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In hindsight it seems inevitably prophetic that pianist Nathanael May's November 8^th recital at the Bell Cultural Events Center occurred on a spectacular "spring" day in early November that felt a lot more like May despite the winter solstice being just six weeks away. The weather humorously obviated May's planned introduction in which he intended to suggest to the audience that they imagine being somewhere warm. This juxtaposition of music and weather allowed recital attendees to enjoy a veritable "May in November."

Dr. Nathanael May is an impressive young man. With degrees in Piano and Pedagogy from Eastman, KU and Wisconsin-Whitewater, he is also the founder and artistic director of the soundSCAPE composition and performance exchange. His impressive curriculum vitae comes deceptively wrapped in a youthfulness that could convincingly pass for a high school senior, making his mature technique and confident stage presence all that the more remarkable.

The program's "fantasy" motif presented Beethoven (Sonata quasi una Fantasia, Op. 27 No. 1), Mendelssohn (Fantasy in F-sharp minor, Op. 28), Alan Hovhaness (excerpts from Fantasy, op. 16) and Brahms (two selections from Fantasien, Op. 116). He had originally intended to include works by George Crumb and Lukas Foss, but May confided that the Hovhaness had become a necessary substitution when his busy schedule kept him from fully preparing the Crumb and Foss to concert standards.  In any case, the program maintained its eclectic edge with pieces spanning just over 150 years from Beethoven's 1800-01 work to Hovhaness' 1952-53 contribution. Equally refreshing was the fact that these are pieces rarely heard in the mainstream repertoire.

In keeping with the informative and engaging trend practiced by younger musicians, May introduced each piece prior to its performance.

The Beethoven, he described, was written towards the very beginning of the composer's hearing loss that would eventually leave him almost completely deaf. The work is the companion piece to its more famous cousin sonata, Moonlight (Op. 27, No. 2), which also bears the descriptive "quasi una Fantasia". May's performance was confident and nearly flawless in its execution, except for a slightly thumpy interpretation of the Adagio con espressione movement. Twice however, I heard an awkward buzz in one of the piano's lower strings - frustrating in any scenario, but especially so with an apparently new Steinway.

May described Mendelssohn's F-sharp minor Fantasy, written in 1829, as being a compositional tribute, in the first Con moto agitato movement, to Beethoven, who had died only two years earlier; and, in the second Allegro con moto movement, to Schubert, who had died the previous year. To this reviewer's ears, I could discern no such similarities and the entire piece seemed to me, just as he had described the third Presto movement, "pure Mendelssohn." The selection of this piece seemed youthfully "age-appropriate" given that Mendelssohn was only 20 when he composed the work with May infusing his own youthful charm into the performance.

The Hovhaness Fantasy proved to be the most "fantastic" from a compositional standpoint, requiring May to alternately play the keyboard, use percussion mallets and some finger-plucking on the piano's strings.  The piece was said to be Hovhaness' tribute to India where he translated some of that their multi-tonal scales into our limited western 12-tone scale - some parts being more successful than others. The performance was very impressive, both aurally and visually, but paradoxically awkward given that Dr. May was reading from the score. While that is not entirely uncommon with modern music, the page-turning and inter-movement adjustments were distracting. At the very least, a page-turner would have better preserved the performance's coherence. The final note of the work - a sustained, fading chord - was the most impressive part, with May manipulating the damper pedal in such a way as to release the lower strings' harmonics about halfway through, creating a very mystical change in the chord's "personality."

Speaking to Nathanael May after the concert, I was intrigued to learn that Hovhaness indicated no such technique in the score. Rather, it was a discovery made during the practice and preparation of the piece - an interesting anecdote to the flexible nuances of modern music where, in this instance, the manipulation of sound, rather than the notes themselves, created the effect. It was very clever.

The two Brahms Fantasien were quaint, rarely-performed pieces.  May solemnly dedicated  the Intermezzo in E major to the victims of the Ft. Hood massacre and to Sgt. Amy Krueger, in particular. Sonically and compositionally, this was a very "un-Brahms-like" work. Aptly evocative for the dedication, it had its own modernity that one easily might believe had been written just in the past week especially for the occasion - uniquely reinforcing Brahms' timelessness. The second (Cappriccio in D minor) was a lively burst of energy that I found flawed in only one respect:  May stood up while he was still holding the final chord - a major no-no in performance etiquette.

This was a thoughtfully planned program delivered in a relaxed, conversational style that felt part recital, part master class. I found it especially disappointing that less than 40 people attended. The Bell Cultural Center presents excellent quality programs that can hold their own in Kansas City's larger concert arenas. Indeed, anyone attending any performance at this spectacular 540-seat auditorium is likely to return - perhaps with new guests in tow - to what currently seems to be - unintentionally, for sure - a too-well-kept secret. Concertgoers looking for a regular dose of "something different" should consider subscribing to the e-newsletter at bellboxoffice@mnu.edu.

REVIEW:
Bell Cultural Events Center
Nathanael May, piano
Piano Fantasies of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Crumb and Foss
Sunday, November 8, 2009
MidAmerica Nazarene University
2030 E. College Way, Olathe, KS 66062
For tickets call 913-971-3636 or online at bellboxoffice@mnu.edu

By Christopher Guerin

Traditional and New Classical music, and Theatre Contributor (Past writer)
Christopher Guerin holds degrees in Music Education, Music Business, and Music Theory & Composition, the latter from the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) College of Music where he co-founded the college's Composers' Guild, and, in 1985, won the Artin Arslanian Composition Award. During college, he also obtained some musical theatre experience as a member of pit orchestras for Threepenny Opera and My Fair Lady. Since 1989, Christopher has been in the very non-artistic corporate sector, where his creative energies have been put to more mundane endeavors 

Christopher credits his musical motivations to his late father, who was concertmaster of the Springfield (MA) Community (pre-cursor to the city's current Symphony) Orchestra and performed popular music on radio in the 1930s. Christopher began his classical training in 1972 at age 10, began teaching at 16 (continuing to take private students throughout college), and traveled extensively with a youth orchestra - including to New Zealand in 1980. After college, and until 1989, Christopher focused on the business end of music as a successful sales manager for one of New England's largest music chains.

Over the past 20 years, Christopher's expertise has focused on medicine as a life risk underwriting officer for a large Midwest insurance group. His past duties included responsibility for risk underwriting in Pacific Rim markets where he traveled extensively to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and Burma. Time permitting, he has continued to compose intermittently throughout this period. Christopher is married to Paula, a fellow musician he met during college, and together they have "composed" their magnum opera in three very creative children - an architecture student (go K-State!), an aspiring classical pianist, and a budding writer/journalist. He and his wife relocated from Massachusetts to the Kansas City area in 1997.