piano Schiphol airport Amsterdam | KLM Kawai | Juan Maria Solare
Flying Pianist
piano Schiphol airport Amsterdam | Juan Maria Solare
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Juan María Solare composer & pianist
Juan Maria Solare - composer and pianist. Foto: Lea Dietrich
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Flying pianist | Juan Maria Solare

Flying Pianist



by Juan María Solare

I am a
pianist. Pianists should practice, particularly if we have a concert or a recording session in two days. But how can you practice if you must fly for a whole day?

Flying from Germany to Argentina does take long and there is no human way to shorten this. It's already a miracle that you can be in roughly 12 hours in another continent, in another hemisphere. But add to this the waiting time at airports, the trip from and to your place in both cities, and the layover time at some airport in between (often unavoidable) and you will easily have a 18-hours journey from door to door. At least.

Well, precisely this happened to me. On 18th September 2011 I
flew from Bremen to Buenos Aires, and on 19th -just a few hours after landing- a studio recording was scheduled. There was no alternative, since the violinist, Leonardo Suárez Paz, had to fly back to New York the day after, on 20th September. And that was the only chance we had to record together.

Not practicing in one day and going directly to the studio wouldn't have been perhaps suicidal, but certainly irresponsible. You do not pay expensive studio time to
practice, but to record.
piano anecdote
Schiphol airport Amsterdam
KLM KAWAI
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KAWAI grand piano at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam
But I had an unexpected bit of luck. As I flew with KLM, there was a layover in Amsterdam. And there, at Schiphol airport, there was (and hopefully still is) a grand piano! A KAWAI. They even encourage you to play on it. Saved: I could practice my whole repertory and -most important- keep my fingers fit. A blessing that the Dutch came to this brilliant idea (and a luck that there was no 3-hours queue to play the piano).
I only hope that the many waiting passengers had a good time listening to me. In any case, the guy at the passports control asked me later "hey, ain't you the pianist?"

Juan María Solare - Bremen, 25 April 2013
piano Schiphol airport Amsterdam | KLM Kawai | Juan Maria Solare
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