10/01/2026
🎹 5 Questions with Mackenzie Melemed!
1) What piece could you listen to forever?
Hard to choose one: Brahms' Symphony No.1 has everything. I've also played the four-hand version, which holds lots of memories and some of the most beautiful music ever written.
2) What do you do immediately before performing?
I'm usually chatting with someone backstage, I try not to get too much in my head about the concert and instead look at it as an opportunity to present music (whether familiar to the audience or not) in a new light and whatever happens happens!
3) Where's the strangest place you've ever practiced piano?
I've often practiced on bar pianos on multiple cruise ships, typically in the early hours of the morning, when everyone is sleeping.
4) What composer would you invite to dinner?
I'm a fan of every work by Rachmaninoff, who was not only a genius composer but also a genius pianist. With those skills, he created some of the most satisfying piano music to play (and to listen to). The formulas for the "take-your-breath-away" moments are similar, but he manages to do it differently each time around. I'd love to find out how he thought about that compositional process and how he so easily moved his listeners to tears through his music.
5) Why did you choose one piece on your program?
The opening work, Buckaroo Holiday, from the Rodeo Ballet Suite (Aaron Copland) was the first piece I performed abroad, namely during a tour of the Czech Republic in 2012, during my senior year of high school. I was asked to play an all-American program, and this music gives the perfect opening glimpse into the life of cowboys and rodeos that defined the spirit of the Wild West in the 19th century. It's notable that Copland himself invented this "American" sound we hear in the work, without ever having set foot in the western US for ethnomusicological purposes. Open sky, lots of octaves, a rip-roaring time had by all!
Catch Mackenzie Melemed at the Salon Piano Series on October 25 for an evening of extraordinary piano music.
🎟️ Tickets at salonpianoseries.org
