William Leland knew just what his boisterous student needed. He also knew he wouldn’t like it.
“Welcome to the summer during which you will learn to hate me,” the University of New Mexico piano professor wrote in the notebook belonging to a young Jeremy Denk. “We are going to do precision drills: exercises in perfection of fingering, notes and rhythm … Every slip means back to beginning.”
Decades later, in a New Yorker piece that would later inspire his New York Times bestseller, “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” Denk reflected on the moment, writing: “That was the summer the music died — long, tedious lessons solely on scales, arpeggios, repeated notes, chords. But this misery proved a success.”
The focus on process before product was one of many turning points in Denk’s musical story. Automaticity in the ordinary was a prerequisite to unlocking further creation of the extraordinary.
“He knew I needed a summer to focus the mind and train the muscles carefully so I would be able to do some of the things I was wildly enthusiastic about,” Denk told the Vail Daily on Thursday.“I think we all have those periods in our learning processes where we have to buckle down and do the boring stuff in order to go onto more exciting things.”
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The 54-year-old will make his third Bravo! Vail appearance on Saturday, performing Anne Clyne’s “ATLAS,” a co-commissioned piece courtesy of the music festival and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
“It’s full of deeply-felt and vivid splashes of color and it also has a wicked wit to it,” Denk said of Clyne’s four-movement musical response to German artist Gerhard Richter’s four-volume publication of the same name. “Especially in the last couple movements, where she switches between styles in a way that is somewhat irreverent and somewhat joyful at the same time.”
“Anna has an incredible instinct for telling a musical story,” he continued. “I think that’s what you’re going to hear.”
Denk also has a knack for narrative.
His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian and The New York Times and his debut book, “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” was a New York Times bestseller. The memoir focuses on mentors, painting a portrait of two in particular —the demanding but humorous Leland and György Sebők, the late Hungarian pianist whom Denk studied with at Indiana University.
“I tried to write it as kind of a love letter to my teachers and more widely to the act of teaching,” Denk said. He also highlights the “not-so-straightforward steps in the learning process.”
“Sometimes a teacher comes along and they change your whole concept of what music is,” he said. “And that happened several times in the book and I think that’s such a beautiful part of how a musician becomes a musician.”
While Denk studied with Sebők at Indiana andHerbert Stessin at Juilliard, his book also captures the humble grassroots efforts “required to bring musicians into the world.” One passage centers on his middle school orchestra director.
“She tried to make us play better day after day,” he said. “We were just such terrible junior high school kids — and she kept at it.”
Playing viola in that group taught Denk about counterpoint, being an inner voice and “how music is about interaction of lines.”
“I learned a tremendous amount about music in that humble environment,” he said. “And also had a tremendous amount of fun.”
Denk’s dual career in music and writing appears astounding when one considers neither of his parents were musicians or writers in the professional sense. Looking closer inside his New Mexico home, however, reveals a possible trail.
“The record player was a really important part of the living room,” Denk said. While his father’s beloved Neil Diamond and John Denver albums provided the soundtrack to his childhood, bookshelves provided the backdrop.
“I always loved writing and reading,” he said. “It was a refuge — like music.”
Whenever Denk plays in the mountains —he’ll perform at the Aspen Music Festival after his Bravo! Vail residency — he is reminded of childhood family trips and summer hikes in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
“For me, it’s kind of a more personal thing,” he said of playing at Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater. On stage — thanks to Leland (and all his other mentors along the way) — he won’t dedicate much attention to mechanics.
“It’s the same as always: to play as beautiful and eloquently as possible,” he said of his performance mindset.“That’s a never-ending challenge — and joy.”
