved issues of equity and solidarity. Well then, let’s work. We need to take steps to grow our courage and strengthen the practice of standing up for each other. Well then, here are some steps.
Remember that IKCAS project I mentioned? We are developing a handbook designed to guide institutions in structuring positions for collaborative pianists. We’re getting ready to share information we’ve been gathering about fair and sustainable workloads and compensation models. This has been and will continue to be the work of many people, and we’re aiming to introduce it to our annual conference this October for feedback.
Events like the current accompanists’ strike at the conservatories in Paris and Lyon show that these are international issues. And we take inspiration from the document signed by 1400 musicians in support of our French colleagues, which cited the collaborative pianists’ savoire-faire essentiel - I wrote about it a few weeks back. IKCAS is seeking something similar to include as part of our handbook - a collection of testimonials from musicians who rely on our savoire-faire.
On our extraordinary ability.
This is the call to action: if you are a singer, instrumentalist, or conductor who relies on a specialized collaborative pianist, write about it! Send it to me in the comments, or send it directly to IKCAS. You’re part of a big musical community, so raise your voice in support of the pianists who support you. Help us inform the institutions who hire pianists, and who are looking for information that will help protect and keep those pianists.
And then, let’s use this small step as practice for larger ones. It’s difficult to know how significant any individual’s words can be against a chaotic, cruel politic onslaught. But we can give one another courage, and let our international colleagues and friends know where we stand. Practicing the language of solidarity in an easy situation - and supporting your collaborative pianists is easy, I promise - will help us find that language when the chips are down.
In the chips being down department: if you’re a higher ed person, I very much recommend joining the American Association of University Professors. The AAUP is fighting back against funding cuts and attempts to control what is taught in our institutions, and I’m finding it an important source of both inspiration and practical information.
Earlier this week, I assisted on a choral concert with a program of music spanning more than 500 years. It takes a long time to do the work of learning about that much culture, so many people and languages and practices and traditions. But before we’ve done that work, before we’ve earned any understanding at all, music can be our bridge. It can span the distance between us and other times, places, and people, expanding our world and making it more intimate all at once.
Music is made by people. Traditions are passed on and shared by practitioners. And no one practices alone. There’s probably a pianist in that room with you. And there’s a world of musicians holding the profession in arms just as loving as yours.
So hang on.
And share this newsletter with everyone who you think needs to read it.
And send me your stories!
Music Minus None.
Thanks to Elvia, Casey, Kristin, Chanda, Lauren, and Luis for doing the work. And thanks to Laura Poe for profiling so many great opera coaches so that I could link to them today! Thanks to Ellen, Tom (the Viking!), Matthew, Vlad, Liora, John, Anna, and Liz, and to the hundreds upon hundreds of pianists out there making the music happen.
Also, here’s one of the songs we did on that concert in a beautiful performance from the University of Johannesburg.
thanks for reading.