Just in case you haven't yet heard of Tony Ann, here's a recent video
I found out about him on Instagram. One of his videos was suggested to me and I was hooked. Actually, a lot of his compositions sound similar to each other, but I like listening to them all anyway.
Let me just say a few warnings about this venue.
1. It's super dark. I couldn't read the menu without my cell phone flashlight. (People at tables were required to order food)
2.The salted almond appetizer was *way* too salty
3. I sat near the stage, but they were making artificial fog, which I now know makes me feel ill. I had sort of thought that this concert was going to be my first crowded indoor even with no mask. I ended up putting on the mask because of the artificial fog on stage. I felt much better with the mask on.
4. The air conditioner was kind of hyperactive, which was good in terms of the artificial fog getting into the audience, but it was also pretty chilly.
5. The start time they tell you is one hour before the concert
6. The bathrooms are all gender and the men don't necessarily close the stall doors when they pee, which strikes me as rude.
A friend later told me that this venue used to be called The Village Gate.
If you sit at a table there is a required minimum order. I knew that going in, so I wasn't surprised.
Tony was booked for 2 concerts that night, and they had to leave time for seating & ordering food before the concert; and buying albums and song books and getting autographs and selfies. They allowed 3 hours for the early concert, but that really only allowed for about an hour of actual concert -- and Tony tried to chat between songs, so really there wasn't much playing. There is supposed to be a concert at the Town Hall theatre in October, so, hopefully, that will be a full show, as that is a Broadway Theatre.
Tony didn't really have too much worked out to say. People shouted questions at him. I turns out that he doesn't like personal questions. You might want to ask him professional questions, if you get a chance.
He did answer that he's from Toronto and is not married, but he never did tell us the answer to the question of what his ethnicity is. He is clearly of Asian extraction, but more than that I do not know. He is fairly tall.
He could use some joke telling training, but that might not fit in with his improv mentality.
He did tell us that he took up piano because he wanted to be a composer.
He also told us that he improvises most of the pieces that we see on Instagram. That possibly explains why they end without a formal ending. That's been one of the things that I find curious about his music. There isn't a final chord at the end or ending sequence. It just stops abruptly or fades out, for most of the pieces.
The ending sequence that we're used to is just a convention, really. There isn't a real reason why a piece can't just stop abruptly, but I'm not used to it.
He doesn't like to describe himself as particularly talented. He just thinks that he worked very hard and practiced a lot -- tho I feel that that level of focus is a kind of talent in and of itself. I personally don't have that kind of focus, to be able to master something to the point that I would be able to truly excel at it.
He said he's going to be adding more instruments to an upcoming piece. It will be interesting to hear that, tho it may obscure his extraordinary piano playing.
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