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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