Kenai

August 24, 2017
Population: 7,778
Venue: Veronica’s Cafe

On this day, we drove a couple hours across the peninsula from Moose Pass to Sterling to stop by the house of a young pianist named Keri. My contacts in Soldotna had told me about a high school senior in the area who was aspiring to study piano in college, and I jumped at the chance to meet her and perform with her. She would be featured in my concert in Soldotna the following day, and the plan was to meet a day before to rehearse. Her family generously welcomed me into their home.

When I had asked Keri via email what she would like to perform with me, she said she was up for anything, so I chose a Dvorak Slavonic Dance and a couple Kurtag Jatekok pieces for piano four-hand. Kurtag’s Jatekok (“Games”) are experimental and pretty “out there,” but playful and short enough that I thought the audience would be intrigued and interested. The pieces involve playing the piano with our forearms, and reading unconventional graphic notation. Keri tackled all of the pieces fearlessly and beautifully, and we had a wonderful afternoon of rehearsing and talking a bit about her options for furthering her studies. 

From Keri’s house, it was straight to our venue in Kenai. Veronica’s, an adorable and charming cafe, was our venue. A couple blocks away was the oldest standing Orthodox Russian church in Alaska, from 1896. Unfortunately on this day, my control of tour was slipping out of my hands. Juggling all the day-to-day duties - the day’s schedule, coordinating with host families, confirming details with the following days’ venues, fielding media requests, keeping up on social media, trying to nail down the itinerary for the final days of tour which were STILL undetermined (so stressful), driving, setting up the piano, and, most importantly, focusing on my performance once I step on stage - it’s a lot! 

The first mistake that day was that we cut our timing too close; we had just barely enough time to set up the piano at Veronica’s and for me to go change in the attic before coming downstairs, ready to play, only to find…that there was hardly anyone there. Bummed or not, the show must go on, and the longer I went on, the more people trickled in. As I found out later, this was completely my fault: in a local newspaper interview earlier that week, I had told the reporter the wrong start time - 30 minutes later than when I started. I had to apologize profusely to Ben, the reporter, who also was kind enough to show up at Veronica’s to take pictures for a follow-up newspaper article. The good news was that the next day’s show in Soldotna was only 11 miles away from Veronica’s, and I could invite everyone to join me again there (after more apologizing). 

What I remember about this show:  The young lawyer who was so visibly moved by the Beethoven piece, and described it as the “most scrumptious.” Said lawyer helping me move the piano back into the van. The German tourists who enthusiastically hooted and hollered after each piece. Keri showing up and sitting front row with her mom. The delicious and huge brownie a la mode, on the house, that Jarett and I split after the show. 

Thank you Veronica’s and Kenai!