Cat and Shanmao's blog

Yesterday, Friday, I had the opportunity to hear Rami Bar-niv play in Burlingame and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. A friend from a piano class in college of San Mateo organizes concerts at the condominium complex where he lives. This friend, Harry Langdon, is actually a very active person - for an 87 year old! He is on the condo board and was the driving force behind them getting a piano for the clubhouse. His photos of the grounds are up on the walls of the clubhouse. And he goes out and finds interesting performers, usually classical pianists, to come play there. The turnout is max 50 or 60 people with turnouts on the low end of 15 to 20 people.

I went to one of his concerts before where his piano teacher played - and was a little disappointed. I've seen that other concerts had students from the SF conservatory and had wished I had attended a couple of those. Well, this time Harry invited me to attend to hear Rami Bar-niv, who I knew absolutely nothing about and had never heard of.

Rami is an Israeli who comes to the US a few times a year on piano related business, giving concerts and running a twice-a-year piano camp.

He played Beethoven's 4th piano concerto with a keyboard accompaniment. The keyboard was a Yamaha digital keyboard which was less than ideal and the accompanist was obviously not a pro. But Rami was! He simply knew the piece inside out. Would take over from the accompanist when the piano solos came on and could really pull you into the piece with his sense of rhythym, musicality, and technical fireworks. He would direct the accompanist, nodding or pointing when her entries were due, sometimes slowing down the piano part to make the 'orchestra' entries easier.

After the intermission there were a few classics followed by pieces that Rami wrote himself, including a Toccata written just after the Begin-Sadat peace talks, a rhapsody on some Israeli tunes, and an 'etude-vocalise' on Bach's first prelude from the well tempered clavier. The toccata had resulted in an invitation to play in Egypt after the peace talks. Apparently, he's the only Israeli performed to have played in Egypt since that time!(?)


The introductions to the pieces were full of wit and self-deprecating humor. Rami's playing was excellent. Thoughtful, with insight into the music. A good, sprightly technique. A good feeling for the ebb and flow of the pieces. I was impressed. And was happy to essentially sight only 10 feet away during the performance so I could see how a pro plays.

As for the venue and audience, the turnout was low. Although the condo is not a senior's complex there have turned out to be many seniors who live there. And it seems that Harry was the driving force behind bringing in many audience members - several of them were former fellow volunteers for late congressman Tom Lantos, someone who was greatly admired by Harry.

Afterwards, one of the women at the concert said to me, it's ridiculous how Harry can manage to bring in good pianists, have incredibly low turnouts, and only charge $9 a ticket. (Harry said my money was no good there so my entry was free.) It defies any reasonable expectation about things should work.

Was browsing the web for Ashburn pictures and noticed a new series of photos of trains on the tracks by Ashburn Road. Click on the link to see a larger version.

The train was of some interest but what I found great about this picture is how it captures the spirit of Ashburn in wintertime. The snow on the ground. The brown plants poking through. The trees in the distance empty of their leaves. The muted colour of the winter sky. I can just hear the quietness of a winter day, can imagine walking over the snowy field all bundled up, and returning home for a bowl of warm soup.