Visionary

The James Dick Interview

(From interview in 1996)

Festival Hill - He didn’t like the word “visionary” very much. Like the word “dream”, it sounded flighty and impermanent to him... somehow temporary...and James Dick is not at all interested in the word “temporary”.

I went to this interview as an unabashed admirer. I didn’t even pretend to be objective. This is a man who has accomplished many things that I admire and more, a man whose goals and values have served as a model for me.

When I told him all this, he dismissed it. I am not sure he was embarrassed by my adulation but I am quite sure that he considered it irrelevant. Mr. Dick is interested in what he and others can “do” with the gifts they are given, not what they say.

James Dick has “done” a few things in his life. After graduating from the University of Texas, he received two Fulbright Fellowships for study at the Royal Academy of Music in London and private study with Sir Clifford Curzon, a major pianist of this century.

He was also a top winner in the Tchaikovsky, Busoni and Leventritt international competitions and since, represented the United States on the juries of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Van Cliburn Piano Competition in Fort Worth.

His concert tours take him throughout the United States and abroad each year. He was named Chevalier des Arts et Lettres of France by the French Ministry of Culture in 1994.

He and a brilliant team he has formed have created one of the most beautiful music and cultural centers in the United States and perhaps the world, the International Festival-Institute at Round Top.

Around here...everybody just calls him “Jimmy.”

“We were dirt poor. We didn’t think so. We didn’t realize that we were just ‘poor’ but we were. Daddy...got paid every two weeks and when I was in high school it was just dollars...twenty, thirty-two- fifty...just dollars...and yet somehow we didn’t consider ourselves poor. We still had enough money to pay $3.50 for my piano lessons. I didn’t get scholarships from my teachers.

Mama had a little farm and once a year we’d get some wheat but that’s not very much...and that was it. However, I always worked. We grew vegetables and I would sell vegetables from house to house. We would go to the city and I would have them in baskets, all lined up and sorted out. The radishes were in different groups...fifteen cents or twelve cents or whatever for two batches...green peppers and all kinds of things.

So I always worked and I always saved my money. Then after we came to town, I would still sell things door to door. I sold...there was a time when these horrible, luminous things were very popular that you put on light fixtures, and pulls on curtains and house numbers that lit up at night. I sold those from door to door. I sold something called “Real Silk Socks” for men and women from door to door...and I always saved my money.

Then, when I got into junior high I got a job sacking groceries which I loved doing and I was very good at it. I worked from 8 in the morning until 10 at night...I just loved sacking groceries. That’s when you really had to sack groceries well.

I usually don’t let anybody sack them when I go...of course they just throw them in those plastic bags...but I always have paper.

So I always had a job, ever since I was three years old. It wasn’t an exploitive job either. I worked very hard for very little...that’s why I get concerned around here. (laughter) I’m a conservative Kansan.

God, it must be horrible to work for you. (more laughter )

Yes of course but that’s why all this is done.

When you live in the shadow of Festival Hill, you hear a lot of stories about how it all began. Tell me what you were looking for when you first came here and what you found.

After having been in Europe and having studied there, which was a profoundly important part of my life coming from a small farm...I saw how important they made their rural areas.

That was before preservation had really caught on in this part of the country.

That intrigued me and fascinated me and inspired me when I was there. Also, I was able to attend many of the festivals that were going on in Europe when I was there.

That was the seed that was planted. So I came back and began my career. To me, although performance is an important aspect of one’s work, I also felt it could be wider. So I always had the idea not so much of teaching but of using that career as a service beyond just itself.

I went into hundreds and hundreds...of public schools doing concerts free. If I was in that city or nearby, we would write and say ‘Mr. Dick would be happy to come out and do something in the school if you could arrange it.’

I had felt the benefits of that in my own little home town in Kansas when anyone came and visited our city and listened to me play or came to our school. That was an important matter to me. It widened my whole mind and my whole vocabulary of experience.

A dictionary is a very important matter...I love dictionaries...but we all need larger dictionaries than those that are visible in our libraries and our homes. I think we need large dictionaries for the imagination too...and lexicons for the marvels that have gone before us.

That’s one of the greatest uses for the past...to know as much as we can about the past...to know what we can hope for the future.

Consequently, I felt that was something I could do too...and I could do it. It took a lot of energy sometimes but that is part of what a person has, I think. We have energy so we might as well spend it somehow...maybe beyond ourselves. So I wanted to see to that.

Then the idea of teaching (in a school) was not something that captivated me...but on the other hand, teaching is a big part of ...service it seems to me.

All those things were the stew mixing here after I came back from studying in Europe.

That was the road that led to this place. It was not an easy road because it was very, very difficult to get some help to start this place.

Tell me about those early days, the hard times.

I don’t think there is anything worthwhile unless there is struggle involved. I have to struggle with every work I study and perform. People think if you are talented and you love what you do...which I do...that it’s not a struggle.

It is a struggle if you have any kind of self criticism...or if you have any desire to rise...it’s a struggle but it’s not “hard times” as such. My interpretation of “hard times” is that there is almost no way of changing those “hard times.”

It would have been a “hard time” if energy and will and work had not been there, not just on my part but many others as well who helped from the very beginning....and were of the mind that this had to be its own entity.

If you’ve got a brain and a thought about it...and compassion about it...then you’ve got a reason to exist.

I didn’t want to have a project that was without distinction whatever it was. It has to have distinction or else why do it?

Otherwise...it doesn’t use you...

I don’t think so...or anyone else. It doesn’t demand enough of people.

The Round Top/Carmine graduations are held in the Concert Hall. Many local people work at the Institute. You have gone out of your way to include this community in what you are doing. What are your favorite things about living and working in Round Top?

This is a cultural arts center. It’s not just a place with one point of interest...what I like about this place is you can be as provincial as you want to be, which is very important, and at the same time see...very internationally and very world class...and that’s how we all see it.

I think the main thing is that words like philosophy, words like ideals, words like distinction are words that are basic to everybody’s life...not something high falutin’...but basic. That’s what makes the real joy of things. That’s the most perfect joy, the most perfect freedom. It’s comes when you struggle or search or try to find those matters.

When you perform, it seems effortless. However, I know that it must have taken years of disciplined work to reach that level of performance. Can you tell me about your rehearsal schedule?

I am still discovering every day. I sometimes almost fall off the bench with things I have never seen before. I also think how wonderful that is.

When I was in school, I was involved in many things but practice always came first. We’d get up early, about six, and practice before school.

Now, my time is still the same. I have other things I have to do but I try to make sure that my mornings are free...I get up early still. If I’m practicing by eight then I usually work until noon or so. Then, I do some things in the afternoon...then get in another hour and a half before supper and then...quite often in the evening, I am practicing some more.

It’s my work. It’s not practicing. It’s not rehearsing. It’s my work. It’s my workbench. It’s where I function.

When did you first know that you could be a “world class” pianist?

I don’t know if I’ve ever really thought about that...It’s an evolving matter. You have to know what your talent is. What bothers me and what I struggle with is what I’m able to accomplish within that. I am a very severe critic of myself so...I’m still trying to get to that point. I wouldn’t say that that’s where I am.

Most likely a few others would disagree with you.

Perhaps. You see, I think that if you don’t believe your good critics that you shouldn’t believe your bad critics either. (laughter) I don’t believe either one which I think is wise.

What events were milestones in your development?

There would be no development if your parents weren’t interested. I had two parents who were. Without that, there would have been no direction. I have to go back to my bringing up in an atmosphere that was very simple and direct. I think that has given me a tremendous capacity. That is very important...approaching things with a certain simplicity.

I want to talk a little about the experience of performance. In an earlier interview, Dr. James B. Ayres, the creator of Shakespeare at Winedale, was talking about an epiphany his students searched for in their performance. He used you as an example and I quote...

I’ve seen you “magnify” a composition...make it greater than I had heard it before. If this is true for you, tell me about the experience.

What I do in my work is...the score is the source. That’s what a recreative artist is. I’m not inventing that score. I’m not creating that score. That is the entity we have to come from. It is, obviously, two dimensional. It’s there, flat on a page. I, as an interpreter, have to find out what it is saying to me... but that “me” is a very difficult situation. I wouldn’t want the “me” to say “I’m bigger now than that score.” My greatest work is to try as be as honest toward that score as I can be.

That’s...the difference in honesty today. Honesty has many, many levels and I think striving for a greater honesty is what a lot of this is about. In any artistic endeavor...we have to be inspired...but when you are working with something... with scores that are, I believe, ageless, you don’t have to worry about the inspiration. It’s there.

What one has to be concerned about is how is it inspiring you. You do have to have a lot of things inside yourself to work with. From that standpoint...I’m glad if it enlightens people as they listen because that’s what I’m hoping for. I want it to become enlightened but I don’t want it to be a “me”...

You want to disappear grandly?

No, I don’t want to disappear either. No that’s another contradiction for a recreative artist. You can’t go out there and perform if you don’t have backbone or you don’t know what you are doing...

What you are hoping for is that you can make a conception realized and able to be understood somehow so that it becomes something to somebody whether they know about music or not. Maybe that’s what happens. I don’t know. In a way, it’s a confoundment. It has to exist but I don’t know if there is an answer to it. The answers are hard and fleeting in a way. You can’t just put your thumb on it.

If you see on a score an indication that says “allegro” meaning “fast”...well, what is fast? When we see something marked “loud” or “very soft”, pianissimo...what is that? You’re right. It’s all relative. Some people have a greater capacity for interpretation than others. That’s what makes people do one thing and not another.

In your conversation...you speak a lot to inherent contradictions. In particular, I have noticed it when you speak about yourself as a performer and as an interpreter. You spoke about being quite critical of yourself. I can hear that...almost as though it is a rather relentless aspect of you...In arenas where it is quite clear that you are extraordinarily accomplished... where there is no question about your abilities...I talk to you and there is this diminishment.

I don’t mean to diminish it. You have to realize who you are. You have to realize what you have. No one is so humble that you just become protoplasm.

It seems like it is a function of a creative...interested, involved person to be critical of themselves. Yes, you’ve got to realize...how blessed we are to have eyes and arms and ears and a brain of some sort. How blessed we are! So what do we do with that?

I just think that so many people don’t acknowledge what they’ve got and therefore they’re willing to cut off their eyes and arms or their brain or whatever.

Now that’s arrogance...when they cut off their own abilities because they are not truly appreciating what they’ve got.

On the other side. that’s where I think true humility really begins. When your realize what you’ve got and yet your purposes and what you strive for is up there. When you see that light in others as well as yourself, then you really begin to do something.

Okay, I’ll accept that. (laughter)

Life is...not all rational. We can’t find everything and I think that’s good.

In your work as an interpreter, do you somehow have the experience of meeting the intentions of the composer?

One hopes. Now with...ageless works, the intentions of the composers are equally so. Writers, artists...it’s not just one thing they have in mind.

You know Beethoven was a very...he was a most human, human. He...wrote as he could do and it happened to be a very enlightened mind there. So you would say that you are seeking the intentions of the composer instead of your own stylistic interpretations?

Well yes. I don’t know what my own stylistic interpretation is. I would say yes to that question, not knowing what the other is.

Have you accomplished all of your goals as a musician? If not, what remains?

I have a great abiding interest in adding music to the repertoire.

It is so interesting to me when people come here and they see old houses and old furniture and then they’ll see something new and...that’s nothing. But as I have pointed out so many times, everything was new once. Did we give enough attention to it?

It’s something in human nature...that says it is more venerable if it is old. When I see these three or four hundred year old live oak trees, I think they’re venerable too. I think it’s a great expression of preservation that somebody hasn’t cut that tree down...but was that tree ever a seed? Of course it was.

So anything that makes anything begin and continue to live has to be created constantly. It’s kind of a discreation and a creation going on all the time. Things wear out and have to be replaced by new things or else things serve their purpose and inspire something else. People live and die. It’s the constant revitalization of this word we call life...so I think there needs to be new music as well. I am very concerned with new music.

You have gathered together a group of brilliant people...

Yes I have... I admit that...that’s what I want.

...I am interested in what it is like working with a team of people of that quality...what it’s like and how you feel about it.

I think it’s a very necessary matter. I think that purposes bring people. No one is coerced to come here or to stay...so I think it speaks for itself.

That this attracted those people says something powerful about those people.

Yes it does.

What plans are in the making for the immediate future of the Festival-Institute campus?

I want to finish some things. I want the hall to be finished. We have worked and worked and worked on that hall and we’ve been very patient about doing it and are still patient about doing it but it needs to be finished and we need some help. People need to help us.

We can’t raise funds by charging eight dollars for concerts. When we first started charging for concerts, it was a fish bowl. We asked people to contribute...very few people did. So that didn’t work. Then we started charging two dollars and somebody came up to me and said they’d never come back because we were charging. You have to put up with the most unbelievable things...so you do. (laughter)

I just believe in the project and I know our collective hearts are right. I do want to see the hall finished and it should be finished.

I am interested in the process of visionary creation. I came to Round Top in the throws of a more modest vision but because I believed in that dream, many things that seemed impossible for me have come true. Many people who come here describe their experiences as “Round Top Magic.” It’s actually a common conversation.

It seems to me that you, more than anyone else, embody this phenomenon. You came here with a brilliant vision and it has come true...is still coming true. This ability to “dream into reality”, if you will, is a powerful force. Tell me how this force lives for you.

I feel them (dreams) as ideals. Contemplation is certainly important to one’s ability to function too. I think sometimes we don’t set ideals for ourselves or our work...and if we do, we don’t have the patience to think or to contemplate in order to move ahead. Therefore sometimes things don’t get accomplished.

We all have the same problems of being human. Sometimes we are active and sometimes...we are too lazy.

I think even as a boy, I always had an imagination inside myself which could be called dreaming.

This place has always come out of your dreams. If you step out of the Clayton house ten years from now and walk across the campus, what will you see?

I hope I see a finished concert hall! (laughter) I’m very focused.

What else then?

Right at this point, that’s all I want to see. I want to see the trees continue to grow and I want to see more and more people come to appreciate the place...more students coming to attend.

I’d like the schools in the area be more interested in the arts. We’re always talking about the founding fathers but we’re not talking about founding ideas for ourselves. I’d like to see that happen because I know how important it is. Everybody’s bemoaning the facts about civilization...and so on...the arts have never laid waste on anybody.

When those ideals are put forth when you are young...they do point you somehow. It doesn’t mean that because someone’s in music that they have to become a musician for their life. I loved biology. I didn’t become a biologist. I love math! I was crazy about geometry. I didn’t go into math.

All these things are just part of our lives. If we have any trouble, it is because we are so narrow...not expansive...and the arts do give an expansion in one’s feelings, in one’s imagination...and that is where too often, we say no...

...and to some people, it is critical to their existence... a child who doesn’t have the experience when in fact, it is where his heart truly is... is robbed of much of his life...

...and what is education about? Is it to rob us? It shouldn’t be. It should be to expand us and to make us flourish. The arts are truly important. So I hope this project ten years from now will serve as an example.

Whether it will serve for people right now... for the kids right now or their kids maybe...it will have a great impact. As I have said, I think it’s a twenty-first century project.

What values drive your vision?

The best value is one that rises...

...as in growth?

It’s not just growth. It’s...to show a rising in...you see this is where it becomes so important that one is able to express oneself. I can’t in words sometimes. I can do it in my feelings and I think in my music but I can’t always with words...

It’s where your hopes are able to take some flight and for others somehow to sense that. The way that serves others...are those words I am trying to find. I don’t know. Something that you feel and others feel that is precious. When you have an ideal and it is precious...then that is the greatest value you can have.

The Festival-Institute is a beautiful place and that beauty is valuable to people who visit. The students who attend are polished and their skills are refined. That has value. The music that is performed here is miraclous. It has enhanced the lives of thousands. That, of course, has value. The Institute is also a museum. Many fine things are saved for posterity. That is valuable...but behind it all, there is another lesson that, at least for me, is more valuable than all the rest.

It is the possibility that one man with a dream and a willingness to work, can change the world in a powerful way.

Festival Hill serves as a model for people who, though they may not have the talent of a James Dick, can still see increased possibility in their lives because of what you have done. Is this a responsibility or a burden?

I take that as though you mean it.

First...it’s not a burden. My responsibility is to fulfill, while I’m able and here, every way that I can to make this (the Festival-Institute) of distinction and importance...and to enable it to be. It’s more a commitment than a responsibility. That’s the highest responsibility perhaps.

There are no if’s, and’s or maybe’s. It’s a commitment!

I must say, that it is of great importance to me to be at the founding...but certainly you realize that single handedly I can’t build all these buildings. I can’t teach all the students. I can’t play all the concerts.

I have a very rational approach to things. At the same time, I am blessed to have a mind that...soars...both of these things together. It makes...sometimes... difficulties inside myself but it’s part of that struggle we all have to have.

When you are gone, what will people say about you?

We are never going to have any capacity to arbitrate that so why be interested.?

This is the last question and perhaps the most significant to my readers...When you are rehearsing for a concert, and no one is around...do you ever play chopsticks?
No.

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