JAMES STRECKER: Name two people, living or dead, whom you admire a great deal and tell us why for each one.
NATASHA PAREMSKI: 1. Charles Hamlen, because he is a god amongst men. A truly generous person who shows kindness to people of all walks of life, social status, shapes, and colors. A man who puts everyone ahead of himself, and the only person I know who is universally adored.
2.Sviatoslav Richter, because he is a god amongst pianists. He was without a doubt my biggest inspiration growing up, which I’m still doing!
JS: How have you changed since you began to do creative work?
NP: I have learned to be more open to the interpretations and opinions of others. I was a great deal more dogmatic in my younger years, but now I have found that even in a disagreement of opinion one can find a way of not only meeting in the middle but finding a new musical truth that may have been previously hidden.
JS: Please describe at least one major turning point in your life.
NP: When I was 8, my parents, brother, and I immigrated to the United States so that my father could pursue a job in the Silicon Valley. He came here first while the rest of us stayed in Moscow until he could get settled and get us visas. All he had was a pack of cigarettes and a passport. Months later we joined him, but with my family having lost all of their money to Perestroika, there were no means for me to continue playing the piano. Where in Russia my lessons, which I started at age 3, were paid for by the government, the lessons in the US were unapproachable in their expense. Not to mention the money for a piano. I dealt with it fairly well at first since there were so many distractions – a new country, a new language, new everything. After a few months, however, I started feeling a great loss. Suddenly, my mom was given tickets to see Evgeny Kissin in recital at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. I couldn’t believe it. I would get to hear my idol in the flesh. And that was that. At the end of his recital, I turned to my mom in tears and said “I want to be a pianist again. Also, I want to be a soloist, and I want to play at Davies.” My parents talked and agreed for me to start lessons again. I was nine. At sixteen I made my San Francisco symphony debut at Davies Symphony Hall playing Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. Thank you, Mom and Dad.
JS: How and why did you begin to do creative work in the first place?
NP: I remember a totally beat up upright in our studio flat in Moscow. It was simply a partition to separate our living area from our sleeping area. I crawled to it as a two-year old child and demanded to play. As long as I can remember, I have been a pianist. I like to think it found me.
JS: What advice would you give a young person who would like to do what you do?
NP: To them I would extend the famous Churchill quote: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Indeed, in this as in any profession, there will be much disappointment, rejection, and criticism – both public and private. What you must always lean on is that deep love for music. In those moments when you feel broken, insecure, and hopeless, you must find in yourself the will to forget and move on back to your instrument, shut out the noise, and get back to work.
Also, you have to practice.
JS: If you could relive one experience from your creative life, what would it be and why would you do so?
NP: It would be my very first piano lesson. I still remember it so vividly – the wonder and the mystery. I would give anything to go back in time and experience that unbridled joy again.
JS: Let’s talk about the state of the arts in today’s society, including the forms in which you work. What specifically gives you hope and what specifically do you find depressing?
NP: I recently played a weekend of concerts with the Columbus Symphony, and both concerts were to capacity, sold out crowds in a 2,800-seat theater. That gave me great hope that it is indeed possible to draw audiences to our genre. The people I met in the lobby after were young professionals, and for some a first time at the symphony. Great credit must be given to everyone at the CSO, including their music director, Rossen Milanov, for finding ways of presenting themselves in a relevant way to their community. I hope that more organizations can follow that example of truly listening to their community and breaking down the high-brow image of classical music.