andre watts with nj symphony

Andre Watts is in love with the piano and the piano loves him.  What other musician holds such a fascinating relationship with his instrument, offering a full bodied, playful, passionate, mesmerizing performance of Beethoven’s and Grieg’s Forth Piano Concertos.  His playfulness almost recalls Chico Marx on the keyboard with elegant, caring, zippy flourishes in Beethoven’s lighter movements.  For the more serious tones of the piece, Watts offers a more restrained, sterner touch.

Led by conductor Peter Bay, the New Jersey Symphony with Mr. Watts were in fine form, Friday evening at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Throughout the night, the orchestra along with André Watts enriched the hall with clear and brilliant sounds, enthralling the audience.

Pianist André Watts rose to fame in 1963 at age 16 when Leonard Bernstein chose him, substituting for Glenn Gould, to play Liszt’s E-flat Concerto with the New York Philharmonic. Five decades later, Watts remains one of today’s most praised and prominent pianists. He regularly performs with the world’s great orchestras and conductors, appearing at distinguished international festivals while also serving on the faculty teaching piano students at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

The large and welcoming audience were treated to Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in G major for Piano and Orchestra. The first movement begins with a short opening phrase of the principal theme in the piano, instead of the traditional exclusively orchestral introduction. Watts welcomed us in a achieves a resonant piano. The orchestra takes over the melody. The movement continues with numerous arpeggios and chromaticism in the piano as the orchestra fluctuates between harmonic areas. Watts’s execution of these types of passages was breath taking and effortless. His playing was energetic as his sound shined over the orchestra, sometimes he seemed to be singing the notes to himself or cajoling the piano to keep up with his technique and passion.

The second half of the program included Stravinsky's ''Four Norwegian Moods,'' adaptations of folk or folkish materials from sketches originally intended for a Hollywood film. The four pieces are sprightly and well performed by the orchestra, handling their lightness and tone with sprightliness.

Grieg’s Piano Concerto is known from it’s opening descending tense flourish and in Watt’s hands.  Together with the orchestra it was masterfully evening with wonderously adroit performances, mixing novel tempi with awesome technique and breathtaking, tingling tension.

The NJSO season continues in Newark with a benefit for the UJA featuring Alon Goldstein on piano this Sunday and a broadway concert featuring Christopher SIeber and Beth Leavel on May 30^th.  More information is available at njsymphony.org

How to Dance in Ohio - as seen at Montclair Film Festival

Remember your first dance, maybe it was at summer camp or school.  And then consider the rash of emotions involved in going and finding someone to go with.  Factor in autism – “a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior” (National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke)” and the excitement and trepidation of this rite of passage is illuminated in a whole new light.  Alexandra Shiva’s excellent documentary “How to Dance in Ohio” focuses on a series of young adults in Columbus with Autism preparing for their first dance.

The highest rates of autism in the country are reportedly in New Jersey— 1 in 45 children are diagnosed.  Experts do not know if more are being caught through better screening or an uptick in cases.  Nationally, one in every 68 children — nearly 1.2 million children under 21 years old — are estimated to have it.  According to the Center for Disease Control - boys are diagnosed in higher numbers — 1 in 28 boys in New Jersey and 1 in 42 nationally are on the autism spectrum.

The level of male diagnosis makes Shiva’s film even more potent- as it largely concerns itself with three females and their families.  The formal dance is the brainstorm of Doctor Emilio Amigo who runs a family counseling center with social skills classes in Ohio.  Over the course of the film he leads them through dancing, manners, how to ask someone to the dance, corsages and even crowns a king and queen. 

Shiva and her editor Toby Shimin create a brilliant montage that introduces us to a variety of teens at Amigo’s center and focuses on their interests – anime, electrical circuitry, and animals.  This allows us to see both the level of intellect, interests, and auto-didactic fixations typical of Autism.  They balance this with an explanation of the difficulty of reading and creations emotions by the Autistic while a male teen explains this he shows how he’s practicing to show emotion by raising his eyebrows.  Amigo brings this point home by stating, “If you’ve me someone with autism, you’ve only met one person with autism.”  While the young adults comment “we like to socialize, we just don’t know how.”

The film narrows the focus to three young women – Marideth (16 who loves computer time), Jessica (22 who has some independence through a job in a bakery), and Caroline (a college student who wants to work with 3 -5 year-olds and go to Japan).  Marideth’s parents crave their two minutes of daily interaction.  There is a touching scene between her and younger sister where they discuss Miley Cyrus and men with long hair while the younger girl brushes her older sister’s hair.  Ultimately, there is gown selection, fretting about whom to dance with or ask to the dance, a tender kiss, and crowning of prom king and queen.

This is a moving film that will get a larger audience through viewing later this year on HBO.  Shiva and her team place a loving lens on their subjects and craft an honest, affecting look around growing up with autism. Funny, engaging, and entertaining, How to Dance in Ohio celebrates a rite of passage and all the thorns on the roses along the way especially for those who don’t always read emotions but feel them anyway.