by Maria DeBlassie
Daily Lobo
Natasha Paremski said she wants to be a musician for the rest of her life.
Paremski will be playing with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra this weekend in the performance "Russian Rhapsody," featuring music from Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich.
Paremski said she started playing the piano when she was 2 years old. She was born in Russia but moved to the United States when she was 8, she said. Although she was too young for the move to really affect her, Paremski said her roots still influence her music.
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"My soul is really connected to Russian music and art," she said. "Because I left Russia, I can understand the nostalgia in the music."
When she came to America she said she stopped playing the piano for a year because her family could not afford to pay for lessons.
"After a year I realized I could not go on any longer without playing the piano," she said. "I went to my parents and told them that I'd really love to start playing again. That's when I got a piano and found a teacher."
Paremski said what got her into music was the mystery of it.
"When I started playing when I was 2, what inspired me was the sound that was coming out of the magic block thing," she said.
She said she is stimulated by everything from taking a walk in the park to visiting museums.
"I'm inspired by life," she said.
She said music relates to hidden emotions within people, but it's also inspired by everyday events.
"I feel that music is a sort of transcendental language," she said.
Her favorite composers include Rachmaninoff and Richter because of their passion for melody. She said when she views a performance that's original, it inspires her to create something equally innovative.
"Moving performances bring you closer to the piece," she said.
Paremski said her experience traveling and studying music in college have helped her musical ability to progress. Other art forms influence her music.
"Every painting is a window into the painter's soul and life," she said. "It's beautiful to see a painting that is perfect in essence and to relate it to a piece I'm working on."
Paremski said when she plays she hopes to create a world for the audience to live in for the length of her performance.
She also said she enjoys studying psychology, especially the writings of Carl Jung. Paremski said she likes Jung's idea that every composer is inspired by other-worldly forces that infiltrate his or her subconscious, and the composer channels that energy into music. She gave the example of Mozart, who would write symphonies in one sitting.
"It's different for me because I'm not creating something new," she said. "I'm simply interpreting a piece that's already been composed."
The piano is an extension of her feelings and thoughts, as well as the composer's thoughts, she said.
When it comes to practicing, Paremski said the ritual is different for every pianist.
"Its so hard to explain what happens when a person practices because it's so intimate," she said. "It's like a fingerprint."
