Andrew Tyson: Note-by-Note, City-by-City

By Tara Hempstead

(Originally published in GainesvilleScene)

Andrew Tyson walked on stage, bowed, and then moved with the keys on a sole piano singing at the base of a tiered audience.

He began arched over the keys, the way one would toil over a meaningful project. Then, the music opened into an uplifting lyrical passage and he looked to the sky.

 It was a theatre so intimate, one could see his eyebrows emoting the music, and the energy leaving his fingertips during every trill was palpable.

 He is an artist who cradles every note before dropping it into the audience’s lap.

Tyson has performed in music festivals worldwide and won the international-scale auditions for Young Concert Artists in 2011. Along the way, he studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music and picked up two degrees from Juilliard.

 “I had never in my wildest dreams expected to get in [to Curtis], I think I told my parents something to the effect of, ‘if I get into Curtis, I’ll be damned,’” Tyson said.

He was on spring break when he received a call from the institute’s then-President saying he had been accepted.

 This is a pianist who considers his first childhood lessons with piano “kind of traumatic.”

 His older sister took piano lessons, so he tried to imitate what she was doing, “possibly try to do it better than her,” he added, and his mom signed him up for lessons.

 Playing his first concerto (more commonly known as Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2) with the Guilford Symphony Orchestra at the age of fifteen was a hugely inspiring and almost overwhelming experience that turned his hobby into something more serious.

 Miraculously, in those years between casually taking lessons and turning music into a lifestyle, he was never asked to play Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” With an iPod full of classical and jazz, he is okay with this fact.

 His Gainesville recital program included some of the masters, like Frederic Chopin and George Gershwin.

 He also performed one of Ravel’s collections called Miroirs. One of the pieces within the set, “Alborada del gracioso” translates to “The Clown’s Morning Song.” He describes the piece as aromatic and atmospheric.

 “In my mind, it’s kind of an ironic title. It’s, maybe, a slightly tipsy court jester or buffoon-clown trying to woo someone out of his league,” he said.

 To get a glimpse of his nuanced performance style, Tyson’s first CD is appropriate for any time of day, clownish mornings included. Personalizing Chopin’s 24 Preludes, he makes the work’s familiar themes sound new. This September, he plans on recording his second album, most likely focusing on music written in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.

 Tyson tours the world performing, but Gainesville made it on to his list of memorable performances.

 “I had an amazing time in Gainesville. The audience was really supportive; nice acoustics, nice venue. I had a lot of fun.”

 He delivered a fantastic show, hitting every emotion on the spectrum, including comedy.

 In between Chopin’s second and third mazurka, he stopped long enough for an audience member to produce a tentative clap. Then, he looked into the crowd and said: “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the piano seems to be moving away from me.”

We, the humble listeners, were endlessly amused. After an unsung hero from backstage locked the piano’s wheels, Tyson dived back into the piece as if his focus had never been diverted.

 He went on to fulfill a personal dream of mine, which was hearing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” by some means other than watching Fantasia 2000. By the end, audience members swayed in their seats.

 “Onstage, the best moments, for me, happen when intellectual processing gives way to spur-of-the-moment spontaneity,” he said. “I believe what separates performing arts from something like sculpture is that those performances exist only in a certain moment, for a certain group of people, in a certain place.”

 And for those few moments he was in Gainesville, he shared an experience that left people smiling as they exited the theatre.