My Croatian piano debut

As a performing pianist, I was told that I should have a website. But I couldn’t afford one, so I got a page on Myspacemusic.com instead. I began to collect “friends.”

At first I was the one making the requests: I’d search for classical musicians in order to read their pages, listen to their clips and write positive comments. Soon I began to search for my favorite celebrities; some allowed me to join their circle, and others spurned my overtures (or, I suspect, their webmasters did).

One day I was visiting a fellow musician’s page when I spotted a picture that seemed to radiate life. I clicked on the image, listened to some gorgeous Bach and wrote a comment, the gist of which was that it was a pleasure to see and hear such a luminous spirit conveyed visually and aurally. I got a lovely message in return, and my correspondence with Ivana Marija Vidovic was born.

Ivana was in the process of organizing the first Epidaurus Festival, which consisted of 11 concerts held in Cavtat, near her hometown of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Based on my audio clips and our messages, she invited me to perform during the second festival, scheduled for a year after our online meeting. In return, I promised to try to get Millersville University, where I’m currently employed, to sponsor a visit from Ivana, who is scheduled to perform at Duke University in North Carolina in January 2009. I sent some e-mails to my Millersville colleagues, obtained the necessary commitments (which included covering my airfare to Europe) and reserved space in the hall.

Such a chain of events is unusual, to say the least. I’ve heard of pop singers and groups finding success through the Internet, but I never expected to be invited to Europe as a result of my rather basic web page. When I created it, I was simply trying to at least pretend to keep up with other serious musicians. Who knew what would come of it?

On to Croatia!

If you travel on Air Croatia you will encounter a throwback to another era: glamazon stewardesses in stiletto heels with toes so sharply pointed they would be confiscated by U.S. Homeland Security guards. I was relieved to see that these women at least wore flats to serve drinks. This was by far the least interesting aspect of a brief but rich experience.

Cavtat is nestled in the Dalmatian mountains, which are really hills— the same hills from which the Serbs launched their missiles in the infamous conflict of the early 1990s. When you fly into Dubrovnik, both Dubrovnik and Cavtat are visible. They look like siblings: Each town has rows of matching houses with beige walls and reddish-orange roofs, although Dubrovnik also features a fortress that was built in the Middle Ages. Combine this man-made environment with the omnipresent hibiscus, palm trees, olive trees, grape vines and various other forms of plant life beyond my limited knowledge of botany, and you have an entire area that seems to have been designed by a postcard manufacturer.

My whirlwind first day in Croatia included a delayed flight, followed by a hasty seafood salad in an open-air café, a press conference at which I met Ivana for the first time, some much-needed practice, and some even-more-necessary sleep.

Ivana in person

Meeting Ivana felt surreal. I’d seen the many pictures she had posted on her Myspace page and learned some things about her life during our email exchanges, but until I arrived at the press conference she remained slightly intangible, especially since I’d never heard her voice. (I lack the equipment necessary to use Skype.) In person, Ivana seemed small (perhaps because I’m 5-foot-9). When I walked into the room, though, our eyes met and there was a moment of deep mutual connection, followed by a warm hug. The spark of life in the pictures on my computer was no illusion.

The morning of Day Two— the day of my recital— I had some time to myself in Cavtat. I was glad to have no agenda other than eating, sleeping and practicing. Such leisure is rare in my “real” life, where I’m a single mother of two.

My room in the five-star Hotel Croatia offered a view of a hill, but at breakfast I was treated to a sumptuous buffet and a stunning view of a harbor, complete with fishing boats and one tremendously impressive yacht (Canadian registry). After eating, I descended what seemed like a thousand steps to the village below and walked along the dock, which was lined with restaurants, souvenir shops and sunbathers.

National pride, national bitterness

As in many places in Europe, you can manage quite well speaking only English. Of course, most of the Croats I spoke to were hotel employees, waiters or associates of the music festival. Still, a few things about residents of that corner of what used to be Yugoslavia seemed obvious.

First, Croatia is a very proud nation. Ivana spoke of Croatian accomplishments “long before anyone discovered America.” I saw a piece of wood purported to be the largest section of Christ’s cross (or one of them) to leave the Holy Land; the size was assumed to be evidence of Croatia’s importance (Dalmatia is mentioned in Paul’s second letter to Timothy). This wood piece was displayed in a back room in a cathedral in Old Dubrovnik, amidst a dazzling collection of gold and jewels.

Which brings me to a second Croatian characteristic: Their bitterness towards the Serbs. Not that I blame them. It must be something like the anger I feel as a black woman whenever I read about slavery, lynchings or certain American attitudes toward black presidential candidates. Ivana told me Serbs are “lazy and aggressive,” as well as jealous of Croatia, with its natural beauty and superior standard of living. But this mutual animosity was already a thousand years old when the last war broke out. I wondered: Isn’t enough, enough? Can’t we all just get along? And then I remembered from my own experience how difficult it is to banish ancient injuries from one’s head. Besides, Ivana has very personal reasons for her anger. Her only brother died during the war, having first joined an armed resistance movement and then turned to drugs to manage his terror; in a sense, his soul died before his body did.

An outdoor concert with no ‘Plan B’

The walk along the harbor in the warmth of the sun drained my imminent solo recital of most of its usual anxiety, at least until five minutes before the concert, when I nevertheless asked myself the inevitable question: “Why do you do this to yourself?” Because, I replied, making music is a privilege, and there are so many ranges of color a piano can create, especially when it’s the kind of piano I was playing. Ivana had arranged for a nine-foot Steinway to travel from Italy by boat, along with Luigi, a piano technician (and wonderful singer of old Neapolitan songs) who had toured with Michelangeli, Andras Schiff and Krystian Zimmerman.

The only thing that could (literally) dampen the experience of playing that amazing instrument was rain. The concert was held outdoors, with the piano sheltered on a narrow porch behind a municipal building and the audience on plastic chairs on a terrace overlooking the harbor. I have to admit, when I heard my concert would be outdoors, I wondered about the Plan “B.” Seems there wasn’t one.

And rain it did, 45 minutes before my concert was scheduled to begin.

Ivana was dismayed. The lights set up for the occasion had to be turned off to avoid an electrical catastrophe, and although a few chairs could fit behind and in front of the Steinway, the effect on the listener would be greatly diminished.

“She came all this way,” Ivana fretted.

I glanced at Luigi, Ivana, her mother and the few other helpers. “I’ll play just for you,” I said.

Luckily, the rain soon subsided, and the show went on. In typical Maria Thompson Corley fashion, I was doing a long, difficult program (because a lot of the music I really like is hard). This time I got into a groove where everything felt right. To open the concert, Ivana and I performed a Mozart sonata for four hands. I collaborate a lot, but not with pianists, so it was fun to do something I hadn’t attempted much since childhood, especially with someone as musical as Ivana.

My next two pieces were by African American composers, one female and deceased (Florence Price’s Sonata) and one male and living (my friend Leslie Adams’s Etude in E flat minor). These were my contribution to our cultural exchange: When Ivana visits Pennsylvania in January, she’ll perform works by Dora Pejacevic, a Croatian composer.

Past the audience’s bedtime?

I closed with Le Tombeau de Couperin, Ravel’s homage to the 17th-Century master. For an encore, I played a Chopin waltz, then invited my hostess to reprise the slow movement of the Mozart. I had a Chopin nocturne in reserve, but by then it was close to 11 p.m. (the concert started at 9). I was tired and assumed my audience was ready for bed. But the response was enthusiastic. I’d performed in Europe before, but this was my first solo recital there, and it had been a success, thank God.

Ivana and I haven’t been in touch much since I got back. But our few e-mails since my visit have been warm, despite their relative brevity, and I look forward to rekindling our relationship when she visits again. Having lived in a number of places, I’ve learned to enjoy people while they’re near, realizing that life will always involve some transience. I’m grateful to the Internet and the occasional phone call for sustaining trans-Atlantic relationships such as mine with Ivana. Of course, I’m grateful to the piano, too.