I’ve even been warned by women about a certain male resident: Watch out, he’s looking for a new wife.
But other times, the men seem entirely earnest. I know that sometimes the flirty behavior is meant to be a joke.
I suppose I could answer their marriage question with a question of my own-the one often suggested in advice columns when people ask how to deal with nosy parkers: Why do you ask?īut because I can’t play the piano and talk at the same time, I opt for the quicker declarative. It’s hard to keep playing with something like that hanging in the air, so I quickly say that yes, I am. Always cell phones.īut lately I’ve noticed a new category of distractions: Elderly men who approach the piano and ask me if I’m married. Tickets have been sold out for months.Ī few years ago, I wrote a post about some of the distractions I’ve faced as a volunteer pianist: piano dusters, carpet cleaners, table clearers. She’ll be 14 years old and will play a program of her own compositions. But I think I would prefer to be the first Alma than to be the second Mozart.Īlma makes her Carnegie Hall debut on December 12, 2019. Of course, I love Mozart and I would have loved him to be my teacher. You can find plenty of performance videos there. He had not.Īfter appearing on 60 Minutes, Alma’s popularity soared. When Alma sat down at the piano and invited Pelley to select four notes out of a hat, and then improvised a piece based on a melody consisting of those four notes, he looked like he was wondering if he’d been tricked. And quite often, they come up with very interesting things. Sometimes when I’m stuck with something, when I’m composing, I go to them and ask them for advice. In fact, she has made up a whole country where imaginary composers live. She went on to explain that imaginary composers live in her head. But then actually sitting down and developing the melodies and that’s the really difficult part, having to tell a real story with music. When asked where her musical ideas come from, she told correspondent Scott Pelley, “It’s really very normal to me to walk around and have melodies popping into my head.” “I wave it around and memories pour into my head.” She showed Ellen the jump rope that helps her compose. Nuanced, beautiful.Ī 8, Alma was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. I’m sure she’s not the only 6-yr-old child who can play this Haydn piece, but her playing is extraordinary.
An opera requires a full orchestral score, so she had to know the range and capabilities of all the instruments. She wrote her first piano sonata at age seven, an opera at ten. Today we have Alma Deutscher.īorn in England in 2005, Alma is an accomplished violinist, pianist, and composer. Prodigies-those precocious children who possess musical skills that astound and confound us.