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There is a saying in the theater that bad dress rehearsals make for good opening nights. That is kind of an old wives’ tale, but there is a grain of truth in it. I have found that if I have a fantastic day at the piano during dress rehearsal, I will inevitably play...
In a week-long residency like ours, Friday is usually a day fraught with a certain amount of anxiety, and today ran true to form. Everyone seemed more worried about memorization than I would have expected, even after Béné and I sanctioned the use of an onstage iPad...
My year—like that of many people—falls into two distinct sections. From Labor Day until Memorial Day, I am a denizen of Manhattan. I trundle up and down the Upper West Side wearing deep grooves in the pavement between home and the places I work— Juilliard and Merkin...
No big write-up for today—after rehearsal, I did a 7 PM onstage interview with David Pogue and signed a few books. He was terrific, a bracing conversationalist who brought out my mischievous side. Now I am home, it’s 10:30, I haven’t really eaten dinner, and I have to...
Today was a bit rough for me, though extremely productive for the artists and for the project as a whole. We ran all the songs (with one exception, at Will Kim’s request), worked in detail on everything, and even had time for a Skype call with Jean-Paul Björlin to...
I overslept today, which meant two things: I felt a bit better than I had yesterday (at least until I began to crash at around 3:30), and we got off to a late start. Béné and I walked in to find Luis at the piano working on the Tchaikovsky duet, a lovely waltz based...