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There was a time in my life when I studied the piano. It was a only for a short period of time, and this may be the only photograph ever taken of me playing.
(That's my sister, Ellen, in the background). This was 1976. I was eleven years old and I was not very good. I had already been studying the violin at the University of Texas String Project for four years and I knew how to read music. I didn't think the piano would be as hard as it turned out to be! My parents arranged for me to take piano lessons. My teacher was a young man named Dickran Atamian who was then a student at the University of Texas. Mr. Atamian had just won the prestigious Walter M. Naumburg Piano competition in New York City and was about to embark on a career as a world famous concert pianist. I was with him for a few months before he went off to conquer the classical music world.
Fast forward forty years. I am still a violinist, but alas, my piano studies did not continue for very long. The other day I was listening to a recording of Chopin Ballades performed by Abbey Simon.
I was reading the liner notes on the back (remember liner notes???) Mr. Simon won the Walter M. Naumburg competition in 1940....Naumburg....Naumburg...that meant something to me...but what was it???? Later that same day, I kid you not, while looking through some old photographs, I found the picture above of me playing the piano. Naumburg....piano....piano lessons....Dickran Atamian! It all came together. I had studied with a world renowned pianist, ever so briefly, but none-the-less, a big brush with greatness that had escaped my memory.
So I did some research about Dickran Atamian. He was only 19 when he won the Naumburg Prize. He did indeed have a wonderful career...performances with all the great orchestras in the world, critically acclaimed recordings, including a groundbreaking recording of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring transcribed by Sam Raphling. Recitals at Carnegie Hall. You name it. I wanted to re-connect with him after all these years to see if he even remembered me. And to see if he still loved classical music.
I did some research and learned that Dickran Atamian is alive and well, and that he also goes by the name Jack Price. Huh? What's up with that? Well, that is part of an amazing story. A story of one man with two careers and two identities. Jack Price of Price Rubin & Partners Artist Management and Mr Dickran Atamian, world renowned concert pianist. Mr. Price very graciously responded to my e-mail, and he said he did remember me. More importantly, this very busy man gave me an hour of his time to catch up on old times and share some of his thoughts and reflections about a wide range of topics.
Tim Hazlett The
other day, I was listening to an album of Chopin Ballades performed by Abbey
Simon. While reading the liner notes, I saw that he won the Naumburg Prize in
1940. That instantly reminded me of you.
Jack Price Yeah,
he won the Naumburg too. (1940) As a matter of fact, he was on the jury when I
won. (1975)
JP No.
I was lucky to play dates and have sponsors…fairly well known sponsors that had
a lot of money that paid my rent. I had one guy who didn’t even tell me his
identity who paid my rent in New York for a while. I had another sponsor…this is in the days
when you studied with me…his name was Dr. Boyd who was a gynecologist in
Augusta, GA who sponsored the Boyd Competition. I won the first prize in ’73
with the Brahms second concerto and then he sponsored me to other competitions. It was his airfare that got me to New York when I won the Naumburg. I paid him
back after I won. If it wasn’t for Boyd sponsoring me in these formative years,
I would have probably never have gone to the Naumburg. Sponsors are very important
to artists. If they don’t have them it’s difficult.
TH Wow, cool. So
who are you?? (laughing)
JP I have a
lot of names….that’s an interesting story. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews
lately…so your piece may get some steam because of all the different ones I’m
doing. I have a publicist called the NALA, it’s in LA actually, and they
promote all of our stuff, and they started out with my story. In March they did
a story on my ten years in retirement as a pianist, and 32 years in management.
I did it for 22 years without anyone knowing…they didn’t know I was Jack Price.
TH That schizophrenic
story on your website was amazing.
JP I left
Columbia Artists and all the big guys...Harold Shaw, Bill Judd and ICM…the four
biggest at that time and probably ever. The only other manager you could have
had would have been Sol Hurok, and Shaw at ICM was an outgrowth of Hurok
because Hurok left in like ’72. The Hurok agency divided between Shaw
Attractions and International Creative Management (ICM). So that would have
been the only other management that I hadn’t been with. So I decided they’re
not doing it right…they don’t know what they’re doing with a bunch of people
who are not branded, so I decided to manage myself. And that’s when things
really worked. The year I won the Naumburg (1975) everybody was “Oh yeah you’re
going to be with Shelly Gold and these people”…but they don’t do the work…unless
you’ve got millions of dollars to hand them. If you’re going to give them five
million dollars, they’ll work for you. Anybody will work for you if you pay
them five million dollars.
TH I was
doing some research awhile back and saw several ads for Sol Hurok’s company,
and he in fact managed Isaac Stern…one of the all-time great violinists….and
now his son is conductor of the KC Symphony.
JP Michael Stern used
to live in Ann Arbor when I was artist in residence at the University of
Michigan from ’91 to ’96. I taught there, not as a faculty member, but as an
artist in residence. It was a special position…it was so special that after I
left they discontinued the program. They’d had enough of artists and artistic
mentalities like mine, who are very demanding and opinionated and who don’t
really relinquish their opinions…they stick to them. But I’m not really like
most artists. I have a more entrepreneurial nature than they do. And I’m much
more organized and much more realistic, and I’m less of a dreamer.
TH You made a
great point about how very few people ever remember the names of artists who
win major prizes like the Naumburg.
JP They
remembered mine because in those days; A) the Naumburg meant something and B)
there weren’t nearly as many competitions as have proliferated over the last 30
years. Now there’s one in every corner. Every medium…dance and music…there are
too many of them, and there are too many winners, so nobody knows their names.
Nobody cares. All they care about are their pool chemicals and lawn chemicals.
They care more about what chemical they’re going to put on their lawn than
whether Yo-Yo Ma is playing with the symphony this weekend. Nobody cares. Even
with a big name like him, despite that fact that calls obviously come in for
him, he still has to do a fair amount of selling. Whereas someone of his
stature in another field wouldn’t have to do anything.
TH I was not
sure what to call you...Jack Price or Dickran Atamian?
JP You can use the names now
interchangeably because everybody knows my identity now. (Dickran Atamian and
Jack Price) Six years ago we let the cat out of the bag about who Jack Price
really was. But I didn’t let the cat out in ’06 because I wasn’t ready to let
people know that Dickran Atamian was Jack Price. But it turned out that we got
way better results with the management when people knew that I was Atamian
because they know Atamian. So the branding of Atamian helped the branding of
this new Jack Price character which, of course, I got from a real Jack Price
which you probably read about on the website.
TH I did,
yes…it is fascinating.
JP Jack’s
the one who gave me the persona and the business. He gave me the name to use as
a business and he gave me the name for DBA as Jack Price. I didn’t get the
dividend. I didn’t get the company. He retired and of course he kept all his
money. And he did not finance me. But I built it from nothing. He just gave me
the name.
TH And all
because you both liked to eat steak!
JP Yeah
right…he heard me play the Khachaturian Concerto in Kitchener-Waterloo,
Ontario. It’s a pretty good orchestra and it was a big success. And he comes
out of the audience…this big guy…telling jokes all night. And he took me out to
dinner and the next thing you know he’s asking “what’s Columbia Artists doing
for you?” and I go “well, they get me big dates. I’m with Leontyne Price’s
manager”, which you know, Leontyne was a big name at that time. And Leontyne
Price was with Nellie Walter, who was the Vice President of Columbia Artists
Management Inc., who was my manager. So, I got dates, you know, through Price
and name association. Not enough to live on….I really didn’t make a living
until about 1994, from playing the piano. It took many years from the time you
are talking (1975). It took about nineteen years to really start get going.
TH Did you
continue teaching through that period? Was that part of your income?
TH After a
career as a concert pianist and a recording artist and now in your career as an
artist management company entrepreneur…do you still enjoy listening to music?
JP Oh yeah.
The music is all I enjoy. I do enjoy making deals…I’m a deal maker…I just took
on a major partner, James Dietsch, who has as much the same story as I have
had. We are about the only two in the entire business who ever went that route where
we had major AA careers. His was at the Met, La Scala, and Covent Garden. He
was a major baritone, and he played with all the major conductors. You can read
about him on the website. And then he turned into management full steam because of
four or five strokes that he had. That
didn’t happen to me…I just got sick and tired of the business in 2006. I just
couldn’t quit cold turkey, but I could not stand walking in front of another
audience. I loved playing, and I love the music, but I don’t like performing
every other night, or whatever it was. And I don’t like traveling at all. After
9/11…five years later I quit. I knew 9/11 would have an effect on people’s
daily life, but I didn’t know it would affect my entire life. It made my life
miserable. I hate airports and I hate being searched…taking my belt and shoes
off…I just said forget it. And you can say “Oh, you must not love the music
very much…you must not love your art.” Well, that’s not true. I loved it. But I’m
a person who’s not into hassles. I don’t know if you remember that from when I
taught you…I was very young then…but I don’t like hassles and I don’t like to
be inconvenienced. I know it’s a major flaw, and I admit it readily. So with
those two problems you can see why I quit. I just don’t like it. That’s all I
can say about it.
TH I’m a big
baseball fan….
JP Yeah, me
too.
TH I thought
so because you referenced Dave Kingman in one of your video segments.
JP Dizzy
Dean too…I talked about Dizzy. Paul Dean, his brother, rented from us…my father
owned some apartments in Phoenix. Dizzy became a good friend and sponsored my
third grade little league baseball team. He taught me a lot about pitching,
playing second base, hitting and fielding. And about life.
TH Baseball
is a metaphor for life in many ways.
JP It is!
TH Who is
your favorite team?
TH So, unlike
many professional athletes who go through withdraw when their playing careers
end, you didn’t experience that when you stopped playing concerts?
JP No, I
didn’t have any withdrawal because I was so fed up. I made my last recording
with Grzegorz Nowak and the Poznan Philharmonic…the Brahms First Piano Concerto
which was phenomenal…it’s like my last will and testament. When I played the
final note of that concerto, I knew it was the greatest thing I had done. I
love my recordings, but that last one is very special and it’s my favorite
piece in the world. It’s a phenomenal orchestra...one of the great
orchestras…and the conductor is my favorite conductor. It’s my last installment
if you will, and I’m just fine with it. I play occasionally at church, or I’ll
fill in on the organ. I am now thinking about accompanying a singer for her lieder
concerts…I’m not going to divulge her name or when it might be, but she has
inspired me to come back a little bit to the piano, but only to accompany. We
might do some Chopin, Schumann and Liszt songs, but that’s on a very low level
from playing major concertos. I’m not letting anyone publicize it because I
have the management to deal with and I have no intention of competing with my
artists.
TH Do you
ever just sit down and practice…or play?
JP No. not
at all. I never practice. Not one second of any day. I don’t want to practice
anymore, and it’s in the nervous system anyway. I’ll put it this way…if some
guy comes up to me and says “I’ll give you ten million dollars seed money to
build your career and go beyond where you had it” I would refuse it. That’s how
much I hated it. (laughs)….That’s going to be the title of your article…Atamian
Really Hates Concertizing. (laughs)
TH I’m happy
to hear that you still love music even though you hate concertizing! I know
more than a few people who make a living in music who don’t really like it
anymore.
JP Here are
a few other points about that. Number one; there are so many bad pianos on the
road. Yeah, once in a while I’d get a great one, but even at Avery Fisher Hall
in New York, the pianos are just in bad shape. Technicians have no idea…they
couldn’t tune “Come to Jesus” in whole notes if they wanted to. They just don’t
know what I know. And the only person who agrees with me is Alfred Brendel. He
does his own “inside the piano” work. He does his own regulating…he regulates
the action and the hammers before each concert and he’s up until four in the
morning the night before a concert fixing the piano. I’m not going to do
that…you couldn’t pay me enough to do that.
TH I love
Brendel.
JP Here’s a
great Brendel story. Alfred’s a great guy. I played Brahms Second for him once
when I was studying with John Perry there at UT when you were there. It was the
funniest thing….I wrote the word “fucker” over a chord because I never could
get it. And Brendel said “what is this word “fucker”. A friend of mine who was
accompanying me was laughing so hard he fell off the bench. Second; the travel used to be great. I loved it at first…the
hotels and flying…they were great. But now I can’t stand airports anymore. It
was always the prelude to playing the concert…you’d go “Ah yes, I’m on the way
to conquer Kansas City” for example. I
played there a lot by-the-way. Incidentally, Kansas City was the last place I
played before I won the Naumburg.
Then you’ve got the conductors. Need I say more? Conductors….I
either love them or hate them. They’re not all going to be like Nowak or Mazel.
They’re not all like that. Most are not
at that level. And then there are the people that run the orchestras and
series’. It just got so depressing. Like, getting off the plane and being
greeted by some Executive Director that had no intention of ever attending the
concert. They don’t even show up to their own concerts! You talk about
apathy…you’ve got apathy written all over the heart of this industry. And the
music is so great, right? You wonder “what the heck are they doing in it if
they hate it!?!”
And lastly, my kids were young and I wanted to devote a lot
of time to them. ’06 just seemed like a good year to retire.
I didn’t burn out on playing; I burned out on the atmosphere
of extra-musical things. Anything that wasn’t musical turned me off. Chatter
back stage, dingy dressing rooms….you go in the corner of a concert hall and
what do you see? Nothing but dust and dirt. It was depressing just to even
practice in the Hall before a concert. You are alone most of the time…in the
hotel, in the Hall….you’re alone. That doesn’t mean I hate the music. I hate
everything else.
TH Do you
still listen to classical music?
JP Oh yeah.
I play it in my car all the time. I listen to my artists; I listen to artists
that I like. I listen to myself…I have a lot of archival recordings….500 or
more archival recordings. My archives are going to be taken by the University
of Tulsa’s Lorton Center. All my reviews, clippings, interviews, programs …along
with all of my recordings…live and studio…will be put in a climate controlled
room so that students…anybody worldwide…can come check them out if they want.
TH How did
you end up in Tulsa?
JP My kids
moved here with their mom when we divorced, and I followed. I wouldn’t think of
not being near my children.
TH Here’s a
small world story. I remember as a kid back in Austin, about the same time
period I was studying with you, my Dad would always take me to Sound Warehouse
to look at records. One afternoon we went there for an in-store performance by
a smoking hot classical guitarist named Liona Boyd. She was so kind..I got to meet her.
JP Oh yes, Liona
is with us. Oh man was she hot. She still is! Liona is great. We just signed
her a few months ago. Interesting fact about her…she holds the distinction of
appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at least six times. There is
no classical artist that can boast of that…nobody. She’s a very sweet person.
TH Who are
your top 3 composers?
JP Brahms is
first….by virtue of the First Piano Concerto. I would say it embodies
everything I love about this art. It’s the most complete piece for me. What
more can you say when it has everything? Second place would have to go to
Schubert, who used to occupy the first position, but no longer does. And then
third would have to be Mozart. I’d love to put Beethoven and Schumann there, but
they don’t quite make it. So Schumann fourth and Beethoven fifth. And then Bach
would have to be sixth. And beyond that would have to be Chopin, Liszt, and the
rest of the crew…Tchaikovsky…I like Tchaikovsky a lot. I don’t like
Rachmaninoff as much although people always loved the way I played it. But to
me, neo-romanticism is just not as original. But anyway...there you go. Brahms
is number one.
TH Random
question…which version of Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations do you prefer…the
1955 or 1981?
JP Probably
the early version, but you’re not talking to a Gould fan, that’s for sure.
Here’s what I think about Gould; is he putting us on? Or is that the way he
really plays? That’s what I think when I think of Gould. I just really don’t
get it. His recordings of the Well-Tempered Clavier (Bach)…I mean come on! It’s
so distorted rhythmically. He can’t be hearing the harmonies that way because
the harmonies would never dictate that kind of policy. I just don’t hear it
that way. But you know, he’s different. But I think he’s different for
different sake. I don’t think its honest playing. I really think he’s putting
us on. But, having said that, he plays the piano in an exemplary way….his
trills are like a McCulloch chainsaw. Who can play them that loud, and evenly,
and consistently for that long? (laughs). The question is, do you really care
or want to? But I don’t like his sound and or what he has to say. But he has
the most even fingers I’ve probably ever heard in my life. He had an amazing
technical prowess. But let me tell you who my favorite pianist is. Without a
doubt it’s Emil Gilels. He’s my favorite pianist. His playing is unbelievable and
he’s always been my favorite. Even with Bolet (Jorge Bolet) and Arrau (Claudio
Arrau) being my teachers…they don’t come close. He takes chances like nobody.
This guy was a maniac at the piano. Not only that, but beauty of sound,
technical perfection when it was perfect…yes he missed notes when he really
took a lot of chances…but I’d take his chances any day over Gould’s perfection.
He had an unbelievable arsenal of fingers, but he just believed in music and he
believed in pulling off musical ideas that seemed impossible. I admire that. I
think that’s what it’s all about…taking chances. In my opinion, that’s what
life is all about….taking chances.
TH Was there
a special moment in your childhood when you first connected to classical music?
JP My
first experience...you might not call it classical, but it was….I was at the
Celebrity Theater in Phoenix. The promoter in Phoenix in my day was Buster
Bonoff. Bonoff was the local impresario. He did not do a lot of classical, but
he brought Liberace one night. I was very young, and opening for Liberace was
Marni Nixon, the great soprano who sang all the songs in My Fair Lady…she was
in the Sound of Music too...in the movie. Marni is one of the greatest talents.
At Oberlin, when I went there, she gave a whole recital of 20th
century contemporary composers….off the wall contemporary composers, and her
technique is just phenomenal. She’s one of the greats. Marni Nixon was my first
inspiration and it was the antithesis of the Liberace experience. Liberace came
off stage, my father took me back because he knew Bonoff, and I got introduced. And he said “Ah, you’re a
pianist…Good Luck!” And he wrote me this stupid Liberace signature. But what
impressed me was the dichotomy of style between this humble, fabulous Marni
Nixon, and this overblown beast called Liberace. Liberace was not encouraging.
He didn’t know what kind of a talent I was. He had no idea who was coming
backstage, and I don’t think you treat people like that. I’ve made it a point
since I met Liberace and Marni Nixon that first time to always treat a fan or a
person coming backstage with dignity, with a humble thankfulness that they
showed up to hear you play. That right there is something…that they came to
hear you man! They could have done anything that night. Anything! I think that
Liberace embodies the opposite of what I’d like to be remembered as….a grateful
artist who liked the fact that people came to hear him and appreciated it. That
part of the industry I simply miss the most…the audience and the orchestras. I
loved the orchestras I played with. I may not have gotten along with the
conductors all the time, but I’ll tell you, I don’t think there’s one orchestra
I didn’t love. Because they’re the players man. They’re the ones doing the
work.
TH I’ll just
put a plug in for Kansas City if you haven’t been here in a while.
JP It’s a
fantastic orchestra, yeah. Kansas City is a fabulous town. I played a recital
at Rockhurst University very shortly after I won the Naumburg. I like Kansas
City very much. I also gave a masterclass at the conservatory once. Do you
remember Stevenson’s Apple Farm? That was my favorite restaurant. John Perry
took me there for the first time in 1972 and I went back many times until it
closed.
TH Last big
question…do you drink coffee?
JP Yeah, I
love coffee!
TH Me too, so
when you come to KC, we can get together at one of the many great coffee shops
we have here. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. It was very
enjoyable.
JP My
pleasure. I enjoyed it too.
And here is a link to Dickran Atamian's website:
Here is Mr. Atamian's recording the First Movement of Brahms" First Piano Concerto he referenced in our interview.
Here is a video of Mr. Atamian playing Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring:
Thanks for this fascinating interview. I met Mr. Atamian at around the same time - mid '70s - when I was taking music classes at UT Austin. He gave a magnificent performance of Moussorgski's Pictures at an Exhibition, that I remember to this day.
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