as guest
Will we look back on the pandemic as the great age of YouTube? Of all the online platforms, YouTube has delivered me the most value. The promise of the internet was that it would connect us with our peeps, with those of like mind. Whereas Facebook re-connected us with our high school crowd, YouTube puts us in touch with our current deep interests, and not just once or twice, but the algorithms deliver steady content that is tailored for us.
For me, this has included a channel devoted to classical piano called Tonebase. Ben Laude is the host of the channel, and after watching his great shows for three years now, I’m thrilled to engage with him in conversation on some of my favorite topics, the piano and pianists. An accomplished concert pianist himself, Ben’s interviews with today’s greatest pianists are as entertaining as they are informative.
“Music education is very private. We practice by ourselves,” says Ben. "Compare it to youth sports where we see everyone else doing it. When you turn on the TV, everyone’s talking about the same game. You see great athletes at the highest level. A kid is going to want to play more piano if they see that others are playing. They can now turn on YouTube and watch people who are really good at this, and they can enjoy it. There is so much potential for cultivating a culture of participation in piano."
Ben Laude on Interviewing Today’s Great Pianists
November 9, 2023
Five O’Clock with Theral Timpson
Inside tonebase.co with Ben Laude
June 19, 2023
Between the Keys with Jed Distler
That's precisely what this week's episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys is about. Host Jed Distler invites fellow pianist Ben Laude to join him in evaluating how interpretations evolve over time, featuring recordings by Carlo Grante, Angela Hewitt, Jorge Bolet, Maurizio Pollini, Stephen Kovacevich, Ruth Slenczynska, Sergei Rachmaninov, Rudolf Firkusny and Juana Zayas.
Inside tonebase.co with Ben Laude
December 20, 2021
Between the Keys with Jed Distler
On this week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed DIstler welcomes pianist and educator Ben Laude, head of piano at tonebase.co.
Many pianists record the same works on more than one occasion, which naturally presents the opportunity to compare their interpretations.
That's precisely what this week's episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys is about. Host Jed Distler invites fellow pianist Ben Laude to join him in evaluating how interpretations evolve over time, featuring recordings by Carlo Grante, Angela Hewitt, Jorge Bolet, Maurizio Pollini, Stephen Kovacevich, Ruth Slenczynska, Sergei Rachmaninov, Rudolf Firkusny and Juana Zayas.
Mr. Laude presents interview and instruction audio clips with Leon Fleisher, Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson, Claire Huangci and Andrew Tyson. Also featured will be a performance of Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat Op. 55 No. 2 performed exclusively for tonebase.co by Emanuel Ax, who is a former Between the Keys guest.
For our final episode of Season 1, TPP interviewed Ben Laude, Juilliard-trained pianist and Head of Piano at tonebase.co, a premium video subscription platform for classical music education. Tonebase revolutionizes music education by providing its users with a vast database of lessons, masterclasses, and interviews with some of the biggest names in performance and pedagogy - previously only accessible at elite institutions. We picked Ben's brain on the subject of this great new platform for content distribution.
The Piano Pod - Season 1 Finale
Guest: Ben Laude
June 30, 2021
Variations 10, 11, 12. Theme: idols. It's impossible to tell the story of the Goldberg Variations without mentioning Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Gould's two recordings of the variations, one in 1955, the other in 1981, forever changed the place of the Goldbergs in our culture. In this episode, we explore Gould's legacy -- and the idea of musical idols -- through the eyes of Ben Laude, a concert pianist and pedagogue who relied on Gould in a period of musical crisis.
30Bach Podcast - Episode 6
Ben Laude: “I got obsessed with how he was playing it.”
March 21, 2021
Using Perfectionism for Good (ft. Ben Laude)
September 29, 2020
Good Timing with Isabel Hagen - Episode 19
I talk with pianist and Juilliard friend Ben Laude. We discuss Ben's involvement with the Occupy Wall Street movement, founding Juilliard's student newspaper "The Yard," never being satisfied as an artist, necessary perfectionism, stepping outside ourselves as artists to be better people, the ego and the humility it takes to perform well, how art can be a spiritual pursuit, Ben helping me start stand-up, not being in a hurry, the visceral need to play our instruments, and more.
The topcast with Tim Topham: Episode 194
Hone Piano Technique at Tonebase: the Masterclass.com for Music Teachers– with Ben Laude
June 12, 2020
September 27, October 4, & October 11, 2017
The Piano Matters explores the artistry of Glenn Gould, who passed away 35 years ago and would have been 85 this year, in a series of programs celebrating his performances of Bach - including his lauded recordings of the Goldberg Variations - as well as music by other composers. Host David Dubal welcomes fellow pianist, scholar and writer Benjamin Laude, who received his Masters and Doctorate from Juilliard, as his special guest they discuss Gould's style and survey various recordings.
The first episode (9/27) will highlight the music of Bach, including preludes and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, and will also present excerpts of interviews with Gould himself. The Goldberg Variations will be the featured work of the second installment (10/4), and then a final program will sample some of Gould's recordings of works by Mozart, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Brahms and more.