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19 June 2009
Electrifying organ performance: Qi Zhang on TED.com
Organ virtuoso Qi Zhang plays her electric rendering of “Ridiculous Fellows” from Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges” orchestral suite. This exhilarating performance from TEDx USC features the Yamaha Electone Stagea, a rare, imported instrument specially programmed by Qi herself. (Recorded at TEDx USC, February 2009, in Los Angeles, California. Duration: 3:05)
The TED Blog spoke with Qi yesterday to learn more about her work and how she prepared her performance.
“Before I played,” Qi said, “I created an arrangement based on the original score. I wanted to include as much of the original composition as possible, but it was not possible to play every note. So I started from the main melody and instrumentation, and decided which parts to include.”
Organists like Qi must have exquisite coordination in order to play over the four major components of their instrument: the two keyboards, each of which may represent different instruments, the bass pedals, and the expression pedal, which controls volume.
Like other electronic organs, the Electone comes pre-equipped with many orchestra’s worth of samples of standard instrumental voices — brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion, voice. However, one feature that makes it special is its native support for extensive programming, a feature that Qi used while preparing the piece she played.
“The program for this piece was set up weeks in advance. I put the program on a little memory card with the information about the piece. It cues the correct instruments based on the location in the score.”
Qi studied electronic organ as her undergraduate major, but since then she’s developed a full-fledged fascination with real pipe organs. “Every organ is different — they all have a different sound,” she said. “I hope to be a full-time performer for both the electronic and pipe organ. I enjoy sharing the beautiful music that these instruments can create.”
She chose to play from Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges” because she was captivated by its visually-driven music, as with opera and ballet. Qi, who began studying music at age five, also composes.
“Before I played for TEDx, I had never heard of it or TED. I’ve spent most of my life in China. But I took part in the rest of the conference that day, and was taken in by all of the new ideas and talented people. I think it will be very important for the whole country and the whole world, for humans to have better lives.”
Watch Qi Zhang’s performance from TEDx USC on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 450+ TEDTalks.
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Discuss this Blog Post
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Mary Dunne
Jun 25 2009she can really play that is absolutely an amazing performance. I only wish I could also play this well.
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Mar 18 2011
Very impressive. However, Qi Zhang is not playing an electronic organ! An organ is nothing like what the Yamaha Electone has become. This instrument is a synthesizer and an electronic keyboard. Yamaha began making their wonderful Electone organs over 40 years ago and on the Electone Zone you can look at ‘ Electone History’and see the progression of how it developed.
The organ is an instrument that consists of many tones. With the’Diapason’voice being unique to organ, the other organ voices are found elsewhere in music. An organ might have voices like ‘Flute’ ( the Hammond tone wheel is ALL flute), or ‘Strings’, or ‘Trumpet’. Now many of you will defend these latest Electones as being able to sound like an organ too. That is correct, but how many kids are playing it like an organ? Not many.There are way more organs in the world than Hammond B3′s, Pipe organs, and what so many are confusing for an organ- The Electone. No, the electronic organ CAN be alive and well in 40 years, but first we need to remember what an electronic organ really is.
If you want to hear what an electronic organ sounds like then watch a couple of the amazing artists in my 100 video post on youtube. The play list is entitled:
Organ Tunes even Organ Haters will love!
and
Organ Tunes even Organ Haters will love! II
Qi Zhang’s playing is awesome. I’d love to hear her do some film scores to some of my favorite old silent films. Believe it or not, as much as I love the theater organ, I am a real fan of our modern scores for some of the silent movie restorations. There is a place for all composition. I look for there to be a resurgence in organ playing- specifically the sampled pipe organ. Digital has made the Artisan, and the Hauptwerk available to everyone for not much investment. Please people, whatever you do don’t dismiss the electronic theater organs of the 60′s and 70′s. These were what the silent film goers played when they got to retirement age and let me tell you, they are extremely alive sounding! They don’t have to sound like pipes. They need only have the voice. That they have. I play a 1966 Thomas Palace III, and a 4500 Wurlitzer. My latest organ is a 1946 Wurlitzer electrostatic Orgatron model 31 with a 310 rotary tone cabinet. Ooh’I can’t wait to play it once the 2-3 dried up capacitors are fixed!
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Ford Spark
Nice performance, She really have the talent in playing organ.TED really help to show the talent of an individual.