FRENCH-CANADIAN PIANIST Marc-Andre Hamelin is essentially the cool indie musician of the classical world. He's best known for digging out quirky, forgotten works, and then producing unique recordings of them at an incredible pace. When he finds musical pieces he likes, but which aren't for his chosen instrument, he'll write the piano transcriptions himself. Hamelin's own compositions, some of which appeared on his 2001 album Kaleidoscope, are described as being 'tongue in cheek' and 'witty' - words rarely used to describe classical music. The New York Times described him as being the 'maverick champion' of lesser known music.
Hamelin's CDs don't sell as well as, say, The Four Season. But with sales of up to 20,000 an album, Hamelin says he's doing 'very, very well by independent classical music label standards'. (He records exclusively for the British Hyperion label). And he's not that obscure. He performed at the 2001 Grammy Awards ceremony, and has been nominated for three Grammys himself.
The prolific 42-year-old has also produced 36 albums, with more on the way. Speaking from his Philadelphia home, Hamelin rattles off his upcoming projects. His brilliant new CD of Shostakovich's first two piano concerti has just hit Hong Kong shops. Coming soon will be a Schumann album and a collection of works by contemporary Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin. 'Kapustin is very strongly influenced by American jazz and incorporates it into classical forms, like sonatas. It's a strange thing and very exciting,' Hamelin says.
Two other projects should be wrapped up before the end of the year: a collection of piano sonatas by 20th-century American composer Charles Ives, and a double-CD of the difficult, often dark works by late-Romantic Jewish-French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan. (Alkan's Iberia, which Hamelin performed in New York to great reviews last year, will be on the disc.)
For a performer renowned for the intensity of his playing, Hamelin sounds laid back about the recording process. 'It will take a couple days for the Ives. Three days should do it for the Alkan. It's not hard when you've already played them in public a couple of times.' After all, he says, he's doing pop music, which is filled with layers of back-up singers, instrumentation, mixing and producing. When Hamelin records Ives and Alkan, it will be just him and a piano in the studio.
Hamelin's offbeat tastes are demonstrated by the line-up for his upcoming Hong Kong Arts Festival concerts, which take place on February 5 and 6. There will be one night of more standard fare performed with the Hong Kong Philharmonic: Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3 (yes, the one from the movie Shine) and Rhapsody On A Theme of Paganini.
The next night's recital, when Hamelin will be alone on stage, will be more challenging. The one work audiences will most likely identify is Bach's Chaconne from Partita No.2 in D Minor for Solo Violin, although Hamelin will be performing Italian composer Ferruccio Busconi's piano version of it. He calls it 'the most remarkable arrangement - a transformation. What Busconi did was flesh out the original to make it more majestic. It sounds like an organ in a cathedral. I've known this piece since I was a child and have played it in concert over 20 years.'