Windsor piano teacher takes stage at recital using $200K Steinway piano
Gregory Duff has been playing piano for 35 years, but on Tuesday night at a student recital, he said he was nervous to perform.
Getting the "full intonation in the opening sections" of Claude Debussy's Clair de lune could be challenging, Dugg explained, adding that so are the "very rapid arpeggios section in the left hand."
"And if you get a little nervous like I'm feeling tonight, sometimes the hand doesn't always want to obey."
He was at the Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association student recital at Capitol Theatre, where 18 student pianists also took the stage. The audience heard a range of pieces, from Debussy to Franz Liszt.
Duff started playing piano when he was six, and now at 41, he runs a piano studio with his wife.
The years of practice are worth it, he said, despite there always being challenges.
"And when you finally connect with a piece after many, many hours of work, it's a difficult feeling to describe, but you realize the benefit of the goal that you're going for," said Duff, "And that really does help get you through those dark times in the practice room."
"It's absolutely worth the effort I've put into it."
The recital was sponsored by Steinway & Sons. The company lent a Spirio, a $200,000 player piano for the performers to use.
"That piano is able to recreate performances of historic musicians and living musicians, and play them in high definition, so that you're actually hearing what the pianist would really play in a recreation," said Alex Thomson, regional manager of Steinway.
The recreation he's speaking of is an iPad system which connects to the Spirio, a player piano.
You can select a piece performed by a certain musician, and the piano will play that piece on its own.
Duff said he felt "very privileged" for the opportunity to play the instrument, which he anticipated would make his piece "richer."
"I don't often get the opportunity to play such an instrument, and to be able to do something like this is just great," he said.
"You get to see what a new piano sound will bring to what you're doing."
