Musical prodigies take different paths to success Young performers combine talent, drive and brains The young and the peerless Sure, they're talented, but they also have the heart and grit to turn music into magic
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR) - April 6, 2008
Author: DAVID STABLER, The Oregonian
Musical prodigies take different paths to success Young performers combine talent, drive and brains The young and the peerless Sure, they're talented, but they also have the heart and grit to turn music into magic
DAVID STABLER
With his violin tucked under his chin, Andy Liang sways with the music on the vast stage of Schnitzer Hall. Sparks fly from his fingers. His bow slashes back and forth. The notes stampede in exquisite precision.
His sound says stop everything. Listen to this.
And we do, even though we don't trust our senses. The disconnect between sight and sound affronts reason. The 17-year-old fiddler attacks the notes without waver. His hummingbird fingers turn at will, his sound spreads to its full span, huge as a raptor.
When the music climbs to its final flourish, the audience sits spellbound for an instant, then erupts in cheers. Andy, thin as a wafer, bows curtly and exits.
On April 26, Andy and seven other young musicians who have risen to dizzying musical heights will perform a concert at Schnitzer Hall that shows the limitless sense of possibility. It is, without doubt, the most fun musical event of the year.
Watching talent like Liang's is surely evidence of some deep mystery at work. It's impossible to listen to these youngsters --who appear so normal --and not wonder about the nature of the human mind.
But behind the youthful magic lurks the questions of how they got there. Did they simply show up fully formed or did they have to work at it? What combination of talent, parental support, good teaching and grit does it take to rise to the top? What are the joys, the sacrifices?
Great talent shares this characteristic: a certain free-flowing, heightened connection among intellect, heart and soul, and an attendant need for this connection to be recognized. These kids --some people would call them prodigies, children with extraordinary ability, but that's an overused word --share other qualities, too: discipline; devotion to making music (not simply mastering their instrument's technical challenges); parental support in households where high expectations are normal; competitive drive; and attentive teachers.
Exceptional young performers can teach the rest of us much about expression and its potential.
But first, understand that we're entering murky territory. Much about the nature of musical talent eludes explanation. These kids are more mystified by their gifts than anyone. Here's how Liang puts it: "When I was 11, there was a spark that came on in my head and it just kicked. My musical gears just took off. It's something that's there. I can't really take credit for it."
Their talent is simply part of them, like their arms. Don't cut off their air
Unusual talent appears early, as young as 2, but more commonly around 3 or 4, sometimes even later. One undeniable sign is a child's enormous drive to master what he or she is good at, writes David Henry Feldman of Tufts University. Feldman is quoted in "Teaching Genius," Barbara Lourie Sand's revealing book on Dorothy DeLay, the late, legendary violin teacher at The Juilliard School. To deter such a youngster from the piano or violin, say, is like cutting off the child's oxygen.
That's how it felt to Nanao Yamada, 15. The violin bug bit her at the age of 8 after she attended a friend's recital. "I really, really wanted to learn it," she says. "It just looked really amazing, being up on the stage. I wanted that myself."
The same goes for Kayla Wilkens, 17, a soprano from Salem, who wanted to sing for as long as she can remember. Born six weeks premature, Wilkens didn't speak until she was 4 and suffers significant hearing loss in both ears. But at the age of 5 --boom --it happened.
She was standing in line for the bathroom at a family reunion and saw her relatives singing on a stage.
"Mommy, I need your help," she recalls saying. She pulled her mother toward the stage.
Kayla walked to the edge of the stage and started to sing. Her baffled mother ended up holding the microphone while her daughter sang "Zippity Do-Dah."
"I've always felt like the stage is home," says Kayla, an engaging young woman whose scarves and makeup suggest a diva in training. Kayla is determined --no, she knows --that she will sing opera and appear on Broadway.
But not all gifted musicians are smitten right away. When Jason Akahoshi's parents suggested he try music, he casually replied, "Why not?" He waited until seventh grade band to choose the clarinet, by default. After trying different instruments, that's the one he got the best sound out of.
And Rosa Li, 16, a pianist who "needs music to live," hated practicing so much at first that she locked herself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out.
Mind over matter at 200 mph
We like to believe that everyone is talented at something, but these kids bring something extra to their instruments. It could be an imperceptible physical advantage, a quicker hand-eye connection or more efficient coordination of hand muscles, or, in the case of Kayla and Whitney Steele, 17, the two sopranos, more advanced vocal apparati.
This analogy might help. Tony Stewart, 36, a two-time NASCAR champ, has superb eyesight --20/13 in one eye, 20/15 in the other --but it's not visual acuity that matters to race car drivers, according to Tommy Craggs in a recent piece in Play magazine in The New York Times. It's mind-speed, the ability to process "everything that drifts into his periphery while he travels at 200 mph."
Both drivers and performers must have exceptional skill at concentration, memory and anticipation. A study of drivers' reaction times showed that they were 33 percent faster than those of the general public.
Watching Felicia Doni's 15-year-old hands dash like swallows over the keyboard supports that evidence.
"The mind, more than anything, is the engine," Craggs wrote.
And these youngsters have minds. Hanna Choi, who will perform the blockbuster first movement of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto at the Schnitzer Hall concert , won early admission to Stanford. Her resume is packed with awards: National Merit Finalist, National AP Scholar, Model U.N. president, first in her Westview High School class of 634.
Already, her past, with its long list of accomplishments, catapults her into adulthood. Talking to Hanna, even after she plays Tchaikovsky in bare feet and bluejeans in her living room, it's not hard to see the future chemical engineer or nano-technologist she wants to become. She's like a kid on stilts. Don't take no
All of this year's musicians get good grades, which suggests that talent goes hand in hand with smarts, but playing music at a high level also involves dogged persistence. These kids are tenacious. It's tempting to look at them and see only their talent --pure, limitless, God-given. But every one of them overcame obstacles to get this far.
Well, not everyone. Andy Liang never practiced hard until sophomore year because the violin came easily to him. At first, he wasn't into it, but at 11, that spark ignited him and he began winning competitions. He's been in front of the public ever since. By sixth grade, friends were Googling him; he became known at school as the kid who played violin.
"There are two kinds of musicians," he says. "Worker bees who practice, practice, practice, and talent, which doesn't have to work as hard to get far. I'm not a worker bee. I'm a people-type person. Practice is boring."
More typical is soprano Wilkens. Three school counselors advised her to go into teaching or "something practical" instead of opera or Broadway, she says. "Kayla, get your head out of the sky," they told her.
"They don't know me," the red-haired singer says. "How well do you live without air, because that's how I feel about music."
Nature or nurture?
Where does drive like that come from? Parents, for one. All of this year's young musicians come from families with high expectations.
Soprano Whitney Steele's father, a lawyer, advises her on how best to compete and train, she says. A state champion high-school wrestler, he has "zero musical ability" but believes his disciplined training translates to music.
"He's brutally honest," she says. "He'll say, 'Do you really want to hear what I think?' That helps when you do get a compliment."
Violinist Nanao Yamada's mother, Chikako Yamada, is her driving force, Nanao says. "She came to lessons, listened to every single practice. My mom gets more nervous than I do. She has to leave the hall when I perform."
Soprano Kayla Wilkens' mother, Terri Lynn Wilkens, a former flight attendant, "redirected her life path" for her daughter, Kayla says. When Kayla and her sister were small, their mom took her tax refund money and bought tickets to concerts in Salem. "Everything --symphony, opera, ballet, Chinese acrobats, Irish dance." When she was pregnant with Kayla, she put headphones on her stomach and played Baroque music.
But again, there are exceptions. Clarinetist Jason Akahoshi's parents never pushed him in school or music, he says. "I rebel by working hard," he jokes.
Still, each family puts great value on excelling, with the parents holding themselves to high standards.
"It is not 'work' for these kids to be high achievers," says Niel DePonte, the founder and conductor of the YoungArtists series. "They see it as the norm, which is why so many of them are very humble and quite well-adapted socially. They have not been pushed. Encouraged, yes; pushed, no."
The burden of talent
It takes a proverbial village to raise talent to this level. Parents often have to run to keep up, but teachers also play a key role. The best instructors can spot talent in its earliest guise and nurture it appropriately, knowing that not every student is destined for Carnegie Hall. In fact, the odds of a child performing in that hallowed hall are something like 1 in 73,000.
Good teachers know something else, too, that talent can be as fragile as porcelain.
"Being talented is a burden for a child in lots of psychological ways," says Kathryn Gray, Andy Liang's violin teacher. "Playing music is so much a part of your identity that you become swept up in 'this is who I am.' You work, you work, you work and you look around and you wonder if you're driving the ship or is the ship driving you? There comes a time when a child or young adult has to come to grips with who he is and what his talent is to him."
Too much pressure, from parents or a teacher, can be disastrous. "Those kids often have trouble performing under pressure because they feel so much is at stake if they fail," says DePonte, the YoungArtists conductor. "And even if they can play well under pressure, their playing often seems stilted or mechanical or tight."
Sacrifices made
Having the focus, discipline and grit to get to this level also means giving up activities, friends, the more normal stuff of childhood. Kayla, the soprano, had to drop cheerleading. Andy, the violinist, couldn't try out for tennis his freshman year. Sleepovers and hanging out were rare. But none of these young musicians acknowledged the price was too high.
Ultimately, maybe we should just enjoy their talent and not seek to know its source. After all, technical mastery of an instrument is beside the point because for these kids, that was the easy part. Maybe we should simply accept the just-is-ness of their gifts and abandon ourselves to their promise.
David Stabler: 503-221-8217; davidstabler@news.oregonian.com; http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/
Edition: Sunrise Section: Sunday Features (O!)
Record Number: MERLIN_11616346
Copyright (c) 2008 Oregonian Publishing Co.
Rosa Li, competed Saturday
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR) - January 7, 2008
Author: ROSS WILLIAM HAMILTON, Staff photographer
 "Astounding" talent | The region's top young classical musicians, including Rosa Li, competed Saturday for a coveted spot to perform with a professional orchestra in Schnitzer Hall in April. Li was one of eight winners. The list: Felicia Doni, 15, piano; Jason Akahoshi, 18, clarinet; Nanao Yamada, 15, violin; Hannah Choi, 17, piano; Li, 16, piano; Andy Liang, 17, violin, Whitney Steele, 17, soprano; and Kayla Wilkens, 17, soprano. Their work isn't over yet, however. For the next four months, each winner will work intensively with conductor Niel DePonte of MetroArts Inc. to prepare for the April 25 concert. DePonte, who began the concerts 14 years ago, says the level of skill improves each year. "Astounding," he said of this year's group. For tickets to "Young Artists Debut! Concerto Concert" call 503-245-4885 or Ticketmaster.
Buongiorno!
By, Becky Anderson
 In May, Janet Coleman and I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Bologna, Italy as part of a musical exchange program sponsored by MetroArts and the Portland-Bologna Sister City Association. We were part of a delegation from Portland and we were given the chance to perform in recital at the Conservatorio di Bologna.
It was quite interesting to experience the Bolognese culture. The first thing that struck me was how art seemed to be an integral part of the culture. Often as we walked down covered sidewalks on the narrow, cobblestone streets, Janet and I would look up beneath an archway to see an incredibly intricate painting right above us. There seemed to be a true appreciation for beauty, and an acceptance of art as a part of everyday life.
This appreciation for art extended to music as well – our recital was well-attended by community members and conservatory students. Although many of the audience members did not speak English, the music was a form of communication that everyone could understand. It was refreshing for us to express ourselves to the audience in a way that was not inhibited by unfamiliar social customs or stumbling over misunderstood words.
Even so, we found that the occasional awkwardness of trying to operate successfully in a foreign country added a sense of adventure to the trip! We also had help from some wonderful friends. Laura Marzadori and her mother, Simonetta Pagnutti, were both incredible, taking us everywhere from the best restaurants in town to spending a day in Venice (Laura was invited to come to Portland two years ago to play in the Young Artists Concert at the Schnitz).
The opportunity to travel to Bologna was unforgettable. The cultural experience, the musical opportunities, and the friends we made will stay with us forever. “Grazie mille” to MetroArts and the Portland-Bologna Sister City Association for making the trip possible!
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