Learning to play a masterpiece - An Interview with Pianist Benjamin Harding, Part 1

It was a year ago that Benjamin and I spoke about his fine piano artistry on my album, The Gilded Age.  With a strange year for so many of us, I wanted to reach back to him to catch up. In this episode he shares an up-close look at the challenge of learning a really challenging piano masterpiece (Franz Liszt's b-minor Piano Sonata), and shares his thoughts about it. We get a glimpse of the technical and emotional challenges such a works presents.  I divided our discussion into two parts.  In part 1, we discuss a little bit about how life has changed for performers in the last year, and we dive into the piece.

You can connect with Benjamin on Instagram (@bhardingmusic), facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/benjamin.harding) and his website www.benjaminhardingmusic.com/blog