Fredonia graduate elevates worldwide audience with daily Facebook piano concerts

Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Gershon Wachtel – whose music career spans six decades – is still connecting with music lovers everywhere. The 1972 SUNY Fredonia graduate is no longer on the road, but he’s bonding with audiences from his home in Israel through daily Facebook Live concerts.

As a lark, Mr. Wachtel decided to put “something” up on Facebook in March 2020, when his live performances – and those of musicians everywhere – were shelved by COVID-19. Wachtel had moved to Israel a few years earlier with his wife, Chaya, with aspirations to become the leading pianist in the country, which landed him a two-year gig as the nightly pianist at the acclaimed Waldorf Astoria in Jerusalem.

His Facebook concerts were an immediate success, so Wachtel decided to give hour-long concerts on his Steinway concert grand five nights a week and Friday afternoons, usually attired in a suit or tuxedo. What began as a modest audience of 40 to 50 peaked around 650 viewers during the height of the pandemic, when music was sorely needed. With more people returning to work, average viewership stands around 150. When the Statement alumni magazine is distributed in September, Wachtel is expected to have given over 400 concerts in a row.

“I really can’t explain it,” Wachtel says of the concerts’ increasing popularity, “except to tell you that I play everything with all my heart and people’s hearts hear it and we are connected. I have said that I feel like I am entering an elevator and going higher and higher. When I am ‘up there,’ it is a wonderful world that I am in, and the audience joins me there. I don’t want to leave that special place.”

Despite the wide span of time zones, a core of 50 are onboard for every concert. “They set their alarm clocks to wake them in the middle of the night to hear my music and feel the vibes I send them,” Wachtel reports. They proudly refer to themselves as “Gershonites,” and hail from around the world – from the United States, Singapore, Japan, Finland, Brazil and Germany, among many countries.

“Piano has been my life, my entire life,” said Wachtel, who went by the first name Gary at Fredonia. He’s played professionally for over 60 years, in virtually every possible type of venue or event, so he’s “pretty sure that people will like what I do.”

Many musicians are totally into the music they play and the audience sees that, Wachtel explains. “However, is the audience into it as well or are they just into watching someone who is into it? My goal when I play is that the audience should feel exactly how I feel and feel that they are riding on the elevator with me.”

One viewer praised Wachtel for his “boundless energy and joy when he plays, which is contagious.” Another review celebrated his “brilliant style and marvelous performances coupled with great showmanship.” Others described him as an amazing pianist and absolutely breathtaking.

“This work has become the pinnacle of my musical career, without a doubt,” Wachtel said.

Transitioning to Facebook performances is the latest pivot that Wachtel has made in a distinguished music career. He initially taught music two years in Cheektowaga, before transitioning to composing and recording music for women’s gymnastics teams. Wachtel was tabbed the accompanist for the U.S. gymnastics team at the 1976 Olympics.

For almost the next three decades, Wachtel was an accomplished pop/jazz pianist in Toronto. He also opened his own insurance agency and managed, along with his wife, to raise 12 children, while also creating a one-man show about his life that was interspersed with music. Wachtel ultimately took it on the road to every continent except Asia and Antarctica.

Wachtel, who has a Mus.B. in Music Education, views himself in the centuries-old tradition of musicians whose great fortune is to bring people out of the mundane and out of what is sometimes a bleak world and into a world that is all good, safe and wonderful.

“In fact, it is more than that. It is a sacred duty to use the unique talents God has given me to change and inspire others, especially those who are indeed in pain and loneliness, and give them hope, which they find at the top of the elevator.”

There’s probably not a genre of music that Wachtel hasn’t featured. At the same time, he’s developed his own style of playing: pop music in a style similar to something Russian composer Sergey Rachmaninoff wrote. “As a matter of fact, someone commented on YouTube that he detects a flavor of Rachmaninoff in my music,” he recalled.

SUNY Distinguished Professor Claudette Sorel had a profound impact on Wachtel at Fredonia. “I was a raw talent when I started with her and she had faith in me. I practiced very hard and made great progress,” he said. She was a genius who had extensive experience on the concert stage, Wachtel said, so whatever she suggested was deemed the “official way” to do things.

Ms. Sorel taught at Fredonia for 13 years and made more than 2,000 concert, recital and festival appearances and appeared as a soloist with 200 orchestras.

Wachtel concerts often have a theme, such as “Songs by Barbra Streisand” or “Hits of the ‘60s.” He improvises on pop tunes, but is mindful to never stray too far from the melody. There are also occasions when he’ll start a concert with a blank slate and “the first thoughts of what to play are the first notes that I start playing and everything evolves from those first thoughts!”

Concerts are given Sunday through Thursday at 2 p.m., and Friday at 9 a.m., both Eastern Standard Time. The Friday concert changes with the arrival of Eastern Daylight Time.