Pianist, composer, and improviser Gabriela Montero has been acclaimed around the world for her blend of firepower, lyricism, and imagination. Her award-winning career includes performing at President Obama’s first inauguration alongside Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill and Itzhak Perlman. She is also a creative dissenter – Montero’s work as an artist is deeply informed by her advocacy. An Honorary Consul for Amnesty International, the Venezuela-born artist has been recognized by the Human Rights Foundation for her commitment to human rights, and for raising awareness of the grave injustices of her home country. We talked with Gabriela ahead of her February 10 concert on our stage.
You have become a leading global voice in highlighting Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. What is it you most want people to know?
As a Venezuelan it’s so important for me to speak out about the 7.5 million Venezuelans – 7.5 million – who are now exiled. It’s a devastating situation. And like Nina Simone said, this is happening to me. This is happening in my time. I can’t not get involved. But it’s very difficult to be an activist for a cause few people understand or want to know about, and where information is so often disseminated in the wrong way, or in untruths. It’s difficult to be an activist for a country that has collapsed and effectively died when the world isn’t listening. And you not only have to deal with the mourning and the loss of your home, and of the many millions who are suffering, but also with the uphill struggle to explain to the world what has happened and continues to happen, and to realize that most people are switched off and don’t want to know. It’s incredibly painful.
But one thing I would like to say aside from these tragic facts is that I have become incredibly sensitive and attuned to the role of the artist in sending a message. And this has really cemented the idea that artists have a responsibility – a duty to speak on behalf of those who can’t – because we have a platform. And to not use this opportunity when it is necessary, like it has been for me, would be a disservice.
You’ve titled this program Westward. Please tell us about it.
I try to create programs that tell a story. Very often these stories are pertinent to the situation in Venezuela – stories that are urgent to share. This program is about immigration, illustrated in works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky – three pianist-composers who emigrated to or spent time in the US to escape oppression in their country.
I begin the program with Prokofiev’s Sarcasms – a set of five quirky, dark, but captivating pieces that depict the bite of human nature. After that comes more Prokofiev (I Iove playing these pieces), a marvelous Romantic work by Rachmaninoff, and an almost jazzy Stravinsky sonata. I finish the program improvising to a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Immigrant, which – in 22 minutes – encapsulates the hope, the expectation, the struggle, the challenge, the humor, the disappointment, and ultimately the surprise of leaving your homeland and arriving somewhere new. The visual majesty of this little film really captures the plight of the immigrant. It’s the reason I created this program, and such a critical subject for us all right now.
Improvisation is something today’s audience generally associates with jazz, not classical, performers. Can you talk about this aspect of your art, and how you do what you do?
It’s funny, because for me improvisation is something as natural to my daily life as eating or walking – it’s just something I’ve always done – the way I express how I feel and my inner imagination. I’ve done it since I was a very young child. And what I would love the audience to know is that I don’t control it. It’s not intellectually driven - it’s something beyond that.
When the movie screen is lowered for the Charlie Chaplin film, I will have a monitor on top of the piano, where I will be able to see exactly what the audience sees. I’m just reacting to the movie as I improvise the whole score. There is not one note written, not one note planned. I have no awareness of what key I’m going to play in or what’s happening the next second. It just flows through me. I’m a witness to it all, just like the audience. I really have no idea how I do it! But what I love most is that it enables me to be in a state of absolute freedom.
You’ve called your creative works “acts of musical journalism.” Please expand on that.
This applies to both my improvisations and my compositions. For years after my 2010 decision to become active in my cause, I would use my improvisation on stage to send a message to the audience about what Venezuelans were living through. I didn’t want to make things overly political, I would simply say a few words about what was developing there, because no one knew. Then I would sit down and begin to improvise, and I would tell the audience, “This is what Venezuelans feel like. This is what I feel like.” It enabled an empathy and closeness between the audience and myself, and a curiosity to know more.
I did that for years. Then I decided to compose a piece for piano and orchestra, Ex Patria. It means “without a home.” I decided to write it because I wanted to have something I could play where the public could experience being in or from a place where there is no oxygen. No future.
Journalism is about telling stories, and about focusing the lens on what needs to be seen. That’s very much what I have done with my compositions. And I have used my improvisations to bring the audience to my experience in Venezuela, and therefore find a way for them to care.
You are involved in so much. You’re currently on tour in the US, and in Europe this spring, there’s work connected to your activism, you recently formed an artists’ residency and concert series … what do you do to relax or recharge?
I’m not very good at relaxing! I love being with my two daughters and my husband and our adorable little Maltese, Louie. I love riding my bike and walks in the forest – I find myself wanting to be more and more in nature. And I really love teaching! I’ve started a mentorship program, the Gabriela Montero Piano Lab, and I adore this new role of coaching and mentoring. I want to give back as much as I can. We’ve become so cynical as a global society. When someone does something simply because they care and want to give – without any agenda or personal benefit, it can elicit doubt. We need to embrace kindness.
Gabriela Montero performs Friday, February 10 at 7:30 pm. Hear her live in Kaufmann Concert Hall, or by livestream. Additional details on the program here.