Christopher O'Riley/ NPR photo by Wendy Lynch
The “voices” in Christopher O’Riley’s head as we’re talking on a recent morning aren’t in harmony, let alone full instrumentation.
They’re not humming any of his past performances with the world’s top orchestras or festivals. Nor are they working out any new Radiohead tunes into classical interpretations.
No, that day the pianist, performer and host of National Public Radio’s “From the Top,” one of the country’s most popular classical music programs, had his GPS as his muse.
“We’re on 101,” O’Riley says from the California highway, where he and cellist Matt Haimovitz were darting between a concert at Gordon Getty’s birthday luncheon and a recording session for their forthcoming collection of Beethoven sonatas for piano and cello.
Coming to the Motown
The duo this week lands in Detroit for a unique concert titled “Shuffle.Play.Listen,” named after their two-CD work released in 2011. Hosted by the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the concert begins at 8 p.m., Friday at The Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts.
With the audience seated on stage surrounding them, O’Riley and Haimovitz will perform their famed repertoire: a blend of classical, Chamber, modern, popular and traditional music. The duo introduces each piece from the stage because whether audience members admit it, not everyone is familiar with every piece.
It’s hard to be when O’Riley and Haimovitz choose composers and works ranging from Beethoven to Radiohead to Arcade Fire to the Vertigo soundtrack.
“I leave myself open to the experience, whenever I play with Matt, to just kind of try as much as possible to be open to the spontaneity,” O’Riley says. “We bring people in touch with a lot of music that they might not know and they should now. We really have no prejudices about any kind of genre.
O’Riley’s musical education began during his childhood. After graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, his early success in competitions fueled his performance schedule and recording contracts.
Throughout his career, he has sought to put audiences at ease and introduce a wider range of listeners to classical music, often through his unique interpretations in no-traditional settings: clubs and university campuses, for example.
He also hosts “From the Top,” a showcase of young musicians from across the country. Each hour-long segment taped before live audiences includes five students’ performances, accompanied by O’Riley, as well as interviews and profiles about the youth.
A Varied Menu
“We like to have each program be a varied menu, a varied palate of different personalities, different instruments,” O’Riley says. “We have a really top-notch staff and we also have been very interactive with our friends and supporters in terms of getting the right mix between how much music and how much talk.”
The program’s focus is on the young musicians, and O’Riley says he learns from each of the young performers.
“I’m really of a mind that any musician that I collaborate with, I’m trying to fit hand and glove into the way they play, so I tell the kids that they should play exactly as they want to and I will catch on,” he says. “So I’m dancing with five different partners a week and leaving myself open to the experience. I think as a solo pianist, I gained a lot in my ability … based on opening myself up to each of their personalities.”
He and Haimovitz extend that attitude to performances. The first half of their Friday performance is set, but the second half selections will be spontaneously chosen.
“Our program invariably pulls from whatever our current enthusiasm are,” O’Riley says.
Any Detroit artists? Motown? Eminem? White Stripes?
“That’s an idea,” O’Riley says. “We haven’t quite gotten there. Yet.”
Sandra Svoboda is a Deadline Detroit columnist and also works at WDET.
