It's mixed nuts, you might say -- or just plain nuts -- this wild melding of any and every kind of music from Bach to the Beatles to Cole Porter to Leonard Bernstein to Billy Joel to Oscar Peterson to . . . .
How long should we go on here? How about Beethoven and Andrew Lloyd Webber? Tchaikovsky and Richard Rodgers?Many are the would-be musical visionaries who have tried such cross-fertilization and wound up with nothing but mush. But, somewhat amazingly, in the mind and hands of pianist-conductor-composer Peter Nero, this musical holistic approach somehow comes together with an ineffable, synergistic grace.
"I never thought this esoteric approach would work for audiences," he told the Deseret News from his Philadelphia office. "In my wildest dreams, I did not think this would be viable."
It's more than viable, judging from Nero's popularity with audiences around the nation, including Utah. He has been in Salt Lake City before, conducting and playing with the Utah Symphony -- and he will be again next weekend.
On the surface, the Salt Lake program, which Nero is keeping intentionally loose, is simply a hodge-podge of music related to the above artists and others -- most notably Frank Sinatra, to whom Nero will pay tribute in the concert's second half.
But the man has a knack for making it all fit together -- and making it accessible.
The 64-year-old Brooklyn native started, like so many others with dreams of ovations from the wine-and-cheese crowd, with straight classical piano training.
Then, in the 1950s, with Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis reinventing American jazz, Nero heard Art Tatum play.
The pianist Tatum, not well-known among the general public, was revered in jazz circles as a visionary. He had incredible technique, more than sufficient for a classical concert pianist, but he also blended in harum-scarum improvisations that combined the genres and stood them on their heads.
His utterly unique rendition of Dvorak's "Humoresque" was, to Nero, unforgettable.
"I sat down and cried, it was so good," he recalls.
The exposure to this free-wheeling music was a revelation. In the privacy of his room, Nero would experiment with different styles and genres, combining, separating, creating. And in 1960, when RCA Victor had a contest for a pop pianist to put under contract, Nero went for it -- basically on a whim. "I went into the studio and did what I did at home, and they gave me a three-year contract."
His first album -- the first of many -- was "Piano-forte."
From there, Nero became the 20-years-running-and-no-sign-of-stopping-any-time-soon music director of the Philly Pops, pops director of the Florida Philharmonic (seven years) and a prolific performer (150-plus concerts yearly).
And he performs in some of the most prestigious venues in the world: Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall. He also arranged the hummable music to the movie "Rocky," has appeared numerous times on television and has won a fistful of awards.
Nero's peculiar predilections can generate unusual consequences, however. On one series of concerts with the Philly Pops, he had venerable jazz pianist George Shearing as a guest performer. Shearing and Nero played toe-to-toe for 15 minutes each night, calling out the tunes, playing and improvising on the spot.
After a few nights, a violinist in the orchestra came up to Nero and complimented him on having spent so much time (the violinist assumed) laboriously working out all those arrangements ahead of time!
Purists, never fear -- he will be working out plenty of stuff ahead of this weekend's concerts. But rest assured he'll also leave plenty of room for spontaneity and plain old fun.
Concerts start at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Abravanel Hall. Tickets are priced from $18 to $35 and can be purchased by calling ArtTix at 355-ARTS or at the box offices at Abravanel Hall or the Capitol Theatre.