Kendall Ross Bean: Chopin Polonaise in A Flat

The Kendall Ross Bean - Chopin Polonaise in A Flat[1][1] was one of the first classical music videos to be broadcast in the United States and Canada on 24 July 1986.[2][3][4]

It was broadcast during the 1980s when the concept of the music video was being defined by record label's promotion and advertising departments, producers, directors and the TV channels who broadcast these short films. Music videos before 1986, featured primarily rock and pop musicians. When the Kendall Ross Bean Chopin: Polonaise in A flat classical music video was broadcast on the Arts and Entertainment Network, it was not as fancy or as expensively produced as the major recording label's rock and pop videos. But, it served the same function of promoting a classical pianist, as the rock music videos served in promoting rock artists. It captured the interest of newscasters, Arts and Entertainment Network and the ACE Awards because of its novelty, and the camera shots revealing the usually hidden innards of the piano in performance.

Live piano music for silent films sets the stage

In the days of silent film, a pianist, would play live music for theatre audiences to accompany the film for each showing. Music was considered important in interpreting emotions, pacing and meaning of the film.[5]

Kendall Ross Bean's grandmother, Knell Bean, was one of the many pianists across the country who played live piano for the silent movies. At the age of 4, Kendall was introduced to the piano and taught by his grandmother, who was his first piano teacher.[6]

Early music performances on TV in the 1940s and 1950s

In the 1940s, musicians and filmmakers created movie shorts known as Soundies. These films featured jazz or pop performers singing popular tunes in a studio or nightclub setting.[7]

NBC had telecast a Metropolitan Opera presentation of Pagliacci on 10 March 1940, and all three major networks, NBC, ABC and CBS featured classical music and opera on a semi-regular basis.[8]

Tony Terran played the trumpet in the first filmed television sitcom I Love Lucy and he was a trumpet player in the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, one of the first Rhythm and Blues combo bands on TV to use horns in the 1950s.

Through the 1970s live performance broadcasts of both classical, jazz, rock and pop music broadcasts of live performances continued to evolve. But, they did not develop into the art form we know today as the music video until the 1980s.

The Emergence of the Music Video in the 1980s

Although music has been important to film and television from its inception, the music video of the 1980s placed the performer and the highly edited visuals in the spotlight with the definition of the music video as its own art form.

Music videos began as promotional films created by a music label's publicity department or an artist's management team. They showcased the artist performing an upcoming single from an unreleased album or a live performance of a current hit and involved camera editing techniques that were more elaborate than a typical live performance recording.

MTV was one of the first TV channels to broadcast a wide variety of rock and pop videos in the early 1980s. "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, was the first music video broadcast by MTV. During the 1980s and 1990s, rock and pop music videos broadcast on television were being defined by MTV.[9][10][8][11]

Rock and pop music videos and were often featured on

Bean Classical Music Video Description

The video is 6 minutes and 55 seconds long. It was a created in a partnership arranged by producer Karen Earle Lile[14] between Polara, and Independent Record label, and Tele-Communications Inc. doing business as Televents of Contra Costa in Lafayette, CA.[15]

It was created in the Original Local Programming Studio of Televents in Lafayette, California. The video was created with two cameras and cut and dissolve edits. Lile had the piano action removed and a glass box built around it so that the camera could film the hammers and action mechanism working. Kendall Ross Bean, a master piano rebuilder, rebuilt the Vintage Mason and Hamlin piano featured in the video and designed the glass box that the action was put in for the filming.[12][2]

The music video features a piano performance of Frédéric Chopin's A flat Polonaise. The sound used for the video was from a LP record album recorded by Kendall Ross Bean a couple of years before.

The ACE Award Nomination

Karen Earle Lile was nominated as producer for The Kendall Ross Bean: Chopin Polonaise in A Flat Classical Music Video for an ACE Award for Outstanding Programming Achievement[16][17] at a ceremony on May 18, 1987 by the National Academy of Cable Programing in the Ninth Annual System Awards for Cable Excellence in the category of Music Single.[18]

Home Box Office led with 112 nominations for the ACE Award, or Award for Cable Excellence. Showtime got 48, Arts & Entertainment 33, and the Disney Channel and Cable News Network 10 each. 30 categories of the 174 ACE Awards were presented on a live broadcast on HBO on January 24, 1988. The other categories, which included the Outstanding Programming Achievement Award were presented at a non-televised awards events in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The ACE awards were established after cable programs and performers were excluded from the Emmy Awards. The National Academy of Cable Programming[19] was established in March 1985 to promote excellence in cable television programming.

Credits

The credits are as follows:[23]

• Performance by: Kendall Ross Bean
• Produced by: Karen Earle Lile
• Directed by: Charles P. Shepler
• Assistant Director: Lindsay Christensen
• Edit Director: Karen E. Lile
• Video Tape Production: Robb Barry, Lindsay Christensen, Charles P. Shepler
• Musical Director: Kendall Ross Bean
• Audio Recording Engineer: Robert Schumaker
• Video Production Assistant: Lisa D. Allen
• Poster Artist: Charlie Gutierrez
• Special Thanks to: Piano Finders
• Audio Track from: Kendall Ross Bean Chopin-Granados Album. 1984 © Polara Records
• A Televents Community Network Video Production: 1985 © Polara / Televents