EvCC geography teacher Kerry Lyste will be performing several classical pieces by Mozart and Beethoven as well as improvisation on piano this Thursday. The free performance will be in Baker 220 at 12:20 to any interested students or community members.
Lyste has been playing the piano since he was 5 years old. He majored in music at Western Washington University for two years and describes his musical influences as “the old masters,” such as Mozart and Beethoven. His eyes light up as he talks about his experiences with music and the influence classical music had on him as a pianist. A music professor at WWU had great influence over his playing and helped encourage him to play to connect with his audience instead of for self gratification.
The performance is called Beethoven Blues. The pieces Lyste plans to play include Moonlight Sonata and a smattering of Mozart and improvisation.
Lyste recalls his time in college when his music professor asked him to play Moonlight Sonata. Even though Lyste had learned it when he was 12, his professor taught him that knowing the story behind the piece would inspire a more meaningful performance.
Beethoven used Moonlight Sonata to propose to a woman of a much higher class than him. Lyste says, “Perspective is everything when it comes to music.” Lyste strives to understand where the old masters are coming from and translate that into his playing.
Even though Lyste has been playing piano all of his life, he has also studied business and geography. He draws several parallels between music, business and geography. Both music and business are both based on form and quantitative thinking. He says that “we have a tendency to think there’s that difference between the creative and the perceived noncreative types,” but in reality, “it’s a lot more common than we realize.”
Between music and geography, however, Lyste sees fewer parallels. In his eyes, music has an extra element of depth that geography doesn’t. He finds geography to be very spatial – “all about space and place and interpreting the uniqueness of that,” whereas music is a “unique expression that comes from us.” Both come from our experiences, says Lyste.
Lyste feels that he has been very absorbed in his career over the past 10 years, and that he has not had time to actively play music. This is his first recital as a staff member, but he hopes that he can do recitals every year and get back into the music he spent so much time with when he was younger.
0 comments:
Post a Comment