Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 10:16.mp3 Air date: 2026-10-16 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 26.3 MB to 5.2 MB --- transcript --- Tom Fitzsimmons here. We're talking in concert here today, and I just realized they're in studio with me, by the way, for the better part of a few years. On The Town, whether it was going to be at Margaritas for a lot of years or over at Toffinelli's, my guests would never hear the theme music. I was going to say, you got some good disco lead in there. I like that, Tom. And Ken Harden, it's not so much you, but I just thought Micah Cohen would belt out with Olivia Newton-John, you know, we are family. No, that Sister Sledge Ken, come on, get with it. Sister Sledge, thank you very much for playing. Yeah, but I just realized that I just started cracking up going, oh, they don't realize I would hear that in cue because I have my little headphone cup, I'll get my cue and put it down. Yeah, I noticed that right out of the gate. Yeah, but it's great having you guys in the studio. We have a little bit more time to talk this way. So, yeah, it's kind of nice. So, Ken Harden, I have to start with you, Artistic Director of In Concert Sierra. How's life? Good. Over there? Good. Busy and all productive and positive for the most part and working hard, having fun, doing all those things, making some music. I'm playing the piano a lot more these days than I had been for a while. I'm sure that's good carving out some time. It's good for your soul, right? It's good for my soul. Yeah. It's sort of like you, Mike, if you have a chance to sing, right? I mean, you'd have to sing, right? Or else it kind of almost hurts your soul. Yeah, kind of a part of you sort of shrivels up and dies a little bit. So, luckily, working for an arts organization, I get lots of opportunities to sing. You know, and I've always wondered this, you're the Assistant Artistic Director, right where you put it? So, are you Associate? Close. Associate? No. I'm the Artistic Director Assistant. So, for your listeners who may be fans of the television show, The Office, that might sound familiar. Not Assistant Regional Manager, but Assistant to the Regional Manager. Thank you, Dwight. Yes. Okay, you're doing a little Dwight Schrute on us. That's right. He's still working on that other stripe. Yes. Basically, it's a shorthand way of saying that I do whatever this fella tells me to. For both of you guys to be with the association 80 years and running, that's a... I know, we look good, don't we? That's a big number, Ken. It really is. That's a lot of years. 80 year anniversary, how about that? Yeah. So, has it been embraced by you guys as far as having a spectacular year to celebrate or anything like that? Absolutely. We have an absolutely spectacular season. Last month, the September concert with the large a cappella vocal group, Aeternum, which means eternal in Latin, was absolutely spectacular. Nothing short of spectacular. And I can say that comfortably with Micah in the room with me, because I know he'll say the same thing, or maybe he'll say that was an understatement. It was transcendent, it really is. See? See? The only word that comes immediately to mind. Yeah. Spectacular. And then we want to talk about the upcoming concert and they're just one, in one way or another, through the whole series, the whole season, it's just one after another. It really is. Okay, let's talk about the concert that's coming up, because you've had high praise for this pianist that's coming up and playing. Right, right. Young man named Tony. And I think the key to his success is the head of hair. It's, he's got, it's just remarkable. You have to go there. Absolutely remarkable. You have to go there. Right. How are we doing in this building here? Us three follicularly challenged gents going on about a young man's coif. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and he plays the piano pretty well too. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, so he's very young. This is one of those, I like to, to every so often get one of these young up and comers and he's already getting well established on the concert circuit. He's a recent Juilliard graduate. I think he's 24, 25, something like that. He's continuing on at Juilliard working on his master's degree. And in the meantime, he's out taking the world by storm. So the program he's put together is a piano lover's dream. Whether you play the piano or you just really enjoy piano music, it's just phenomenal. Nothing short. When I saw the program, I thought, oh my gosh, it's just incredible. So to, to kind of run down it a little bit, the composers are J.S. Bach, who's no slouch. But in this case, it's J.S. Bach literature transcribed by a great 19th century composer named Ferruccio Busoni, who took, there's two different pieces by Bach that Busoni took and transcribed to work on the piano, to fit on the piano. And, and then so, and I'll, I'll talk a little bit about one of those in a minute. And then in between those two, in the first half of the program is a beautiful piece by Franz Liszt, who is, is like the all-time incredible pianist, romantic pianist. And then, and then the second half of the, of the program is Beethoven and Brahms. So he's definitely got the, we, we joke in classical music about, classical music is all about the three Bs, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. So he's got all three of them covered on this program, which is amazing. And they all were geniuses at the keyboard. The Beethoven is a little bit unusual of one of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. This one, they typically have three or four movements. This one has two movements, and it's just incredibly emotive and, and satisfying and virtuosic. And it's just, it's a wonderful piece of music. And then the Brahms is a variation, set of variations, a long set of variations. There's two books of music that represent this set of variations. The variation's written by Brahms on a theme that was written by the great violinist Niccolo Paganini, who died when, I think, Brahms was like seven years old or something. So he was, he was pretty close in Brahms' Rearview Mirror as a composer. And, and these variations are just spectacularly difficult. There are, nobody plays them, because they're so difficult. And this kid is doing both books of them. So, but the, the piece that, that's the most amazing to me is the Bach Busoni Chaconne, the second of the two pieces that Tony's going to play. And that Chaconne is, is a part of a larger work by Bach. But the Chaconne is, is written by Bach for unaccompanied violins. So that means the violinist playing by themselves. And it's a very richly realized full-bodied piece of music on its own, just with the violin playing just four strings that it has to work with, and one bow. And it's, it's amazing in that setting. Then what Busoni does with it, transferring it to the piano, is just wildly spectacular. So Joshua Bell, who's the kind of current great living violinist, he described this piece of music, the version for the violin, as not only the greatest piece of music ever written, but the greatest accomplishment of any man in the history of mankind. So it's, yeah. Wow. I mean, it's high praise, right? It's beyond high praise. If ever the word epic could be used. Yeah, exactly. And I totally, I totally agree. It's a remarkable piece of music. So this is where the blues comes in. Yeah. So an eight bar blues is two measures, two bars of a one chord, a tonic chord, one bar of a four chord, another bar of a tonic chord, and two bars of a five chord, another bar of a one chord, and another bar of a five chord, and then you do it again. And you just do it over and over again. Those eight measures, that's what a blues pattern is. And there's also a twelve bar blues, which just adds a little bit into the middle of that. So a chaconne is very similar to that. It's an eight bar harmonic pattern like that, a series of chords, very similar to a blues pattern. Bach did it way before anybody else did it as a blues, right? And this pattern just keeps repeating itself over and over and over again with little minute changes in the character of it, in the mood, the emotional quality, the slight changes in the harmony, that kind of thing, and some new melodic ideas or extensions of the melody. But it's all based on that same eight bars, just over and over again. The piece is 15 minutes long. So there's a lot of repetitions of this, and it is chock-full. Every single new eight bars that we get over the course of it is chock-full of new ideas. It's just spectacular. How does a 25-year-old embrace this type of music? Well, he's exceptional. We know that people like Mozart was a prodigy. He was a prodigy as a pianist. I think he came to study at Juilliard as a young man, not in the degree program, but studying piano and basically getting his schooling probably in his mid-teens, something like that. And if you hear him talk about what he does, it's incredibly mature, the way he thinks about music and music performance and the relevance to society and that kind of thing. So he's a pretty advanced human being in many ways. What emotions do you get being a piano guy when you hear that music? Oh, the chaconne is one of my favorite things to play. It's incredibly difficult, and it's amazingly moving. It kind of occurs in three large sections. The first section is in D minor, in a minor key, and it's kind of stormy, very agitated. And then all of a sudden, it's like the storm just goes away, the sun comes out, and it's in D major now, and it's this just beautiful, soothing, all within the same structure of these eight measures going on and on and on. And then there's a recurrence of the original theme, the D minor at the end of the piece that is very kind of soothing, sets you down easy at the end. All right, so you guys, the artistic guys, where do you find Tony from? I'm just kind of curious because here we are in the middle of the foothills. So how do you know Tony and how do you get him up here? That's the part of the job that I do this, I used to do all of this. So I have relationships with a lot of artist reps, the agents, we sometimes call them in the music world. And Micah now works with all of those artist reps also. So he basically takes, once I've made a booking, he takes all of the details of the booking, and he becomes the contact person for the artist rep and takes care of all the details, accommodations, and making sure they have what they need. And I don't even remember what's involved in that part of the job anymore. Yeah, it's a months-long process for me when my job begins after Ken has done the extensive work that, you know, prerequisite work that's required in order to put together the spectacular seasons that he does. So yeah, it's quite an involved process, a lot of moving parts logistically. Those reps, are they nice to deal with? Absolutely, oh yeah. No, they're absolutely spectacular people, always top-tier professionalism. They're very devoted to the artists that they represent. They're not out there taking advantage of them. They're really, truly devoted to them. And to answer your question about how does Tony Yuen, how does that come about? So one of these artist reps that I have a good working relationship with, in the context of a booking we had last year, working with them last season, she mentioned that they have this new young pianist on their roster who is just spectacular and she really recommended that I take a look at him and possibly book them. And so I did, I listened and I was obviously impressed and said, okay. And you know, then the next step is how much is he going to cost? Is he, as a young artist, is he being unreasonable and or is he kind of slotted in where he should be in the dollars column? And so we negotiate a little bit and talk about programming and dates and that kind of thing. And so it's not unusual for an artist rep to reach out with a new performer or performers on their roster and recommend them. And the artist reps that I work with, by and large, by far, I really have a lot of respect for and trust in. So when they say, basically when they jump, I say, how high? Well, you have, In Concert Sierra has its own reputation, obviously. Right. Yeah. And part of it is these, having the relationships with these artists reps who represent truly remarkable talent and make them available to, and they know at this point, they know the artists are going to have a great time coming to Grass Valley. We take good care of them and we live in a beautiful place. Yeah. The group from France two seasons ago showed up in the parking lot at the Grass Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church and they got out of their car and they looked around and said, Oh my gosh, look at all the pine trees and smell the fresh air. Yeah. It is pretty awesome. Yeah, it really is. They were absolutely flabbergasted when, when we greeted them that we, that we actually live here, that we don't just work here. Right. I said, yeah, I just, at that time, I just lived about a mile and a half as the crow flies away from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And I pointed, yeah, I live just a short piece down that way. And they were just, wow, you live here. Yeah, that's awesome. It's a real privilege to be able to live in and work and play here. Well, here's the thing, Mike, if people want to get tickets now, you got to get a new business office that people can get tickets at now. Right. I mean, you can always get them online probably, but. Absolutely. Online at the door over the phone, but if you'd like to swing by and see us in office, you're more than welcome to do so. Listeners out there in Radio Land, we're, we're officially open Tuesday through Thursday from, from nine to four, but there's almost always somebody there during normal business hours. So drop on by 345 Crown Point Circle in Grass Valley and say hello to us. We really like our new office space, so we're happy to show it. Yeah, exactly. So what's the advantages of the space, the new space for you? Well, you know, as someone who, who spends a lot of time in an office behind a desk, the, the transition from where we were before, which was basically just two giant bullpen suites really with no differentiation, we've moved into a building that actually has discrete different, you know, spaces that can be treated as, as a, as a separate private offices, which is a, which is very nice. And it's quite accommodating. We have a lot of space. Along with the separated out office spaces, which, which works really nicely for people. We also have two large conference room meeting spaces that we can use. One, one very large one and one not quite as large. So we can have two, we can have a committee meeting going at the same time as we have a rehearsal. In the larger room, we have two grand pianos, so we can use it both for rehearsal and for, that's where we have our board meetings, that kind of thing. So it, it really, I mean, it is, it's such an upgrade. It's an extremely versatile space. Cool. Like, like what, what Ken was just touching on, you know, shortly we'll be having sectionals for, for anybody listening who doesn't know what that term means. It's a couch, isn't it? That was quick there, Tom. Get recumbent in Concert Sierra. The, the, the basses will come in for, you know, an hour and a half, two hours. From the chorale. From the Sierra Master Chorale and, and, and work on their parts and then the tenors and the altos and sopranos, et cetera. So we can utilize that space that is a conference room slash piano room because it's so accommodating. Just move a couple tables aside and be able to very comfortably accommodate those sections. And speaking about Allison and company, you know, when I think about it, we're halfway through October already, you know, pretty much. Before you know it, holidays are here and holiday concerts. They're working hard on that music. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's well underway. Yeah. I think they had their workshop last weekend, this just this past weekend. I think this tonight will be the fourth rehearsal. Is she a slave master? Micah, you're part of that group. I mean, we were about to say the same thing. It must be that follicularly challenge thing we have in common. She, she, yes. And in, in, in the very best of ways, she's, she's exacting. She knows what she wants. She's a phenomenal artist, a conductor and human being, but she, yes, she, she definitely is, is not afraid to tell the choir, you know, shape up. Let's, let's, let's snap to it. That didn't quite work now, did it? Let's try that again. Always with a smile on her face. You know, she's, you know, wonderful. Yes. Yeah. No, she's fabulous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great to have the, this many talented people can that kind of make in concert Sierra happen. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, there's no way that this outfit is a one man band. All right. I didn't bring up anything about financing. We're down to like only a couple of minutes left. Anything you want to touch on with that? We're still working hard. There's there, there are, let's say there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Good. Yeah. All right. Now, and there's still opportunities to get seats at Crown Point Ventures and stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and room naming is always an option. Tours, we're doing tours pretty much every weekend up there. I think we're, we're, have we, have we switched now to one o'clock? We have transitioned now, now that the weather is in theory getting cooler. We moved from a 10 a.m. start time to 1 p.m. So if anybody's interested in coming to check out the extraordinary project that is Crown Point Venues, you can do so for free. Saturdays, we conduct tours, as I just said, at 1 p.m. Check out crownpointvenues.com for more information about that. And I'll be your point person who will respond to your email. We'll just gather a little bit of info from you about your party and a little bit of contact info. And then you can come and spend about an hour, hour and a half on site. And Michael will most likely be the entertainment. Yeah, I understand you're still doing singing. I get the privilege and honor of, on those walkthroughs, demonstrating the acoustic properties of Hardin Hall. Ken did not name Hardin Hall after himself, a very generous donor named Hardin Hall after, after Ken and Julie and their incredible dedication to the arts. Wow, that's amazing. Is there something you sing in particular that you enjoy singing? I have a few things that I go back and forth on. We really like to lean into the notion that when we get into Crown Point Venues, we're going to be expanding our programming. So there are certain groups that definitely want to hear some classical offerings. So I'll sing, usually I'll fall back on the Bibble Ave Maria. But I like to sing a little bit of Broadway every now and again as well. A little bit of Dear Evan Hansen, a little bit of Mac and Mabel. Jerry Herman? Some Jerry Herman of late as well. But the most fun I've ever had singing in that concert hall for a group was, they wanted some rock and roll. So I sang, oh gosh, the name of the Led Zeppelin song has escaped me. Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin. There we go. All right, we're out of time. Inconcertseer.org. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for having me. --- end of transcript ---