Kendall Ross Bean Chopin Polonaise in A flat
Classical Music Video 1st Broadcast on Arts and Entertainment Network on July 24, 1986
Classical Music Video - Chopin. Click on photo for online video viewing options.
The Kendall Ross Bean - Chopin Polonaise in A Flat was one of the first classical music videos to be broadcast in the United States and Canada on July 24, 1986.
It was broadcast during the 1980's 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 wasn't 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.
See Wikipedia Article for historical context.
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 Lile between Polara, and Independent Record label, and Tele-Communications_Inc. doing business as Televents of Contra Costa in Lafayette, CA.
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 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.
The music video features a piano performance of Frederic 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. Bean finger-synced the music for each video shot by listening to the audio recording and duplicating the performance on the keyboard in the glass box first and then on the piano. The video was shot from a story board and Bean had to finger sync for each section of the storyboard. It took several hours to film the video and Bean had to play for a moment or so to get up to speed every time a new camera angle was featured.
The ACE Award Nomination
The Kendall Ross Bean: Chopin Polonaise in A Flat Classical Music Video was nominated for an ACE Award for Outstanding Programming Achievement in 1988 by the National Academy of Cable Programing in the Ninth Annual System Awards for Cable Excellence.
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 dinner in Las Vegas on Jan. 22, 1988. The ACE awards were established after cable programs and performers were excluded from the Emmy Awards. The National Academy of Cable Programming was established in March 1985 to promote excellence in cable television programming.