Summer 2022 News from Fred

August 26, 2022

It has been a long time since I’ve updated my activities. I am happy to report that after a year and a half of virtually no live performance, 2022 came roaring back. Tomorrow I play my 167th concert of the year.

Some highlights of the 2021-22 season:

• • Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto with orchestras in CA and FL
  • Recitals featuring repertoire learned during the enforced “sabbatical.” One special focus: Alec Wilder, who wrote songs for Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and others, but who had a quiet serious side. Over the years, friends of Alec Wilder such as Marian McPartland and Gunther Schuller, have been sending me his piano music, much of it still in manuscript form. Last year I had a wonderful time going through it.
  • Numerous jazz trio concerts with fabulous bassists and drummers throughout the US. Repertoire continues to include note-for-note transcriptions of Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Erroll Garner and others — with a particular focus on the genius Chick Corea, whom we lost in 2021. I have also been creating more and more of my own arrangements, which has been great fun.
  • Simply expanding the functions of the MoyerCam. As you may know, the MoyerCam projects the hands on the inside of the open lid of a grand piano, thus allowing virtually everyone in the audience a view of the hands. I’ve also been using it to project images of the composer or anything else while I discuss what I am about to play, and even to project video of other musicians who play along with me virtually as part of the concert!
  • A lecture-demonstration for the New England Piano Teachers Association on rules of enunciation, the use of the middle pedal, and some observations about my career which I called “The Road Less Travelled.”
  • A classical and jazz concert for “Encore,” a support group for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
  • A demonstration for MusicConnects, an after-school club at Highland Park (IL) High School. This wonderful group searches out music that mixes music of different cultures. They had heard about my jazz-meets-Arabic musical forays, the result of a 2019 visit to Palestine. I was so impressed with these students and faculty, and so was doubly shocked to hear of the terrible shooting in their town less than 3 months later.

This summer I have been mostly at home in my studio, immersed in creating music-related software with computer expert Gabe Johnson. I have applied for a 4th patent. Stay tuned for more technological innovations that will enhance the concert experience!

If you come to any of my concerts, please come back and say hi!

All the best,
Fred