Michael Massey celebrates 50th anniversary

At first glance there is very little connecting the Beatles and St. Albert pianist Michael Massey.

But skip back to Feb. 9, 1964 and the little-known British mop tops performed for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show and revolutionized pop music.

About two months after the British invasion, a shy but extremely talented young Michael Massey gave his first recital at Alberta College. For Massey, the performance was more than gratifying. It was cocooned with an adrenalin rush that comes of being on the edge of a great life adventure.

Roughly half a century later, the Beatles are inscribed as a pillar of 20th century pop music and the effects of that night are still felt. However, as a band, they are gone.

On the other hand, Massey is still here. And while his upwardly mobile career has been less publicized, it has charted significant peaks.

The elegant St. Albert resident continues to celebrate his longevity as a concert pianist, resident pianist for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and venerable conductor of the Edmonton Youth Orchestra.

On Sunday, April 6 at Alberta College Conservatory of Music’s Muttart Hall, Massey hosts a special recital.

Billed as the 50th anniversary of his first piano recital at Alberta College, the program includes works from Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Honegger and Medtner.

“I’m still here. I’m still functioning and I’m still playing,” said Massey with a dry tongue-in-cheek British humour. “There’s been so much music to enjoy, so much creativity in my life. In a way, the concert is a way of being thankful for my music and for the friends I’ve met over the years. It’s also a remembrance of lost friends. It’s an all-inclusive concert.”

As with any great artist there are always the pre-concert jitters.

“My fingers feel good. I’ve been practicing all the time. But it’s hard on the brain – memorizing the music and keeping it.”

But Massey has always overcome the challenges with composure and grace. Throughout his storied career, he has enjoyed many opportunities to peruse what is loosely labelled as the classical catalogue.

“The world of music is so vast and it’s pointless to have a favourite. There’s a quote from Rachmaninoff and it goes something like this. ‘There’s enough music in the world for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough.’”

Everything on Massey’s Sunday program has been selected for personal reasons. He begins with the identical piece that launched his recital 50 years ago. Beethoven’s three-movement Les Adieux Sonata is one of the master’s most complex because of the emotions it must bridge.

“It’s a piece Beethoven wrote on the departure of a close friend, the Archduke Rudolph, his patron. It describes feelings of farewell, absence and return.”

It is a salute to his many mentors and teachers over the decades from Jean-Pierre Vetter and Thomas Rolston to Michael Davidson and the great Malcolm Forsythe.

Next Massey dedicates two Debussy preludes to his wife, the talented Elaine Stepa, an on-call percussionist for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Stepa has a passion for impressionist music, and in La fille aux cheveaux de line and La danse de Puck, Massey sees the dual sides of her nature.

Several years ago Stepa made a DVD of their garden oasis and the critters that visit. As background music she found a one-minute gem, Chopin’s Scherzo No. 4 Album Leaf.

“It’s dedicated to Mark Jablonski who taught me at the University of Alberta and became a good friend. Mark’s playing was immaculate. I envied his technique. He was a real character, flamboyant and a little bit of a hippie.”

During Massey’s two-year tenure in Switzerland, he discovered Arthur Honnegger and will play the Swiss composer’s Sept pieces breve.

“It’s very clever, very brilliant and I’d always wanted to play it.”

While at the University of Alberta, Massey studied under Alexandra Munn and she was instrumental in refining his approach to Rachmaninoff. During the recital, he has included a couple of preludes from the Russian composer’s Daisies as a nod to Munn.

Closing the concert is a composer that Massey came to appreciate in later years – the eccentric Russian-born, London resident Nikolai Medtner. He completes the concert with Four “Skazki” (Tales).

With an exuberance missing in discussing the other composers, Massey relays his special connection to Medtner.

“When I was six years old, without knowing it, Medtner lived about a 10-minute walk from my house. I had a really good friend who I visited and Medtner lived right around the corner. Perhaps I even passed him on the street.”

Looking back on his career, Massey has conducted and played with some of the world’s great orchestras ranging from the EYO and ESO to the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

“I wouldn’t change a day of my life. I’ve been so lucky to have opportunities to do what I’ve done. I’ve had opportunities to conduct the world’s greatest orchestras but what I enjoy the most is the opportunity to shape young minds. That’s given me my greatest joy. Who could wish for more?”