Early in her piano performance career – and continuing later
-- Tomoko served as a keyboard accompanist. She first accompanied her secondary
school’s singers, and played the organ for Catholic masses when in college. As
a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, she also played for
special community concerts. A few years after she started teaching at the
Conservatory, the Peninsula Symphony told her about a violinist, Ernestine
Riedel at the time, who needed an accompanist, and Tomoko
performed with her at the DeYoung Museum. They continued to perform together
for 30 years,
and considered themselves as a duo rather than a performer-accompanist
relationship. Their repertoire included sonatas and duos
by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Prokoviev, Copland,
etc. Even in recent recitals, Tomoko has accompanied her musical
friends on the piano.
As part of their training, Tomoko’s students learned how to
accompany as well. This kind of performance requires additional skills. First,
the accompanist has to learn both her own accompanying score and the other
musician’s score thoroughly. The accompanying piece has to become so natural
that it is memorized and internalized as memory muscle. This deep knowledge is
needed because the accompanist must listen to the other performer very
carefully and adjust the piano playing tempo and tone to the spotlighted
performer.
Accomplished accompanists may be called upon to perform with
little notice ahead of time. If the piece is familiar, then the event is not so
stressful, although it is harder if the accompanist does not know the lead
performers and style. Sometimes accompanists can listen to recordings of the
anticipated piece to jumpstart the interpretation. In any event, accompanists
need to keep their sight-reading skills sharp, know how to play harmonic and chord
patterns, and be able to modulate from one key to another for singers in
particular.
Accompanying can be challenging but also joyful. Tomoko
explains how music brings people together. “It gives me friendship.” As an accompanist, Tomoko has made good musical friends, and continues to keep in touch with them.
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