Noted pianist Leon Fleisher wants you to vote No on 8, and he's an unlikely activist. At eighty-years-old the celebrated pianist could spare himself the trouble of political engagement. Yet, and it is a testament to both the worthiness of the cause and to his generosity, he will be doing a fundraiser for No on 8, playing trios with Alisa Weilerstein (cello) and Cho-Liang (Jimmy) Lin (violin). Those guys rule, so go if you can! The event will take place on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 8:00 PM.

Political agendas aside, Leon Fleisher will tickle the keys, performing the Emperor concerto with the SF Symphony, and give a Master Class you can attend at the SF Conservatory.

A San Francisco native, Fleisher became a star of the piano only to discover that he lost movement in two of the fingers of his right hand. Splat. There goes the virtuoso career, right? But Fleisher never gave up. He started to teach, conduct, and even play whatever repertoire he could lay his crippled hand on. Until a miracle of science brought back the full range of motion thirty-some years later, he could resume his career.

So we asked Fleisher, how did he end up in the No on 8 advocacy? He explained: my daughter lives in SF with her partner and their son. They told me about this referendum number 8, and I asked how I could help. And I offered my services. Leon has nice fund raising skills, we admit: he organized a concert in Baltimore, where he lives now, earlier this year. I called two of my colleagues, Itzahk Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma, and asked them to join me in a trio performance to raise money for Obama. We raised over a million dollars. Not bad. For the No on 8 concert, I was thinking in terms of a trio, but both Itzahk and Yo-Yo were busy at this time, so I got a hold of two other friends of mine, and asked them if they would they join me in this manifestation. And it was instant response, no hesitation. It's the night of the 21st: we call it 88 against 8.

Why 88? That's the number of keys on the piano. Duh. But what about Alisa and Jimmy's strings? Actually, the total of their strings is equal 8 also. So it should be 88+8.

I come to [political involvement as an artist] rather late in life. There are many artists who have taken powerful and active positions on social issues. If I feel that I'm any position to have any influence, I have an obligation to do it.

We had to ask about his medical condition, which prevented him from playing for over 30 years, and how he stayed in performing shape: Well, I was unable to play with my right hand. I had a medical condition called focal distonia. But I played with my left hand. There's a sizable repertoire for left hand, and I played that. So I had physical activity for the left hand. Also, I tested my right hand every day during those 35 years. I think I was hoping and wishing that the way it mysteriously appeared, it would as mysteriously disappear. When they found this modality for suppressing some of the symptoms of distonia, I was ready to play with my right hand as if I had never stopped.

Our previous mention of Fleisher here at SFist came in an interview with Inon Barnatan. In a master class the young pianist took with Leon, he was asked to play notes to sound like 10-billion-year-old stars. Leon denies: I have no recollection of telling him that! But it was written by Alex Ross, New-Yorker classical music critic and genius! I think I can understand why I said that. You know, great music is so far beyond the subjective, beyond the personal, even beyond the objective, it goes out into the cosmos and it becomes the universal. And that gives you a different point of view, it's not what you feel about the music, it's not what you put onto or into the music like maquillage, it's really extracting from the music which is like the cosmos the meaningfulness. And that gives you a different kind of approach. That's what I was going for.

So there's a selflessness of the performer? Oh, absolutely. The performer is in a special and unique position. Because in this, what you might call, triadic relationship between the composer, the performer and the listener: it's 3-way triangle. And the performer is not the star of this triangle. Although, in the commercial sense, the people in the music business and the industry try to make the performer the star. The Music is the star, the performer is the vessel, the channel for the music. Even though the performer is indispensable, because until the performer comes along, the music just remains dots on the piece of paper, until the performer comes along and brings the music to life. But he is a channel, a vessel, between the composer, the creator, and the audience. Does it make sense?

But so many performers insist on imparting the individuality... there Leon interrupted us: It's impossible *not to* impart your own individuality! Because it comes through you as though you are a prism, and each person is absolutely unique and individual, so you can't help that there be some personal residues so to speak. But it's your vision of what the music is about that has to matter.

The program got switched from a Mozart piece to Beethoven's Emperor piano concerto. Why? I thought that I was a little younger than I am! When I was young, I would play a different concerto every week. But I'm in NY now, and I'm playing the Emperor concerto with the Westchester Symphony conducted by Itzahk Perlman. So to limit all the different pieces juggling in the air, he asked to play the same here. Either one, it's fine with us!

We could never tell from our lively phone chat, nor from his playing, that he's eighty. So we asked him how he does it. Yeah, there's something wrong there, he jokes. And the secret ingredient is...nothing! There's no secret. I'm very very lucky. There's somebody playing today, his name is Earl Wild, he's 93, he plays fifty times better than I do, he's extraordinary. Music brings out a certain philosophical awareness that goes into the spiritual. And that is as interesting to me as the physical and the technical. As long as I can make music that is satisfying and up to the standards that I've developed over many decades, I won't stop. I love playing very much.

OK, he did show his age. Once, he recalled living in San Francisco. He moved away when he was almost ten in 1938, but he remembers: one of my early teachers lived across the bay, we had to take the ferry, it was a great adventure, an extraordinary adventure, I loved it. You mean, the Bay Bridge wasn't always there? And when he asks about SFist, he's surprised: You're only on computers? Wow, that's very impressive. I don't think I'll get to see what you write. Not that he needs to, we only wrote what he said!