StarStruck Performance help

[jamie_liszt]

Hey

I am going to audition at the end of march for starstruck which is in a couple of months (Star struck is for schools where you audition and then audition again, its a formal occasion with hundreds or thousands, dancing, singing, solo etc and its on TV). I was talking to my teacher about this, I suggested Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen (My own arrangement) and she said "I'm not sure, wouldn't you like to be original and play something like Beethoven Pathetique Sonata 1st mvt or Beethoven op 31 sonata 1st mvt, something different, fun and showy". I am unsure on what to play, at the audition my teacher says you can play anything you want for the solo piano auditions, they wanna see how you play. I could play  30 seconds of a piece and then 30 seconds of another.

What do you guys think? There is alot of people in the crowd, Not all of them will be classical lovers. Probably 2% of the people in the crowd would have heard of the beethoven pathetique  (just the name not the piece). So i think its better to play bohemian rhapsody because its long, fun and everyone knows it. But my teacher disagrees and says everyone will be auditioning with that piece (unlikely everyone will) and to play beethoven because theres not many people who will at my age. Hard decision..

[alwaystheangel]

Maybe start with the Pathetique and create a really neat way to morph it into Bohemian Rhapsody (which is an awesome song by the way, but so is Pathetique).  I dunno, how about that?

[franziii]

I agree with  alwaystheangels  post but you might try morphing moonlight sonata into
Bohemian Rhapsody ...think about it     the rolling right hand eight note figure from moonlight would slide easily into the rhapsody

[gruffalo]

if you are going to introduce classical music into this audition, dont play Beethoven. they will fall asleep. for the non-classical mind, start further up in the classical period, i think Liszt would best suit this. its fast, its hard, and you can show off with it.

[alwaystheangel]

I disagree, everyone knows Beethoven, esp. moonlight, hardly anyone knows Lizt heck, I barely know LIzt, it's got to be really well know so moonlight would be a good choice (better than pathetique) and it's not to bad to learn either, if you haven't learnt it already, if you can play pathetique, you can play moonlight.

[henrah]

If you want the non-classical audience to get bored, play Beethoven. If you want to keep the audience's attention, no matter if they listen to classical music or not, play some flashy Liszt, or some other flashy work. Play something that changes a lot so as not to lose the audiences attention.
Henrah

[emmdoubleew]

I think the pathetique is a pretty exciting piece, way better than the moonlight in my opinion. In the words of Beethoven himself "Surely I've written better things." He becaem exasperated with its popularity and I can totally see why.

I think you can defiently make something out of the pathetique. Right from the beggining it's grand and noisy. I have a great recording by Richard Goode if you want me to upload it.

[jamie_liszt]

Yeh sure, upload the recording pls!!

I like the idea of going from Pathetique into Bohemian Rhapsody. My teacher said, Many kids will audition on piano with the same boring crap, i.e: Bohemian rhapsody, I dont like Mondays, Maroon 5 etc. it would be cool to be original and it must be showy in the first minute, she mentioned beethoven because im working on alot of his sonatas. I think it would be cool to mix them to be different. She said i would have to put alot of expression and dynamics into my performance, she said i would be way better then the rest that will audition..

I had a thought, Chopins op 10 no 4 etude is fast, showy and shows alot of your technique, octaves, fast passages, eveness and finger independence. but im not sure..

[gruffalo]

in the end, most of us are blinded by what we think is interesting (im not saying it isnt) because we are used to classical music. these people will not like Beethoven,i can tell ya that. it doesnt matter that they dont know liszt, they dont care who they do or dont know. they just want to see something fast and impressive. moonlight will bore them to death.

[demented cow]

Beethoven won't be any good for this gig (plus you'll probably get struck by lightening for misusing his music). For popular gigs, you either have to work with familiar pieces (which rules out everything but the Moonlight & Für Elise, which will bore them and don't show what you can do) or you have to do catchy pieces where there's a lot happening (i.e. very fast, varied pieces).
Play one of the virtuoso pieces you play (say la Campanella; Flight of the Bumblebee, Chopin 10/1 is less good 'cos it's not so varied), abbreviating it.
Like somebody said, it would be brilliant if you could morph into a well-known pop song (or have the pop song melody going in the bass while you right hand figurations like in 10/1, which you can then recycle later as a new-look Chopin-Godowsky etude on your first cd).
I don't know if you saw the thread on Lang Lang playing a showy arrangement of LIszt HR 2 on the Jay Leno show. The audience liked it, especially because he looked like he was enjoying it.

[gruffalo]

im with demented cow. la campanella would be perfect.

[franziii]

Hey people let`s not be so literal here....
what i meant was the use of maybe the first 4 measures of the moonlight which is easily morphed into the beginning of bohemian rhapsody. moonlight is only for a calm reference point that sets up the audience for the storm and fury which can occur in the bohemian rhapsody.....

[chopet]

I dont know what standard youre at but If Liszts Hungarian raphsody no. 2 is within your reach, maybe you could do that? The non-classical music liking people might reconise it from tom and Jerry....

[jamie_liszt]

I know Beethoven isnt as good as liszt or chopin, thats why I mentioned to my teacher HR 2 or La campanella, Or Chopin etude op 10 no 1,4 or 12 and she says I don't have much practice time, I only have around 18 days.

as for horowitz's arrangement of HR2, I think ill stay away from that. It looks crazy

[alwaystheangel]

Even though people here seem to hate grieg's piano concerto, it's about as showy as you can get and the opening page or so aren't hard to learn and it's darn exciting.  I don't know La Campanella (or whatever it is)  Anyone have a recording they wouldn't mind uploading?  I'd be curious to hear it.

[jamie_liszt]

Liebestraum no 3 ? it has slow parts and show parts. ?

[henrah]

If you are able to play Chopin 10/4 or 10/12, go for it! They are certainly flashy, and will stick in the audiences minds enough to make them hum it afterwards. HR2 would be a great piece also, possibly better than the Chopin etudes, as it will definately be more recognisable than them. It's been in Tom&Jerry, Bugs Bunny, and that Stella advert; most of the audience members are sure to have heard it before. But I would advise condensing it, so you get small parts of each section; and get to the flashy parts fairly quickly too.

Liebestraum 3 might be a bit too poetic....I don't know....
Henrah

[jamie_liszt]

Remember that the piece i choose I will play in the audition infront of a couple of music teachers and pianists, they will choose what I play at the event if I get through.

[henrah]

Ah ok....hm, well if it's in front of music teachers, choose the piece that you think you can play the best: i.e. the piece you can express yourself through the most, the piece which you enjoy the most, the piece that doesn't need much improvement (or if it does, enough time to cover it).