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- [00:00]
Ann Marie McDermott
Looking for world class performances at an accessible price point? See yourself at Lincoln center presents free and choose what you pay performances. Where else in New York City can you experience contemporary flamenco, mental health, inspired choral works, experimental jazz, and an interactive family dance performance all in the same week and for less than the price of lunch? Explore the full calendar of events today@lincolncenter.org.
- [00:27]
David Krause
Be sure to check out slippeddisc.com for the latest inside information on classical music. Now.
- [00:39]
Ann Marie McDermott
Acclaimed piano soloist, member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln center and artistic director of the Bravo Vale Music Festival, Ann Marie McDermott credits her multifaceted career to the invaluable lessons she learned from making music with others.
- [00:54]
Carrie McDermott
I can tell you what has made me a success is everything I learned from playing chamber music. You have to know how to advocate for your idea. You need to know how to compromise. It's going to take you down a notch because, no, you're not running the show. This is collaboration.
- [01:10]
David Krause
You're listening to Speaking Soundly, a backstage pass to today's biggest stars of the music world. I'm your host, David Krause, principal trumpet.
- [01:19]
Ann Marie McDermott
Of the Metropolitan Opera. During each episode, you'll hear me speak with inspiring performers about their creative process.
- [01:25]
David Krause
And the purpose, personal journey that led.
- [01:27]
Ann Marie McDermott
Them to the stage. Thanks for having me into your amazing apartment on the Upper west side of Manhattan.
- [01:34]
David Krause
I've always dreamt of living within a stone's throw of Zabars. You got to tell me if it's everything that it's cracked up to be.
- [01:40]
Carrie McDermott
It's everything that it's cracked up to be. I mean, four blocks down the road is Zabar's the best. It's incredible.
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David Krause
All right.
- [01:46]
Ann Marie McDermott
I think we're going to get along swimmingly.
- [01:48]
David Krause
So it's great to finally meet you.
- [01:51]
Ann Marie McDermott
You know, I think it speaks to the density of great musicians in this city. When I realized that despite being a working musician for 30 years, I've only.
- [01:59]
David Krause
Ever met one of the three McDermott sisters.
- [02:02]
Ann Marie McDermott
The McDermott I know is your sister Maureen, who plays the cello, and your other sister Carrie plays the violin. Do you ever think about the odds.
- [02:11]
David Krause
Of three sisters having successful careers in classical music all within the same city?
- [02:17]
Carrie McDermott
You know, it's kind of freaky, to tell you the truth, and especially that we didn't come from a musical background. And here we are, we all live within 15 blocks of each other on the Upper west side. There is a brother, there's a younger, he's the baby. And I think it was enough already with the Music in the house. But no, it's awesome having two sisters in the same crazy business that I'm in.
- [02:38]
Ann Marie McDermott
Well, not only do you have amazing careers independent of each other, but together you form the McDermott trio. I know sisters that can't stand to be in the same room together, much less collaborate on a Mendelssohn piano trio. I'm assuming you all get along really well now.
- [02:54]
Carrie McDermott
Yeah, when we were kids, we're all 16 months apart, so there was a healthy dose of competitiveness in. In good ways and bad ways. The good ways was we would compete. Who was going to practice more hours in a day? When I'm 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, that's a good competitiveness. But very often with three, when we're in those teenage years, it'd be two against one. The good news is it was constantly shifting around the two against one. But you have to go through that and go through that rub, so to speak. Now, since we've been adults, if you can call us that, we are the closest of friends and support systems for each other.
- [03:39]
Ann Marie McDermott
No, that's nice. It's amazing to me that your parents raised such musical children without being musical themselves. How did music and the arts in.
- [03:48]
David Krause
General factor into your household growing up in Long Island?
- [03:52]
Carrie McDermott
It's a great question. Both my parents were non musicians. My mother had been a dancer, an Irish step dancer in her youth. She started having children when she was 19 years old. My father was an electrical engineer who, trust me, he was completely tone deaf. You play middle C on the piano. Daddy just couldn't go there. And so my mother, maybe the most inspiring person I've ever known in my life. She had a philosophy with raising her kids to expose us to everything. So when we were 5, 6, 7 years old, I played the piano and the guitar. I was a high diver. We all had swimming lessons, I took Irish step dancing lessons. We sang folk music. So she exposed us to all sorts of things. And I'm so grateful for that because I was able to find, I wouldn't say able to find my talent. I was able to find my voice at a young age. And by that I mean my place where I felt most confident, I felt most communicative. I was a very shy kid, put me in front of a piano. I wasn't shy. We were just so lucky that she thought to do that for us. And we lost our mom when we were young. She died when I was 14. We were 14, 16, and 17 years old. My brother was 11. And that, as you can imagine, was Life changing, but has been truly one of my biggest inspirations through my life. That I got to have 14 years with this remarkable woman who gave me so much in just 14 years.
- [05:30]
Ann Marie McDermott
Obviously, it was important to her to have music in your lives, because supervising the practice of four children under one roof is not an easy task. I can imagine the cacophony in your house as everybody's scrambling to try to find a place to practice.
- [05:45]
Carrie McDermott
Yes. Except when dad came home from work every day, there was an hour of everything shuts down. He can have peace and quiet for an hour. It was quite traditional in that sense. My mother was really disciplined with us. So when you're told to practice, you practice. Or maybe you don't get dinner, you certainly don't get the bowl ice cream. She was incredibly disciplined. So that. That's a gift. Ultimately, you realize that's a gift because if you don't have discipline in anything you're doing in life, you're not going to have a great shot at success at that age.
- [06:21]
Ann Marie McDermott
Many kids play instruments, but a lot of times they peter out because it's too difficult or they don't ever hear a piece of music that they really connect with. They never feel that spark. When was the first time you heard a piece of music that truly captured your imagination and you thought, okay, there's something here that. That needs to be explored?
- [06:42]
Carrie McDermott
It's such a great question. I think one of the great sparks in my life regarding piano was my mom taking me to a concert. I think I must have been four or five. I don't remember what piece of music who played, but what I remember is seeing this big, black, shiny instrument on stage with a spotlight on it in front of an orchestra. To me at that age, it. That was completely glamorous and powerful. And that's what sparked me. From the time I started, I just wanted to play any piece of music with the most black notes and had a very easygoing teacher. So there wasn't a lot of discipline in his teaching. He taught me fearlessness and joy, not technique. And so by the time I got to be around 10 years old, when I was becoming more serious about it, my technique was horrible.
- [07:34]
Ann Marie McDermott
What do you think's a harder attribute to attain that fearless quality and joy of music or the technique to play it?
- [07:42]
Carrie McDermott
Well, to me, you know, there's art and there's craft, right? The craft is learned, Technique is learned. As long as you have good guidance of how to build your technique and grow your technique, you can do that. But the joy factor to me is what will get you through. When you talk about a career being decades long, the joy factor is what will get you through the ups and downs. Because it is not a straight road as a musician. We never arrive as a musician, ever, our whole lives, right? I have this joke. I'll be on my deathbed. I think it's true. I'll be on my deathbed and I'll still have a long list of repertoire I want to learn. So I believe in a lot of Buddhist principles. So in my next life, I'll have all those scores with me and I'll learn those, those pieces. But. So I'm, I'm grateful for what I lacked in technique at the age of 10. I had so much joy and fearlessness at that age, and that helped me so much.
- [08:45]
Ann Marie McDermott
I know you were homeschooled during the week, but on Saturdays you attended the pre college division at the Manhattan School of Music.
- [08:53]
David Krause
What did that mean to you musically but also socially to go into the city and be around kids with the same interests that you had?
- [09:03]
Carrie McDermott
I can still access the exhilarating feelings that that gave me. I never really loved school, so I didn't. I wasn't really getting much in the social arena. I'm a person who believes we have our entire lives to be social, to have friendships. I'm not convinced it's so important in those early years, but Saturdays, you know, we had to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to take the Long Island Railroad in. My mom, you know, we had no money and we all went to Manhattan School of Music on a full scholarship. My mom would pack lunches, peanut butter sandwiches, bring them in with us. We'd spend the whole day there, you know, just in between classes, hanging out in the lobby with other kids like us. It was like, you know, nerds, you know, for the most part, who were just obsessed with music and I mean, that was life changing.
- [09:55]
David Krause
Tell me about playing a concerto at Carnegie hall when you were just 12 years old.
- [10:01]
Carrie McDermott
I just remember, oh, what fun this will be like. It was zero, zero concern on my part. I was just like, oh, this is, this is just awesome. It was Mendelssohn. G Minor Piano Concerto. To me, it was just, Yep, let me out on stage. Let's, let's go at it and let me see how loud and faster I can play.
- [10:17]
David Krause
So you had no sense at the age of 12 what Carnegie hall was.
- [10:21]
Carrie McDermott
No, no awareness whatsoever, really. Again, because the family was not educated about music or. I mean, the one thing I wanted during Those years, I wanted to go to the school that had the big gold letters, Juilliard, but. But that never happened. It doesn't matter. In fact, it doesn't. It doesn't matter so much where you go to school. It matters the environment that's created there, the support that you get and the teachers that you have.
- [10:48]
David Krause
You might be the only pianist in the history of Carnegie hall that has stood on that stage, played a concerto, and really not cared that it was Carnegie Hall.
- [10:56]
Carrie McDermott
No, no, no. It was just. Oh, this is fun.
- [10:58]
Ann Marie McDermott
Yeah.
- [10:59]
Carrie McDermott
And I remember my mom made me a dress because she would make a lot of our clothes during that time, again for money saving. And so I just remember the whole thing being really fun.
- [11:09]
David Krause
Yeah.
- [11:10]
Carrie McDermott
Kids have that ability to just be in the moment and inside of what they're doing at that moment without all the other cares. Because ultimately, really, all the other things matter so much. When you walk on stage, it should be about the joy of music and the communicating of music and bringing everybody together, including yourselves in this glorious moment, you know?
- [11:36]
David Krause
So throughout your high school years, you're immersed in piano, learning the repertoire, but curiously, at the age of 16, you decide that you want to be a jazz pianist.
- [11:47]
Carrie McDermott
Yes. How? As I mentioned, my mother had passed away of breast cancer when we were 14, my two sisters and myself, just two months before she died, we went to Moscow, and my sister Carrie was competing in the Tchaikovsky competition at the age of 16. I was her accompanist. Maureen came so that we'd all be together. My mother was supposed to come. We didn't know how sick she was. We went, came back, and then our mother passed away two months later. And so we all reacted in our individual ways to that shock. It was a shock to all of us, even though the rest of the family probably knew we didn't because we were kids and we were so focused on music. And so I really rebelled tremendously. I stopped caring about music, playing the piano, couldn't care less. And what I. I was still going to Manhattan Prep when I would show up, and there. There was a jazz teacher on the faculty there who I just thought was incredible. Neil Walzer was his name. And so I approached him at one point and said, I want to. I want to study jazz.
- [12:56]
Ann Marie McDermott
Well, I certainly get how lost you must have felt at that age after the tragic loss of your mother. Do you think the turn away from classical music was more a reflection of that loss, that pain that you felt? Because classical music is something that you shared with your mother for the first 14 years of your life, and now that she wasn't there, you just didn't want to do it anymore.
- [13:23]
Carrie McDermott
I think that's an incredibly insightful comment, and I'm sure that is exactly what it was because I really had no interest in practicing Beethoven or Mozart or Schubert or anything else that. No, I lost all my interest in that. And so I think it was partly a way of my asserting my independence because I had to become independent. I had zero money when we left the house. My father's philosophy was, you're not getting any more money. So what I did on top of studying jazz was I accompanied everybody on the planet earth for any audition, any recital and learning. I remember one time a cellist. I don't remember who it was. This is around that same time when I'm 16, 17, a cellist said to me, his pianist cancel. He was playing Rachmaninoff cello piano sonata.
- [14:17]
David Krause
Like three days later, which is a very complicated work.
- [14:20]
Carrie McDermott
Incredibly difficult.
- [14:22]
David Krause
You might say that the piano part is equally, if not more challenging than the cello part.
- [14:26]
Carrie McDermott
Well, being a piano player, I would say it's twice as hard. Right. It's a million notes. And the recital was three days later. Would I do it? Yes. I still had the fearlessness. Yes. I had to earn money, so I did it. I learned it in three days. And all of those experiences of accompanying everybody, I did have that skill. Having grown up with two older sisters, I had learned quite a bit of repertoire and I had a confidence that I could learn anything in any period of time. I mean, I did saxophone recitals. I did, I remember, bass trombone recital.
- [15:01]
David Krause
Oh, now I just feel bad for you.
- [15:03]
Carrie McDermott
Yeah, yeah. Well, nothing was off the table.
- [15:06]
David Krause
Right. You know, it's funny, whenever one of my students shows up to a lesson with an accompanist, I tend to ignore my student and marvel at the pianist because they're sight reading a million notes a minute and they just got the piece the second before they went in. Yes, it's an amazing skill to have. Were you always a natural sight reader, able to learn difficult music quickly, or was it somewhat of a trial by fire?
- [15:33]
Carrie McDermott
No, I was always. I was a very good sight reader. Always able, I think, partially because I was fearless. So I'll learn anything, which, you know, is. Is a good thing and a bad thing. Ultimately. It's what inspired me, if that's the correct word, to stop studying altogether because I was really great. I can learn things really quickly. I can decipher things. I can. If a teacher said play it this way, sure. No problem. I was a good monkey. I wasn't making any decisions myself. I was just, oh, you want me to play it like that? Sure. And that started to then make me crazy because I was like, wait, who am I in this process? I'm obedient, you know, I can follow orders, but what am I bringing to this? And that's what ultimately inspired me to go a different path.
- [16:28]
Ann Marie McDermott
So I'm really happy to be speaking with a great pianist like yourself, because there's an aspect of the piano that mystifies me to no end, and I want to ask you about it.
- [16:38]
David Krause
I don't get how pianists can sound different than other pianists when you're all banging on the same wooden box with hammers and strings. Like, you could take 100 mediocre pianists playing the same thing on the same piano, and they're going to sound pretty identical. But you could take three great artists and they can sound radically different from one another.
- [17:02]
Carrie McDermott
Yes.
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Ann Marie McDermott
Take me through.
- [17:03]
David Krause
How do you change the sound on a percussion instrument like a piano?
- [17:08]
Carrie McDermott
A percussion instrument? How could you, David?
- [17:12]
David Krause
It's not a voice.
- [17:13]
Carrie McDermott
You don't have a bow.
- [17:14]
Ann Marie McDermott
It's.
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David Krause
You're hitting a box.
- [17:16]
Carrie McDermott
You are. You're pressing down keys. It's a percussion instrument. So this is probably my greatest obsession in my life as a pianist sound, because the piano has the capability, as you're pointing out, of producing a universe of different sounds and colors. How do you do it? Experimenting with your touch? How quickly, with how much speed are you depressing the key? Are you thinking about pushing into the keyboard, or are you thinking about caressing out the sound at the keyboard? But number one, really is if it is not in your head, in your imagination, you're not going to produce anything magical. If you can hear it in your head, your fingers will obey you. I had the really fascinating experience of being a juror at the Clyburn competition. There are 30 contestants. You listen to over two and a half weeks. What was astonishing to me is a pianist would walk out, sit down at the piano, within, I'd say, one minute, you can tell whether they care about sound really and. Or whether they're just playing the piano.
- [18:34]
Ann Marie McDermott
I want to ask you about a high honor you received just last year when the Manhattan School of Music decided to give you an honorary degree. Now, I know that you went there.
- [18:44]
David Krause
For college, but is it true that.
- [18:46]
Ann Marie McDermott
You never graduated because you got kicked out?
- [18:49]
Carrie McDermott
I got booted. I still have the letter, and I deserved it. I just didn't show up for anything. David, I. I didn't show up for any classes, for one thing. I was quite busy. I was accompanying everybody. That kept me very, very busy. And I still didn't have a place to live. I would stay with one friend for three or four months, another friend, three or four months. I just didn't show up for stuff. I didn't show up for half of my piano lessons with Constance Keane, who was my teacher. And so at a certain point, I received a letter that you're dismissed from Manhattan School of Music. You know, life is such an amazing journey, right? The twists and turns all of our lives take ultimately helped save me that that happened. It was. It was eye opening. It was pretty shocking at the time it happened. I didn't. I wasn't even that upset. I was like, fine, fine. I won't go to Manhattan School of Music this way. I don't even have to pay money to go. So when I actually received the invitation to receive this incredible honor, I actually, I said to the president at the time, I. I called, I said, forgive me, but is this a joke? Receiving my doctorate. I don't even have a high school diploma, but now I have a doctorate. I actually could resist. It's hanging on my wall right behind my piano. And I'm so impressed that anybody you don't know, when you're a musician, you're going along concert to concert, year after year. Is anybody really paying attention? And to get an honor like that, it's like, yeah, I guess people have paid attention along the way.
- [20:26]
Ann Marie McDermott
I think it's safe to say people have paid attention because you have a remarkable career, not only as a member of the Chamber of Music Society of Lincoln center, but also as a piano soloist and for the last 15 years, artistic director of the Bravo Vale Music Festival out in Colorado. How does your work as a performer influence and inform the decisions you have to make as an artistic director of a festival?
- [20:53]
Carrie McDermott
I can tell you what has made me a success. There is everything I learned from playing chamber music. Because I understand when you're playing chamber music, you have to know how to advocate for your idea. You need to know how to compromise. If you want to be successful with chamber music, it's going to take you down a notch because, no, you're not running the show. This is collaboration. The music is greater than any one of us. It's greater than the sum of all the parts who are in the ensemble. The music needs to rise above, and that that happens with the greatest chamber of music playing.
- [21:25]
David Krause
Whether you're playing with Your sisters collaborating with the musicians of the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln center or curating concerts at Bravo Vale. At the heart of all of it is a silent communication of a meaningful message, both with the players on stage and with the audience. What does being able to communicate on that level mean to you? And do you get that experience anywhere else in your life?
- [21:50]
Carrie McDermott
No. It means. It means absolutely everything to me. When my husband and I got married, he said, all I ask is that I'm number two, because I understand music's number one. That takes a big person to say that, but it is true. Every day, I get to wake up in the morning and just focus on music. And it's not an easy world. You know this as well. Having a career, the ups and downs are tremendous, but very often the down times are a period of growth that then you come out of if you work hard enough. So I feel like the luckiest person in the world to do what I do, even with the challenges that go along with that.
- [22:36]
David Krause
So, obviously, we've talked a lot about your work within chamber music, but chamber music, you get to react with other bodies in the room. But when you're on a stage and it's just you playing a Bach partita.
- [22:51]
Carrie McDermott
Yeah.
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David Krause
It's just you and the piano.
- [22:53]
Carrie McDermott
Yes.
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David Krause
Is that more challenging, or is it kind of a relief that you don't have to deal with anybody else?
- [23:00]
Carrie McDermott
You know, I've never. Chamber music is. Is my heart and soul. So it never feels problematic for me communicating with fellow musicians on stage. But I have to say that one feeds the other. And the solitary experience of being out on a stage alone, playing solo Bach, I would say it's harder because you're not communicating with anybody else on that stage. You have to go so deep inside your own mind and your own heart with the music you're playing and just live and breathe that music in that moment. But it's the healthiest thing in the world for a pianist to be able to take advantage of all of these musical outlets. So I feel lucky that I've been able to have that balance through my career.
- [23:51]
Ann Marie McDermott
Well, it's just been great to speak with you. It's so amazing for me to hear the impact music has had on your life and how it helps you navigate through the various aspects of it. So I have one question that's specific to being right here, right now, being.
- [24:08]
David Krause
This close to Zabar's. I want to ask you, does any.
- [24:12]
Ann Marie McDermott
Aspect of being a musician help you navigate the lines when people are shoving and screaming?
- [24:17]
Carrie McDermott
No.
- [24:18]
David Krause
No, nothing helps.
- [24:19]
Carrie McDermott
You still get like the little old ladies bashing into you because they want the chicken salad before you. So no nothing else. It's an experience.
- [24:26]
David Krause
Quintessential New York experience.
- [24:27]
Carrie McDermott
Always it ever.
- [24:28]
Ann Marie McDermott
If I could just get Zabars to sponsor this podcast, be all set.
- [24:33]
David Krause
I hope you enjoyed this episode of Speaking Soundly. If you liked what you heard, please tell your friends about it, help spread the word and follow us on Instagram Eaking sndly. For more information, you can Visit our.
- [24:46]
Ann Marie McDermott
Website artfulnarrativesmedia.com if you're new to the show, you could go back and check.
- [24:51]
David Krause
Out earlier episodes featuring Wynton Marsalis, Regina Spector, Joyce De Donato, Emmanuel Axe and Rufus Wainwright, just to name a few.
- [25:00]
Ann Marie McDermott
And tune in two weeks from today on March 4th as we hear the renowned Scott violin soloist Nicola Benedetti speaking Soundly.