Sept 24 1998
IRVINE WORLD NEWS
Oct 8 1998
IRVINE WORLD NEWS
Jan/Feb 1995
The Swallow's Tale
IRVINE WORLD NEWS
September 24 1998
What’s next?
By Michael Rydzynski
Bill Protzmann comes on stage and sits at the piano, like any other concert pianist. He plays Scott Joplin’s "The Entertainer."
Then, still sitting while the audience applauds, he’ll turn to the audience and say "That was Scott Joplin’s ‘The Entertainer,’ which was featured prominently in ‘The Sting.’ But did you know he also wrote this piece?" and proceed to play "Maple Leaf Rag.
This sort of thing happens all through the program. In fact, Protzmann announces the pieces he plays because there is no printed program.
Certainly not your typical piano recital.
"This is cabaret, but without the singing," claimed Protzmann, 37, a senior piano performance major at UC Irvine who will be offering his free one-man show, "For The Love of Music," on October 3 at the UCI Concert Hall.
"The feeling you get from watching this is the feeling one gets at a cabaret," said Protzmann. "The idea is: make a bridge between the stage and the seats."
"It’s hard being a pianist," Protzmann continued. "You’re stuck with a 65,000-pound instrument so you can’t move around. There’s more to it then to come on stage, play, and go off. And oh, by the way, you have to be fairly competent, too."
Protzmann is more than fairly competent. Playing the piano since he was 3, he indulges in both the music he plays – a smorgasbord of classical, pop, jazz, musical theater, hymn and movie music – and the stories he tells about the music.
"The idea of talking to people about the selections is to allow the people to feel they can let their hair down as well as the performed letting his down," he said. "And the mix of styles is playing fun music for people who want to hear that. It’s a well-balanced diet of music."
But what’s with the lack of a printed program?
"I don’t tell people what I’ll play beforehand so they’re surprised by what they’ll hear next," Protzmann explained. "Like the juxtaposition of Rachmaninov’s ‘Prelude in C-sharp minor’ with ‘The Russian Rag’ (by George L Cobb), which is based on the same motive and is, at the same time, a lampoon of it. People don’t know that’s coming."
And that will be the case at UCI. Protzmann will identify the selections and provide a play list after the performance. He did allow, though, that George Gershwin will be an important part of his program.
"He was, after the ragtime composers, the next great popular music composer," he said. "Yet he could play both sides of the street, classical and popular, and leave audiences satisfied."
Protzmann is going for his second college degree at UCI. His first was in English at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois – and he couldn’t be happier.
"Being in the UCI music department is like a dream," Protzmann said. "And I’m thankful (the faculty) bought into this concept of doing my senior recital (next spring) in a similar way."
One of Protzmann’s biggest supporters has been his instructor, Nina Scolnik, of the UCI piano faculty.
"Nina is the reason why I’m here now," said Protzmann, who previously attended UCI in the mid-1980s after arriving from Principia.
"The mechanics of playing the piano properly are so important and I owe her a lot. And Nina has the gift of being able to teach so effectively and is a phenomenal pianist."
Protzmann came across his musical calling by accident.
"When I was 12, ‘The Sting’ had come out and I like the music so much that I looked around and found ‘The 12th Street Rag.’ I learned it and volunteered in my private school to play it for assembly. After I played the first chorus, everybody starts clapping, but I wasn’t finished. After I played the second chorus, everyone claps again but I have another one to go."
"As I’m playing, I begin to look around and saw how everyone was really enjoying themselves and I realized what I was doing was fun. I was working with the audience."
The dialogue part of Protzmann’s performances came later.
"After I graduated (from Principia), I had a chance to play a recital and yet felt so distant from the audience," he related. "So one of the things I did was improvise on ‘Tiger Rag’ and explain how it call comes together and how Jelly Roll Morton would have improvises on it. Then I’d teach people how to do stop-time and then they’re with you. And the feeling of fun I felt (at the school assembly) came back to me. That was the moment it all changed for me.
"I started to develop a dialogue with the audience," he continued, "because I wanted real involvement with them instead of having this distance between the performer up here and the audience down there. And it’s evolved from there over the course of the better part of 25 years."
Protzmann said he has amassed his stories from liner notes to recordings as well as various other sources.
"Actually, all the stories are in the music," he said. "And sometimes you can’t find the information and have to think of something else, like the structure of the piece."
Protzmann has performed all around the country, from performing arts centers to senior centers.
"I play more for people who simply like the music I play," he said. "The idea is you come to laugh, cry, remember, hear music not performed anywhere else. This is music for real people.
"I’m having fun and the audience is having fun and that’s what it’s really all about."
IRVINE WORLD NEWS
October 8 1998
REVIEW
‘For the Love of Music’ plays to a full house at UC Irvine
By Michael Rydzynski
Bill Protzmann offered a piano recital Saturday evening at UC Irvine’s Concert Hall that proved a cross between a cabaret and one of the late Leonard Bernstein’s televised "Young Person’s Guide" to the classics.
Titled "For the Love of Music," Protzmann’s program – with Sergei Rachmaninov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Antonín Dvorák and Fryderyk Chopin sharing space with Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin, Jerome Kern and Fats Waller – was far from that of a typical piano recital. This was a concert for the general masses and meant to educate as well as entertain.
Speaking of general masses, every one of the 217 seats of the Concert Hall was filled. Some 50 of so more had to be turned away. What a following Protzmann has!
Even the style of the presentation reflected the relaxed, fell-good atmosphere Protzmann strived for. He appeared in informal black-and-white with matching black-and-white socks for the first half, standard tux and black bow tie for the second half – the George Gershwin half, in honor of Gershwin’s centenary. The lighting changed, too. If the music was somber, the lights were dimmer with more blue colors. If the music was animated and exuberant, the stage was awash in bright lights.
The centerpiece of the nearly two-hour recital was the piano solo version of Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue." Protzmann used the standard published edition – the one with so many unfortunate editorial changes and cuts – so it was not a complete performance, as claimed. But he did manage to incorporate a few changes back to the original that were gleaned from the Alicia Zizzo edition, restoring the work to the original.
Protzmann gave a good effort on "Rhapsody," with appropriate flash and spirit in the outer sections and lyrical tone in the slow section. But he needed more time to work on "Rhapsody." The trickier passages required him to slow down noticeably, so one was never quite caught up in the passion and frenzy the piece demands. And the work would have benefited greatly with those cuts restored.
Beginning the recital with "The Star Spangled Banner," complete with lights simulating the American flag on the left side of the wings, Protzmann played a piece written in the year of Gershwin’s birth (1898), Joseph Northrup’s "Cannonball Rag." Playing with panache and flair, and occasionally looking out at the audience grinning from ear to ear, he clearly showed he was enjoying himself. It was difficult not to be caught up in the festivities.
During Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Opus 3 Number 2, the lighting changed from muted to glaring (for the faster, brighter-sounding midsection) back to muted. As the music eventually subsided, the light went to near-black, illuminating on the keyboard. Nothing like a bit a theatricality added in just the right doses to a classical concert.
Protzmann followed up the Rachmaninov with a ragtime writer’s parody of it, George L. Cobb’s "Russian Rag." Although he played the classical works with confidence and focus – most impressively a tastefully rendered Chopin Nocturne in E-flat Major, Opus 9 Number 3 – he really seems to be in his element with these rags and other lighter works.
Another snippet, of Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Flight of the Bumble Bee," was offered as a way of introducing Jack Fina’s "Bumble Boogie," as used in Walt Disney’s "Melody Time" (minus the big band). Protzmann laid off the heavy-duty accents but otherwise played the piece in the style of the Fina/Disney version.
When he played what Waller would have sounded like playing Gershwin ("Love is Here to Stay"), Protzmann should have reciprocated and played Waller ("Ain’t Misbehavin’") as if Gershwin were performing.
Protzmann revealed an engaging conversational style when he didn’t put in too much affectation. When asking the audience, "May I tell you a story?" he almost seemed coy about it. But then he related a genuinely touching story about how, at age 7, one of his performances, of the slow movement of Dvorák’s "New World" Symphony, brought tears to his piano teacher’s eyes – the first instance he realized that his playing could move people. He then proceeded to play a snippet of that theme.
But the bits of historical trivia are really what enhanced his performances. Whether describing the origin of Morton’s "Tiger Rag" of following the development of "Amazing Grace," Protzmann added information that helped the audience better appreciate the music.
The Swallow's Tale
Jan/Feb 1995
FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC
Talented Pianist puts on a Musical Dialogue
Bill Protzmann has been playing the piano since he was very young. He was only three years old when he began piano lesson with his mother.
As a student he was in a number of competitions, was a concerto soloist with a Youth Symphony, played in a Dixieland band, and performed in musicals, melodramas, jazz bands, and as a soloist.
On January 6th, at the Camino Real Playhouse, we were privileged to spend an evening enjoying the results of his life-long love affair with music.
This ebullient young man gave us a unique and varied musical evening that was as educational as it was entertaining. He interacted directly with the audience, reminiscing about his career, informing us of how certain musical styles evolved and explaining what made them unique. He involved us in the musical process, took us on a musical journey that covered the evolution of certain styles and consisted of distinct selections of musical types, including "Sleepless and Single," Classical music, New Age music, Ragtime, Gospel Blues, and Love Songs.
This journey covered in its range; Rachmaninoff "Prelude in C-sharp Minor;" the Chopin "Nocturne in E-flat major," a haunting and poignant original 'New Age' arrangement of "Greensleeves;" other of his own arrangements and compositions; a whimsical and frollicking introduction to Ragtime ("Pineapple Rag," "Cannonball Rag" among others) and its own special stop-time rhythm (not only was he tapping out the rhythm as he played, but he also got the audience going!); favorite songs from musicals; some moving Gospel music (he credits his talent to the grace of God); a medley of the best of the old Blues songs; beautiful romantic songs from movie soundtracks (the theme from "Out of Africa," "If Ever I Would Leave You" from "Camelot"). When he came to the most romantic sections of his performance, doing songs such as "Till There Was You," you could hear the women in the audience (myself included) sighing.
I heartily recommend that you see and hear Bill Protzmann play. Lately, he has performed publicly at such places as the Ritz Carlton, Nordstrom, Tony's Sea Landing, and other Southern California restaurants and hotels. He has a romantic cassette out called "When You Wish Upon A Star" that is carried and Laguna Music in Laguna Beach. If you would like to book this very talented pianist, call Susan B Hurford at 714-499-9166.
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