Zen in the Art of Piano Spheres

Eagle Rock pianist Vicki Ray, noted for bold, captivating renditions of contemporary classical music, performed a characteristically innovative program of Buddhist-themed piano music at Pasadena’s Boston Court last Friday. The event was second in a new series of recitals at Boston Court by the members of Piano Spheres, complementing their regular season in downtown Los Angeles.

Ray settled in Eagle Rock in 2002 because “it is close to Downtown but still feels like a small town, which is important to me, having grown up in Montana,” she said in a post-concert discussion with Patch. “I love Eagle Rock for its diversity and generally laid-back vibe.”

Practicing while practicing

Ray’s passion for diversity is always evident in her recital programs, which feature an eclectic range of musical styles, genres, and techniques, though often unified by a common theme. Her June 1 program was inspired by several decades of Buddhist practice—all the works reflecting Buddhist ideals, and in some cases, referring overtly to Buddhism.

Ray collected the program’s five Buddhist-inspired pieces over several years, hoping through them to “practice while practicing,” she explained from the stage of Branson Auditorium. The concept of practicing meditation within the context of daily life flourished in medieval Japan, where Zen students worked to infuse ordinary activities, notably the arts—martial and otherwise—with deep concentration and equanimity.

“I think practicing the piano is inherently meditative, provided we keep the ‘beginner’s mind’ and free ourselves of preconceptions,” Ray said, with the kind of lucid insight that comes from mastering an art. The works Ray performed seemed to promote a state of heightened yet relaxed awareness in both audience and performer, ostensibly serving her stated purpose in selecting them.

Prepared Meditation

Ray opened the program with The Perilous Night, an early work for prepared piano by John Cage, the Western composer perhaps most closely associated with Buddhism and whose birth centennial is being celebrated with an array of music programs this year. “Any concert of contemporary music reflecting Buddhism would have to include a piece by John Cage,” Ray said. Cage studied Buddhist philosophy throughout his life and adapted the Buddhist ideal of ego transcendence to music through aleatoric (chance-based) compositional procedures.

The Perilous Night (1943-44) was one of Cage’s first works for prepared piano—a piano with objects inserted between the strings for unusual timbral effects. Enduringly perceived as experimental works, Cage’s pieces for prepared piano are often performed with the tentative hesitation of a medical innovation in clinical trial—or dutifully dispatched with a pedantic rigor speaking more to Cage’s devices than his music.

Contrastingly, Ray delivered Cage’s Perilous with an abandon and unselfconsciousness that made the piece come alive as music legitimate and fitting as any other. Her playing seemed to look forward unhesitatingly, integrated with the inevitable flow of impermanence, a primary theme of Buddhist thought.

Saluting Allies

While removing the preparations, restoring the piano to its usual state, Ray related the genesis of her program’s next work, French-Canadian composer Linda Bouchard’s Gassho (composed in 2011).  

In Gassho, a Japanese term referring to the salutary gesture of palms pressed together, Bouchard combined original, quite virtuosic music with quotations from Schubert’s late A major piano sonata and recorded samples of singing bowls, prayer bells, and various drums, played through a speaker placed inside the piano.

“While in my 20s, when times were difficult, Schubert and Zen were my allies,” Ray said, quoting Bouchard. Samples, quotations, and Bouchard’s own notes reinforced each other in Gassho, the whole emerging greater than its parts, while Ray seemed to derive energy from the virtuoso passages abounding in the work.

Cleansing Waters

Bruce Reiprich’s refreshing Flowing Waters Caress Fallen Petals (2010), next on the program, contrasted crisply with Bouchard’s intense Gassho. Reiprich’s Zen-inspired piece, reminiscent of the works of Takemitsu, set a contemplative mood, its sedate pace subtly dilating the flow of time in Branson Auditorium.

“This music is more akin to wandering through a garden than moving toward a goal,” explained Ray. The work’s generally meditative atmosphere was balanced by frequent interruptions of cascading, water-like sonorities that cleansed the senses.

The Pianist’s Bardo

Inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Sean Heim’s major work In the Between (2002), in fourth position on the program, depicted the various Bardos described in the iconic treatise of Tibetan Buddhism.

“Bardo is the Tibetan word for the in-between states that make up most of our lives,” noted Ray, who has performed the work on several occasions over the past decade, continuing to “discover new insights into it with every performance.” Like Tibet itself, Heim’s In the Between is a work of extremes, drawing on sharp contrasts of tempo, volume, tonal range, and timbre in an earthy, visceral portrayal of Tibetan Buddhism in music.

Heim called upon the full range of the piano’s capabilities, as well as those of the performer. Ray ably obliged in a masterful handling of the work’s extensive demands, including manipulating the inside of the piano in a lyrical duet between the keys and strings of the instrument. She concluded the work’s presentation by acknowledging Heim—present at the recital—who in turn saluted Ray with the honorific Gassho gesture.

Maximally Buddhist

Ray concluded her Buddhist tour de force with an early minimalist work by Japanese composer Somei Satoh, written for amplified piano. The lights at Branson Auditorium were dimmed as Satoh’s Incarnation II (1978), profound in its simplicity and directness, reverberated throughout the hall.  

“Satoh’s piece was very beautiful, possibly my favorite work of the evening,” noted audience member Nicholas Booth. Vicki Ray’s performance of the work promoted a serene aura that seemed to unify all those present, giving way to a joyful gratitude for her art and a spirit of compassion—perhaps the foremost Buddhist value.