Contemporary Youth Orchestra plans concert with digital soloist on ‘Spirio’ piano

Steinway Spirio

Contemporary Youth Orchestra director Liza Grossman works with pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi at a Steinway Spirio piano.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Don’t hold your breath waiting on the soloist at the next Contemporary Youth Orchestra concert. He’s not going to show up.

His work, at that point, will be done. Pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi already will have recorded his part in Roberto Piana’s “Concerto Fantastique,” and on Saturday, the orchestra will simply accompany that.

“Hopefully, we’re always staying on the forefront,” said Liza Grossman, director of the CYO. “This is part of our future. I want my students to have the experience they deserve to have.”

If you’re imagining one of those concerts with holograms of dead pop artists, you’re not far off. Steinway’s new Spirio model is a traditional piano, but unlike player pianos of old, it also replicates real performances by real people, complete with all the nuances of live renditions.

When Grossman first encountered one, with Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, she was floored, awed by the realism and immediacy of the performance.

“It was one of the most incredible musical experiences I’ve ever had,” she recalled. “All of a sudden, Glenn Gould was playing on that Steinway. His ghost was right there. It was a magical moment.”

Pompa-Baldi, a Steinway artist and winner of the 1999 Cleveland International Piano Competition, already had been recording for Spirio’s catalog when his friend Roberto Piana completed a concerto for him, a four-movement work drawing on a range of tonal styles from the last 100 years. It was his idea to play it on the Spirio and have the CYO perform it.

Grossman then built a program around the concerto. In addition to “Concerto Fantastique,” she decided to give her charges the life-changing experience of playing Holst’s “The Planets,” complete with an original visual display.

But that was only half the job. For the CYO to present “Concerto Fantastique” with a Spirio, Pompa-Baldi also had to work with Piana to record and edit an account that Grossman and friends could follow without recourse to the flexibility and visual cues of a live soloist.

“Everything has to be predetermined, but in a way that preserves the freedom and perceived spontaneity of the performance,” Pompa-Baldi explained.

“Even though a human played it, there’s a human element missing from it,” added Grossman. “The piano is on automatic pilot. It’s not going to be breathing.”

Grossman’s solution was to use a click track, a system of audio cues widely used in film to keep live musicians in synch with fixed video sequences. Here, though, the fixed line will be Pompa-Baldi and the Spirio.

With some 100 young musicians onstage playing with an automaton, a certain amount of fluctuation is inevitable, Grossman said. They’re only human, after all.

But with Grossman on the podium and a click track in use, Pompa-Baldi predicts a performance both stable and memorable for all the right reasons. If all goes as planned, in fact, he might even have to appear onstage, to play an encore.

“It’s a very fulfilling work to perform, and to listen to,” Pompa-Baldi said. “It is certainly an opportunity to showcase what the [Spirio] can do, but the quality of the music alone makes it a worthy experience.”

PREVIEW

Contemporary Youth Orchestra

What: Liza Grossman conducts Piana’s “Concerto Fantastique” and Holst’s “The Planets.”

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16.

Where: Mandel Theater, Cuyahoga Community College Eastern Campus, 4250 Richmond Road, Highland Hills.

Tickets: $10-$25. Go to cyorchestra.org.

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