THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 7, 1995 TAG: 9509070055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
CHRISTOPHER O'RILEY is no artiste.
Sure, the young pianist, who performs this weekend with the Virginia Symphony, has nabbed top prizes at the prestigious Van Cliburn, Leeds, Busoni and Montreal competitions. He's collaborated with esteemed flutist James Galway and cellist Carter Brey. And his many recordings, particularly last year's all-Stravinsky disc that included his own adaptations of ``Apollo'' and ``Histoire du Soldat,'' have earned endless critical raves.
But for all of his artistry, O'Riley's a true entertainer, bringing exceptional expressiveness and vitality to every performance. And that suits him fine.
``It's not exactly a choice and it's not exactly a profile that I cultivate,'' the pianist said recently from his New York City home, ``but it's just kind of a point of view that (soloists) tend to neglect at certain times.''
O'Riley is concerned about what he sees as ``concerts (functioning) less as entertainment and more as worshiping at the shrines of the gods. Concerts tend to be sort of museum pieces and one tends to forget that this was music to be played, that the performance of this music was for reasons of ineffable communication.
``Even in the best of circumstances,'' he continued, ``some people will go to concerts imagining they're going to be listening to a recording, so they're going to complain about the seats or that they couldn't hear the balance or something.
``Concerts are live events and should be treated as such. Particularly in concerto situations, it's good to have an orchestra and a conductor who can do things differently in the performance than one did in rehearsal.''
With the Virginia Symphony, O'Riley will play Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto. At his last visit in 1993, he played Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto. His 1994-95 concert season program included Beethoven's ``Diabelli Variations'' and he just completed recording an album of three Beethoven sonatas.
``During the course of this season I'm doing all five Beethoven concertos,'' O'Riley said. ``It kind of happened this way, nothing that I'd planned. It just has to with what gets requested every season and this year it just seems like a whole lot of Beethoven.''
Offstage, O'Riley's tastes are wildly eclectic; his listening library running the gamut from electro-industrial band Skinny Puppy to rappers Public Enemy to ornate French Baroque.
These days, the pianist is still listening to ``a fair amount of Baroque music, Monteverdi, anything conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt,'' he said, ``but a lot of Psychedelic Furs, Rickie Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell thrown in for good measure. It's always something different, I must admit.
``The pop music I listen to seems to be textured very definitively and somewhat orchestrally, so I think that accounts for a little bit of my attraction toward some music rather than others. Single dimensional music doesn't really appeal to me.''
O'Riley has done considerable work in taking Beethoven and other composers to broader audiences, performing for people in hospices, rest homes and working communities, as well as for the typically hard-to-move audience of students.
His latest collaborative project, the title selection on the satirical P.D.Q. Bach ``The Short-Tempered Clavier and Other Dysfunctional Works for Keyboard,'' interweaves well-known tunes such as ``Chopsticks'' and ``Mary Had a Little Lamb'' in the Baroque style of J.S. Bach. Technically sophisticated but totally comical, it easily appeals to those who aren't connoisseurs of classical music.
But O'Riley's found that his own exhilaration from classical music is really his most effective outreach.
``I've always been of the mind that basically people will react to what you're doing if you feel confident in what you do. In other words, I don't often try and think of ways to weasel classical music into somebody's life.
``If somebody sees that this is what I do, that I play piano, and they wonder why I don't play music like (New Age keyboardist) John Tesh, I say, `This is the music that I love.' And if it comes across as such then it's just as exciting than anything they were going to listen to in the first place.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ICM ARTISTS
Pianist Christopher O'Riley performs this weekend.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MUSIC PIANO by CNB