48 hours with a guest artist at the Festival Piano aux Jacobins
This Friday, September 16, 2022, the Couvent des Jacobins welcomed an artist who was discovering the Toulouse public. Irish pianist, finhin collinshad never been to Toulouse, yet his first participation in the Festival Piano aux Jacobins was a success. The public is conquered, the pianist too. But for an artist, his room in a high-level festival is not just about the concert. Here’s what the schedule looks like finhin collins when he came to Toulouse.
>> READ ALSO: IN IMAGES. Behind the scenes of the Piano aux Jacobins festival before the start
But if the pianist was able to come and play in Toulouse, it was thanks to his meeting with the director of the festival, Catherine d’Argoubet. Both were jurors in the Clara Haskil competition last year. Competition that Finghin Collins won in September 1999.
His first day in Toulouse
Arrive at Toulouse by plane in the early afternoon of Thursday, September 15, Finghin Collins immediately took up residence at the hotel. A little rest upon his arrival, then he went to the directors of the festival to work. The convent was occupied by Nathalie Milstein who was playing that night. So he found a piano in the “attic” of the director of the festival. “I needed to work on my assignments because it’s a demanding program. For two hours, I worked slowly and wisely. It’s a very nice program that requires a lot of maintenance.”
Then he became interested in the place that was going to welcome him the next day. Because the peculiarity of Piano Festival at the Jacobins is the “half-covered, half-open-air” concert setting. The stage is installed in the Capitular room of the convent and the public is installed in the room as well as in the cloister. not knowing Toulouse, nor the convent, Finghin Collins wanted to take a look. “You still have to see what it looks like, how it sounds, what resentment you can have with the place”.
He then attended the first part of Nathalie Milstein whom he already knew, but did not wish to stay during the second part. The reason is that “curiously Nathalia played the same piece as me in the second part of her concert, Schubert’s Wanderer Fantaisie that I had programmed for my concert. And it’s quite rare in festivals that they allow repeat works. Catherine d’Argoubet explained to me that she likes that people were two different versions, not to compare, but to discover two different interpretations of the same piece”.
For fear of being “distracted at the last minute”, the pianist then returned to the hotel to rest.
concert day
After a night’s sleep, Finghin Collins then took possession of the Chapter House at the Jacobin convent. The opportunity for him to do a three-hour work session at his place of concert and in particular to “get to know this very very very beautiful instrument, a Steinway”:
“I was warned that the acoustics were difficult and disturbing when the room was empty, it resonates a lot. It was nice to be warned even if I did not find it more impressive than that. But I was able to work for three hours, I was a little disturbed by the tourists who visit the convent, but they remained very polite and kind. They even applauded at the end of the pieces”.
Participating in a festival also means meeting people and sometimes finding friends. Like this couple of friends from Toulouse that Finghin Collins knew and with whom he had lunch. “These kind of moments are very nice for me. It allows me to cut a little and talk about something other than music”. After the meal, he then stops at the hotel before returning to the Jacobins and working again for an hour.
Returning to his room one last time before the concert to change, Finghin Collins has a ritual: “I took my little piece of banana, to gain strength for the concert. They say they are good for the focus and energy”.
The moment of the concert
More than 500 people gathered at the Jacobin Convent to come and listen to the Irish pianist. Morning, noon, evening and night… finhin collins propose a concert in two parts. The first on two monumental solo piano works, Franz Schubert and Joseph Haydn. Then in the second part, nine music chosen from the 13 pieces of his CD, The bright day is over. The principle is based on pieces that evoke different times of the day.
Without waiting, the pianist begins to play. The public is suspended, sometimes intrigued and above all amazed by the musical performance. finhin collins is in his bubble and takes everyone with him, time seems to have stopped. “For me, the most important thing is to communicate with people. We travel together”, explains the Irish pianist. His virtuosity and the interpretation without score impress and captivate the spectators. So much so that the pianist could no longer leave. Bis, Ter… The public is asking for it.
“It was a magnificent setting, I had a lot of fun playing. I really appreciated the audience, who were extremely attentive. There was absolute silence. And then the enthusiasm at the end… is not always given”.
A piece that left the public perplexed
If most of the melodies were very appreciated by the public, one piece did not go unnoticed. In the middle of the program, finhin collins a selected piece Midday by Gerald Barry, and we can say that it left the spectators perplexed…
“This piece is disturbing. The composer was trying to create a kind of tension through the somewhat hypnotic repetition of this same very simple motif. People wonder if the music is going to change. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, the audience is thus suspended from the notes”.
The story behind this music tells that the composer wanted to create a strong intensity reminiscent of the Irish on the lookout during the invasion of the country by the Normans. A suspense imitated here by the very repetitive note patterns. Asked about the choice of the piece, the pianist explains that even the composer, Gerald Barry could not explain the name of this room. But “Midday” which means noon in French entered into the idea of the program of finhin collins. “And it happens to link up nicely with the next piece, Midday by John Field”. The contrast between the two pieces by two Irish composers greatly pleased the pianist.
Visit and departure from Toulouse
Once the concert was over, the pianist then aroused the public, then he shared a meal with the directors of the festival, a tradition during a festival. The next day, the artist took the opportunity to visit the Pink City. For his first time in Toulouse, finhin collins discovered the emblematic places of the city.
The Place du Capitole, the Halle aux Grains, the Canal du Midi, the quays of the Garonne, the Saint-Sernin basilica… Little time allowed him to see more of the city’s monuments. Around 1:30 p.m. this Saturday, September 17, the taxi was waiting for him to take the plane back to Dublin. Perhaps we will see it again during the 44th edition of the Piano Festival at the Jacobins ?