New York in pandemic and in lockdown. Concert halls have closed, yet the artists’ urge to create music and the audience’s need to be inspired by it remain. “I had two options. One was not to do anything and be depressed. The other was to try to maintain a certain level of keeping busy. It helps your frame of mind and also maintains the music,” says composer and pianist Yaron Gershovsky, musical director for The Manhattan Transfer.
On Jazz FM we meet the artist who remained connected with the audience. As soon as the lockdown was announced, he started a series of home performances on social media and then he enhanced his initiative by inviting guest instrumentalists and vocalists. “The thing that supported me was the God-given ability to create, to try to maintain the part of me that is about music,” he says about continuing forward in a difficult situation. The songs he plays are emblematic for their inspirational power. He makes wonderful arrangements and he also presents us with two original compositions.
Some of these performances Yaron Gershovsky selected for the Up Close From Afar solo piano album. The music on it gives support in times of particular hardships. “Everybody will be optimistic and strong and eventually overcome the situation. We always try to maintain a sense of optimism for the future, that things will be better. That’s the only way to go,” Yaron Gershovsky asserts on this interview by Jazz FM’s Svetoslav Nikolov.
