Q&A: Probing the creative mind of pianist Asiya Korepanova

Daniel Meisner’s friendly face is one of the first that greets you when you visit Vashon Center for the Arts’ Katherine L. White Hall, where he works in the box office.

Raised in Wisconsin by a musician and an art teacher, Daniel grew up surrounded by music, art, and culture, studied graphic design and fine art, and was gallery director for Glasshouse Studio before making Vashon his home in 2007. He’s a huge fan of pianist, composer, poet, and visual artist Asiya Korepanova.

In anticipation of her return to play her third island concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 28, Daniel sat down with Asiya to discuss music, visual art, and creative process.

DANIEL: You’ve played for audiences both large and small, far and wide, and I would love to hear about the differences you’ve encountered — if any — in playing for smaller communities, such as Vashon’s, versus in audiences in concert halls in large cities.

ASIYA: There is an overarching feature that ties any size of the community or audience together, and that is an energy exchange happening between a performer and a listener. It is a direct connection, an electric current that only can be experienced in a live performance and is present no matter how many people are sitting in a hall — two, 20, or 2,000.

To me, there is no difference of my own outpouring of excitement and desire to share my music, whether I am playing for a bigger or smaller audience. But smaller audiences tend to be more intimate and feel like friends right away, while a huge hall can feel a bit more distanced at first — which can also change in a course of the concert.

So much preparation and practice goes into your performances. As a solo artist, is that process a solitary one, or do you bring in outside feedback?

It is always a pleasure to receive feedback from colleagues, mentors, and listeners in general.

The everyday process is indeed solitary, but I never miss an opportunity to hear the impressions that people have. This year, I am honored to be a part of Gabriela Montero’s Piano Lab, in which I can play for her and work with her on the repertoire that is no longer new to me, but in which I am finding something very personal and want to hear how it comes across, from a breathtaking pianist whom I admire.

Tell us a little about the program you’ll perform and how you curate your concert programs.

Some programs are inherently dramatic, or heroic, or uplifting, or soothing.

I rarely mix and match things that act like a kaleidoscope without complementing each other.

My upcoming Vashon recital is built on two major cyclical multi-movement works, in which their movements are never performed individually. Schumann’s “Carnaval” is a string of portraits and allegories of different persons, with an overall idea of unity. Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” is a carnival of characters, creatures and drastically different moods. To these two, I added a short set of my own miniatures, dedicated to my dear friend and patron Porter Anderson, a humorous work by Beethoven and a piece by Rachmaninoff.

Together, all these works form a feast for ears and minds.

In addition to being a pianist, you are also a composer, transcriber, poet, and an accomplished visual artist. I can see how many of these disciplines relate, but visual art stands out to me. I read that Felix Mendelssohn was a talented watercolorist — how does your visual art inform your other passions?

I would say, all of these different artistic endeavors lie under an umbrella of abstract thinking, and are interconnected naturally. It is not too unusual to notice musicians who paint, or draw, or write music and literature, and so forth. I admire Mendelssohn’s watercolors, as well as Sviatoslav Richter’s pastels, Stephen Hough’s prose, and of course the original music written by many a composer who are also known as virtuoso performers.

Will there be a visual element to the program you have planned?

I am featuring my own artwork that I created for each of the Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

As a musician and visual artist, is there any color that you associate with a particular kind of melody, or vice versa?

I do not have a synesthesia but I have complex associations between music, colors, images and even temperatures. These things change and evolve over time, so it is hard to name something in particular in association with a given melody. But a multilayered perception — including also the cultural context of the time when a work musical work was written — is an incredible aid to build a story-like interpretation.

Visit vashoncenterforthearts.org for tickets to Asiya Korepanova’s concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 28.