Back in 2017 and 2018 I travelled the world with the Gina Bachauer Piano Competition helping document their preliminary rounds in Germany, Russia, Hong Kong and New York City. It was an amazing experience and one that I would like to replicate some time. I received a list of competitors from the Bachauer, I emailed several and while in Moscow, ended up in Red Square talking to Ilya and Sergey about the competition, music, piano and life in general. I enjoyed our time together and felt like we were pretty fast friends.
Sergey and Ilya were both selected to compete in Salt Lake City, where Sergey received bronze and Ilya made the semifinals. I chatted with them both throughout their time in Salt Lake and we became that most special of all things, Facebook friends.
Towards the end of the Bachauer competition, Earl’s Music Room really start to form in my mind and I was excited to film some of the amazing pianists I had met. In speaking with Ilya and Sergey, they seemed excited to participate. We spoke a time or two about me coming to Moscow and filming them, but time and a pandemic didn’t really help get us together.
Fast forward to December of 2021 when Sergey travelled to Salt Lake City to perform with the Bachauer. I attended his recital and I believe it was at intermission that we chatted and he informed me that he was living in Kansas of all places. Turns out that Stanislav Ioudenitch, winner of the 2001 Cliburn taught at Park University and Sergey was there studying with him. I figured that if I could travel to Moscow, I certainly could make it to Kansas!
Jokingly I told Sergey that it would be a good time for Ilya to come and visit Kansas, but it turns out that Ilya was already there, also attending Park and had actually been there longer than Sergey. Two for one sounded great to me! We would film at Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel, which I believe is owned by the university and generally available to music students for recording. We could film each night and chances are I could leave my equipment, or at least cabling there so I wouldn’t have to set up repeatedly.
I have learned that if I book a trip, even if I can cancel for free, I am much more likely to actually go. In years past I would kind of wait till the last minute, find things too expensive and then not go on trips that I had been quite excited about. So I found a flight, an Airbnb that was quite close to the chapel, booked a car and was all set.
Packing up eight cameras, five microphones, a live editing board, a video recorder, an audio recorder and all the supporting power, cabling, tripods, tracks, memory, etc., getting it on and off an airplane, to the venue and all set up is actually quite stressful for me and really a lot of work. Forget an SDI cable and all is lost! And I have a rather demanding full time job, a daughter and general life going on that does not help with it all. For a moment or two I pondered not coming, but alas, for the art and knowing I would regret not going, off I went!
This was my first such trip since the pandemic so I kind of erred on the side of bringing too many cables and bags. For a day or so I thought a friend was going to come and help me film, but in the end I was on my own.
This was a new venue, I was trying a few new camera locations and lenses, wanted a shot of the chapel from above that would be transmitted to where I was editing, I brought three tracks and a gimbal for adding some motion and had five microphones to set up, so yeah, it took awhile to get all going, actually about eight hours over the course of two days. As I have experienced several times, regardless of the stress and sometimes literal pain of getting everything to a venue and setup, once the recording starts it is all worth it. And yes the same thing happened this time around.
I had visions of three types of videos for this trip
1. Videos shot with eight cameras that I live edit during the performances
These videos are really the bread and butter of Earl’s Music Room and I quite enjoy filming this way. Generally I prepare for recording by getting planned repertory from the artist, making a playlist and listening like crazy, so the pieces, and honestly the form of the pieces can be pretty present in my mind. I want the editing to feel natural, break (or not) with the music and be on desired shots at the right moments. For example, Ilya performed Bach’s Toccata in D Major and I wanted to make sure I was prepared for and had a great shot for when the fugue starts near the end. I was pleased with how it ended up! And how about the look of joy in Ilya’s face as he conducts the subject! I can make changes in post-production but want to get as great as I can the first time through.
Vladimir Horowitz was rather foundational in me finding, learning and loving classical music. I have listened to Horowitz in Moscow many times, playing and learning several of the pieces including Mozart’s K 330 Sonata in C Major, which Sergey performed.
Fwiw, I believe I was chasing the album cover in my main shot of the chapel
And here’s Sergey with his amazing technique playing Liszt’s Réminiscences de Don Juan. This was a single take and the first take, all the way through just Sergey sitting down and crushing it
2. Videos that are from a single take filmed with a held-held camera
Folks love long takes, right, so why not try it for piano performances? I am betting there are some out there, but I really haven’t seen them. For years I have been pretty amazed by Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Ilya was up for performing the first movement. I bought a score and Ilya and I collaborated on what the music was doing and how the camera and its movement could help accentuate the performance. We did a few takes (I could have used a couple more) and this was our favorite. I feel like it started to come together when I decided to “respect the theme,” whereby when the main theme was prominent, I would statically film, watch and not just be moving all the time.
I think video can be magic and help you hear inner voices when they are shown, like you hear the left hand better when the left hand is prominent on screen. I tried to show that by focusing on the left hand for several interesting parts. Being 6’9″ came in handy for the overhead shot at the end. Fwiw, I filmed that without a gimbal and just held the camera, trying to stay as steady as possible. I used my newest camera body, the Sony A7 IV, turned on the active stabilization and smoothed it out in post using Sony software. It is amazing! And the focusing? Wow! Sony, reach out and I would be happy to be a paid ambassador. Nearly all the cameras I used for the multi-camera setup were Sonys.
When I first mentioned doing shorter pieces I think short meant 5-10 minutes for Sergey and Ilya, where I was looking for two-ish. Once it kind of sunk in what I was looking for, Sergey suggested filming Schumann’s Intermezzo Op 26 No 4, which I think turned out quite nicely. Great piece, great length, nice contrast to the Stravinsky and beautifully played by Sergey. And how great does Sergey look with that black shirt and that shiny black piano?! These were shot with a Sony A7 IV and the amazing 14mm F1.8 Sony lens which feels like it was created for videos like these. Seriously Sony, reach out!
3. Hand zoom™ videos
I work as a computer programmer and have done a bit with computer vision. For years I have envisioned an overhead shot of the keyboard and then using computer vision to focus on each hand in a separate window, almost like there was a little cameraman perfectly following each hand. Sergey was up for playing and had two Chopin Etudes ready to go! Both of these Etudes were done in a single take and I believe actually the first take. Op 10 No 3 was almost an afterthought. I think Sergey was walking off the stage and then said something like “ok, here’s one more.” I have performed that Etude in the past and never as well as Sergey did here. I wrote code that used a computer vision library to isolate the hands into separate videos and then put these together using Adobe Premiere.
Part of the vision of Earl’s Music Room is that I am able to have a reasonable cut of things before flying away. In past lives, I would record on each of several cameras, then sync and edit in post. The problem is that I would get back to life, get busy, and months or years might pass before I have a finished product. With the live editing I am able to have something to show pretty quick. In theory it would allow better collaboration with the artists and I could move things around as we try to iterate. Turns out there was a little contention in scheduling the hall and it was just the one night that we filmed multi-camera content, so didn’t end up iterating.
I think the moral of my trip is, sometimes good things take effort. Handling all that equipment was so very worth it. I basically ended up working during the day and filming at night. Thankfully I work in a great field for a great company and am allowed such freedom.
Part of said day job was interviewing someone during this trip. Turns out they went to Kansas State and currently live in Kansas. Since the interview went well and I was thinking I was in Kansas, we setup a time to meet at Joe’s BBQ. On the way to lunch I passed a “Welcome to Kansas” sign and yeah, turns out that though I flew into Kansas, Parkville is actually in Missouri. Guess I should let Sergey know!
Early on in my trip I asked Sergey and Ilya “I have a very important question for you, have you ever been to Waffle House?” They had not. My first night I got in a bit late and was trying to find some place that was actually open in Parkville and boom, there it was, Waffle House, just a few minutes away. I didn’t know Waffle House went so far west but I was excited to eat there a couple times.
My last night in town, we chatted at Waffle House and I asked what had been Ilya and Sergey’s favorite part. Funny enough, it wasn’t the hours of music we each enjoyed, but us eating together in the Park University student cafeteria where we ended up eating most nights. Thanks Sergey and Ilya for the guest swipes! Seriously, what a great trip!
Earl Cahill, Ilya Shmukler and Sergey Belyavsky – Park University Cafeteria (Earl Cahill)
I chatted with Ilya and Sergey last night and I will likely go to Parkville again. It is kind of a wonderland for great pianists. They have Stanislav, a teacher that won the Cliburn, a church with a basement filled with Steinway pianos and practice rooms, and a chapel great for recording that is walking distance from dorms and a cafeteria. Practice, eat, sleep, repeat.
Fwiw, I am up for doing trips pretty well wherever I can film great pianists with great attitudes in great venues performing great music on great pianos. Please reach out if you have such circumstances you can offer me. You can read more about Earl’s Music Room, including some terms, here.
And here are the rest of the videos from my trip
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