Music Professor Sally Pinkas, the Hopkins Center's pianist-in-residence, has been bridging the academic and performance aspects of piano at the College since 1985.
Her job has two components -- teaching piano to her 12 students and preparing for a variety of solo, concerto and chamber music performances.
The two facets of her job have become symbiotic.
"My students get to see me practice what I preach when I perform," Pinkas said.
Pinkas fosters strong, personal relationships with each of her students and said she tries to get to know them one-on-one.
"My students are exerting intellectual, physical and emotional work," she said. "In return, I exert a lot of motivational work in getting my students out of the practice room and into performances," Pinkas said.
Pinkas hails from Israel but received all of her higher education in the United States.
She has a B.A. from Brandeis University, went on to get her Masters from Indiana and received an artist's diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music.
Pinkas said the College's faculty and resources have provided a favorable environment under which she can thrive.
"The music staff is a wonderfully eclectic bunch of people. We are all artists so we are very opinionated but we all know each other very well," Pinkas said.
She also said Spaulding Auditorium is a fabulous performance hall and expressed pleasure at the audiences who attend the concerts there.
"My best performances occur when I'm telling a story on the piano and acting out events," she said. "Then I can control my body and bring out the sounds I want."
Pinkas said the College has been able to provide her with positive experiences on-stage.
"I appreciate an audience that listens," Pinkas said. "What I like here is that I kind of know my audience. A sense of continuum exists that only our artists-in-residence have."
Her passion for music that has brought her thus far began at an early age. Pinkas candidly remembered falling in love with the piano as a young child.
Pinkas recalled when she was five asking her mother for a toothbrush and a piano.
"My kindergarten teacher played a Beethoven piece and I was very drawn to it," she said.
During the interview, Pinkas quickly sat down to her grand piano and played a bit of the piece with ebullience to demonstrate the intrigue it might offer a child.
Pinkas debuted professionally in London in 1983 and has performed widely in the United States, Europe and Israel, according to a Hopkins Center press release.
She has recorded works by Debussy, Schulhoff and Stravinsky and the Centaur and Northeastern labels.
The American Record Guide described her performance in a recently-released CD of music by colleague Music Professor Christian Wolff as "... adroit, sensitive, imaginative, eloquent renderings, alive to every implied nuance ..."
"I don't really have any major influences," Pinkas said. "I work on trying to find my own voice rather than concentrate on the influences of others."
Pinkas met her husband, Evan Hirsch, at the Conservatory when they studied under the same professor. He is also a classical pianist and currently teaches at Brandeis.
"We've never starved because he's a good cook," Pinkas said.
Hirsch will take his wife's place on the faculty this Spring term while she is on the Music Foreign Study Program in London. Pinkas has arranged a concert in Rome while on the FSP.
She said the two of them have common philosophies and that she is looking forward to allowing her students interaction with a male instructor with whom they are familiar.
"Many of my male students will benefit from him this spring," Pinkas said.
The two joined to form the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo and debuted on Valentine's Day four years ago. Since then, they have performed in Texas, Missouri, New Jersey and various sites in New England.
The husband-wife team held a debut concert in Abrutzo, Italy last summer. She said they plan to play in Israel and begin recording their music.
"It takes an enormous amount of time before you can consider yourself a duo," Pinkas said. "It has been a wonderful experience for us."
The Hirsch-Pinkas Duo will be performing a Valentine's Eve concert in Spaulding Auditorium tonight at 8:00 p.m.
Bela Bartok's "Sonnato For Two Pianists and Percussion," Milhaud's "La creation du monde" and the United States premiere of Music Professor Jon Appleton's "Turkina Suite" will be performed, along with a surprise piece for Valentine's Day.
"The Sonnato takes a little but more organization," Pinkas said. "I wanted to do it right and I wanted to do it with Evan."
