(New)
Standards Night with Peter
Stoltzman
 A graduate of both Berklee College of Music and the New
England
Conservatory, Peter Stoltzman has been called “a monster jazz
piano
player” by the late Jack Elliot (music director of the Mancini
Institute
and the Grammy awards). Son of two-time Grammy-winning clarinetist
Richard Stoltzman, Peter has performed with his father at renowned
venues including Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, and their
work together has been heard on WNYC, Sirius and NPR. A returning
Stanford Jazz Workshop faculty member, Peter’s Stanford concert
is
a special one-of-a-kind evening that will present an array of pop tunes
(from the Beatles to Dave Matthews), adapted as contemporary jazz arrangements.
In order to get to know him better, we asked
Peter to answer a few questions. Here’s
what he had to say:
When did you become interested in music, and what circumstances
or events led to
your becoming a professional musician?
The truth is, until I was 16 I wanted to be a baseball player.
But between my
sophomore and junior year of high school I went to music camp instead
of baseball
camp for the first time, and that changed everything. Music, I had
realized at an early
age, is not about winning and losing. It’s about creating something
of value together—something that transcends the
typical limitations of human experience, and can
transport a person into states of joy, catharsis, contentment, and
peace. The summer
I spent at music camp was an opportunity to realize so many things
about being a
musician: 1) that other people like me loved to play music,
and it was actually really
cool; 2) that other people were way better than me on their instruments,
and I really
wanted to learn what they had learned; 3) that musicians enjoyed
playing music,
enjoyed helping each other get better, and most importantly, I was
definitely one of
them.
Who is your greatest musical infl uence?
I remember when my father gave me McCoy Tyner’s solo
piano record “Revelations.”
I listened to that cassette almost every day, and from the beginning
of my jazz studies I
tried to sound like McCoy. There’s such tenderness and honesty
alongside a powerful
feeling of longing and assertiveness in McCoy’s playing. He
plays with such an
emotional range of colors. I think as a 10, 11, 12 year-old, his
playing spoke to the
world of emotions inside me that I had no way to express. Jazz piano
became my
outlet for, and my connection to, my inner world.
What’s your
favorite thing about being a Stanford Jazz Workshop faculty member?
My favorite thing about being an SJW faculty member is having
the chance to help
young musicians enjoy the experience of being a musician. Whether
they go on to
be professional musicians or not doesn’t matter. Each student
at SJW is already
essentially a musician, and always will be. What matters is one’s
relationship with
music. Do you love learning (from good experiences and bad)? Do you
respect, enjoy,
and learn from your fellow musicians? Do you realize what a great
gift it is to play
music? I want my students to imbibe these kinds of lessons, so that
they will always
value their own connection to music. As a teacher, when you witness
the experience of
new growth, understanding, or inspiration, there is nothing more
satisfying. Teaching
at SJW renews my musical spirit, sharpens my skills, and rejuvenates
my enthusiasm
for the music we call Jazz.
To find out more about Peter, go to peterstoltzman.com |
