Press Release - Points of View
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Ways to Listen to Classical Piano
Klavierhaus Artist-in-Residence and Steinway Artist Hsing-ay Hsu Integrates Music, Listening, and Happiness
Contact for Info / Interview: Hello@Hsingayhsu.com, 646-413-2507
Release Date: January 8, 2024
A New Skillset of Listening to Classical Music and Life
Why now?
Amidst the current cacophony created by sensory overload, rapid change, politics, wars, and pandemics, the skillset of listening is a much-needed antidote to the agitated rhythms of life. Mental health and loneliness pandemics are reaching new peaks. Beyond music’s well known healing qualities, Hsing-ay Hsu employs the practice of listening to empower deeper communication and more tuned-in collaboration for a pathway forward, making the world a better place one relationship at a time. When people learn how to listen to music well, they also connect better with deeper emotions, breath awareness, greater consciousness of multiple perspectives, and feel happiness when they do. “I encourage my audiences to listen creatively with their imagination, and I use the indirect, abstract nature of music to give permission to feel, to express, to create a new vision. We can connect with music, others, and ourselves, regardless of the tidal waves changing around us.”
As the Klavierhaus Artist-in-Residence, a Steinway Artist, former college faculty, and creator of the Conscious Listening™approach, Hsu creates multiple points of access to heightened awareness through the lens of Western classical piano music, interdisciplinary projects, and performance pairings. Undoing the perception that classical music is elitist and dying out, Hsu’s interactive performances has been using beautiful sounds to train listening skills that empower people to engage more with both music and their fellow audience members, skills that transfer into life over time. Capturing the joy of music happens at all levels of musical training and through different modes of experience has been the mission for this Juilliard and Yale trained artist and former university faculty member.
What to expect?
Hsu’s Klavierhaus Conscious Listening™artist residency continues with a recital on February 25, 2024, “Points of View: Pairings with Wine, Poetry, & Improv”, offering new responses to favorite masterpieces through the three literary points of view of first, second, and third person. Guest poet Calleja Smiley Welsh joins in to pair an original poem to Brahms Op.116. A collection of short French works from Claude Debussy to Lili Boulanger will pair with a French wine. And the audience will experience or even participate in a sample of Terry Riley’s historical “In C” in its 60th anniversary year. This will be part of the Salon Concerts Series.
How does this transformation work?
“By prioritizing active listening over spoon-fed facts and judgment, we can develop a personal relationship with the music and each other. Unburdened by bias, noticing sensory pleasures, and opening up to learn new concepts, we can then strive for an awareness that bridges our experience and new knowledge.”
Coming up March 22-25, 2024, the residency climaxes with a festival, starting a Collaborative Showcase with friends from the Met Opera Orchestra, Babel Movement Dance, and the Off-Broadway theater scene. The Conscious Listening™Café features a performance and interactive audience discussion with Grammy Award-winning violist and Eastman professor Masumi Rostad, with a New York premiere by Daniel Kellogg, followed by a hands-on piano building demo with Klavierhaus founder Sujatri Reisinger. The festival wraps up with a Chamber Music Masterclass, Find Your Flow adult piano intensive, interactive Zoom workshops, and YouTube videos exploring piano sound also immerse participants in a habit-building season that blends music training, biology, and emotional exploration.
Imagine a world where we
Listen multidimensionally to ourselves and others,
stay open-minded about what we don't yet understand,
and find personal meaning in how we fit into the big picture.
Founded in NYC in 1993 by Gabor and Sujatri Reisinger, Klavierhaus creates pianos to empower the musical creativity of world-class pianists including previous Artist in Residence Richard Goode, Sir Andras Schiff, and Yuja Wang. For more information, please visit hsingayhsu.com/klavierhaus and YouTube.com/hsingayhsu https://youtu.be/oRaFFN3ZgcU?si=AbxVA1_lNRo-PY9C.