A gala lives or dies in its transitions: doors to drinks, drinks to dinner, dinner to speeches. Live piano is the thread that holds them together. I am Dr. Maria Pisarenko, a classical concert pianist and Doctor of Musical Arts, trained in the Moscow Conservatory school with a documented teaching line back to Franz Liszt.
Send the date, the venue and your run of show if you have one. I reply personally, with a programme suggestion and a quote.
The most important half hour. Guests come in alone or in pairs and need something to walk into — light classical, played at concert level, setting the tone of the night.
Quieter playing under the conversation, so that every table can talk — and a change of piece that tells the room it is time to sit, without an announcement.
One piece played as a short performance while the room settles, then short bridges between presenters. Corporate & conventions →
Musical bridges between lots, timed to the auctioneer — the pauses stop feeling like pauses.
Planning the run of show itself? The longer guide to gala and charity-dinner music →
In three places, usually: the arrival and the drinks before guests are seated, the dinner itself, and the bridges between speakers, awards or auction lots. We agree the exact blocks against your run of show before the day.
Around them. A walk-up and a walk-off for a presenter, a few bars while the next lot is brought out, something under the applause — played to the producer’s timings, never over a microphone unless you ask for it.
Yes. A theme — a country, a decade, a person being honoured — can shape the whole programme. One piece that matters to you is prepared in advance as part of every booking; film and popular melodies are arranged for solo piano by request.
A fine acoustic piano is my ideal setting, and many venues have one — ask yours what is in the room. If there is none, tell me early and we will agree the best arrangement together.
Ask for a tuning on the day or the day before. On a ballroom instrument that is the single best investment in how the evening sounds.
Two hours is the minimum booking, with travel and any breaks included in it.
As soon as the date and the ballroom are fixed. The Las Vegas gala season fills early, and so do the Saturdays in it.
Send the date, the place and a line about the occasion, and I will come back to you with a programme suggestion and a quote.