David Deveau, at the Steinway in the house that he built, the Shalin Liu Performance Center. Michael Lutch photography
A generation of classical music lovers remembers vividly what pianist David Deveau accomplished as artistic director of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival.
When he assumed the position in 1995, RCMF held a month’s worth of concerts every summer in a reconditioned barn.
When he left twenty-two years later, Rockport Music held year-round concerts, in the spectacular Shalin Liu Performance Center. Besides bringing artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Peter Serkin, Charles Rosen, Jennifer Koh, Leon Fleisher, and Joshua Bell to RCMF audiences, Deveau inspired the ambitious planning and fundraising that resulted in the tens of millions of dollars necessary to build a world-renowned concert hall.
The performance center is shuttered now through February, a casualty of the pandemic. But the long-term health of Rockport Music remains stable, and for that Deveau is thankful.
“I would have hated to see what I had built start to crumble,” he says. “When I left, I felt that it was time for new blood, and I have not looked back. I do miss all the human interaction, and creating the programs. That was a labor of love.”
Deveau until now has remained at his position as lecturer in music at MIT. That too will change, with his retirement in January.
“I’ve taught 32 years,” he says. “I loved my work the entire time, and I will miss my good students. I never thought I would retire from teaching.”
But the pandemic, and recent health issues, have changed his mind.
“I went through radiation at Brigham last fall for eight weeks, every day,” he says. “It went fine, but the cumulative side effects were unpleasant. And I started thinking about small issues—like the rest of my life.
“Then teaching after the shutdown turned out to be unbearably unpleasant. Online, it was so challenging to get any kind of nuance. It all depended on bandwidth and internet freezes.
“People deal with the shutdown differently. This enforced sabbatical has turned me inward,” he says, “looking at why we went into this crazy field in the first place. I realized I hadn’t really had the opportunity to do anything except career stuff.”
So Deveau is leaving MIT, selling his southern New Hampshire home, and moving this month to Nevada, where he has family.
This is no shuffleboard retirement. Deveau has a fall recording session planned, pairing Schubert with a new work by Elena Ruehr. He hopes to create a private studio in his new home, sharing insights from his German Steinway C. And he will perform—“if someone asks, and I’m interested in the project”—when concerts return. But it’s no longer the priority.
“A lot of performers a making videos, and doing this or that online,” he says. “I’ve used this time as reflection on life, and where my priorities are. Honestly, to be fulfilling and satisfying, it does not necessarily include public concerts.
“I don’t want to sound all Glenn Gould-ish,” he says, referring to the pianist who left off performing mid-career, “but I’ve really changed my outlook on how I want to have my music reach the public.
“I used to hate recordings, until I realized the process was like making a movie. With retakes, you can leave it all on the floor and patch it together. Before that, I had always tried to record like it was a concert—everything in long takes.”
Even with recording projects in the works, there’s plenty of solitude for exploring the repertory. Like Bach.
“Being alone, you realize that you can practice anything,” he says, “for your own heart and soul, and growth as an artist. For me it means renewing my Bach study.
“I want to play a lot of Bach, and not ultimately in public,” he says. “For me it’s much more like studying the workings of a Swiss clock. It’s perfection. There’s no other composer like him. That is how I want to spend my golden years.”