Making a little Listz
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| Pianist Ramona Pansegrau is in her element — accompanying a ballet rehearsal. Pansegrau, now the music director of Kansas City Ballet after nine years with Tulsa Ballet, returns to Tulsa on Monday to perform some of Liszt’s piano transcriptions as part of the Signature Symphony’s Performance Plus series. |
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By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
3/25/2007
Pianist Pansegrau has no problem imitating an orchestra
The idea of duplicating an orchestral score on a single piano might seem one of the more challenging things a pianist can do.
But for Ramona Pansegrau, it's all in a day's work.
Pansegrau, now the music director of Kansas City Ballet, will be the guest artist for the next Performance Plus event, presented Monday by the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College.
Monday's edition of this performance-and-lecture series will focus on composer Franz Liszt and his efforts to bring the music of other composers to the public's attention.
Those efforts included Liszt conducting the debut performances of works by composers such as Berlioz and Wagner, and by creating piano transcriptions of orchestral works, operas and songs.
Pansegrau will perform four of Liszt's transcriptions: an organ piece by J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann's well-known song "Widmung," "La Danza" by Rossini and Gounod opera's "Faust."
"I chose these because they give a sense of the different types of transcriptions Liszt did," Pansegrau said, speaking by phone from her Kansas City office. "Some are very literal transcriptions, like the Bach piece.
"I deliberately avoided all the 50-minute-long pieces," she added, laughing. "I didn't want to test anyone's patience -- including my own."
Signature Symphony artistic director Barry Epperley will talk about Liszt's life and career, focusing on his work as the director of the orchestra in Weimar.
Liszt wrote more than 650 transcriptions during his life.
"A lot of the ones he wrote were designed to show off his ability as a player," Pansegrau said. "That's why a lot of these were never published, because publishers thought they were too difficult to the average player to perform.
"But in fact, Liszt's transcriptions are fairly comfortable for me to play, because they were written for the piano," she said. "When you work with ballet companies, transcriptions are what you play all day long, and some transcriptions I've had to deal with were not meant to happen on a keyboard."
Pansegrau, who served as music director of Tulsa Ballet for nine years, is in her first year as music director of Kansas City Ballet. She is the first person to hold such a position in that company's 49-year history.
As music director, Pansegrau is responsible not only for conducting the orchestra during performances, but also for accompanying daily ballet classes and rehearsals.
"One of the things that is so wonderful about Liszt's work is his ability to make the piano reflect the sound of the instruments he's transcribing," she said. "When I'm playing transcriptions for class or rehearsal, I have to concentrate on the things the dancers need to hear -- the musical cues they need to know in order to perform. That means you leave out a lot of the filigree you might use if you did these pieces as solo works."
During her time in Tulsa, Pansegrau took part in many of the Performance Plus programs.
"In fact, when Barry started these programs, I did all of them for a while," she said. "That was when he was dealing with a single composer each season. But as the series expanded, and as my workload increased, it became necessary to bring in other musicians. And it's nice for the audiences to hear a variety, as well."
Pansegrau also is preparing for Kansas City Ballet's final performance of the season in May, which includes the world premiere of "Carmen," choreographed by William Whitener.
Pansegrau has a packed schedule for this summer. She will serve as music director of the ballet program at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival this summer -- her fourth year to do so -- then work with the Ballet Adriatico Festival in Italy, and will perform at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City.
James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com
Preview
Event:
Performance Plus, featuring pianist Ramona Pansegrau
When:
7 p.m. Monday
Where:
VanTrease Performing Arts Center for Education, 10300 E. 81st St. (Tulsa Community College Southeast campus)
Tickets:
$15, available at the PACE Ticket office, 595-7777; and www.MyTicketOffice.com
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
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