Volume 23 Issue 3 - November 2017

FEATURE
SOLO
PHIL
A Q&A with Philip Chiu
PAUL ENNIS
Philip Chiu, acclaimed for his collaborative piano
work with Jonathan Crow, Janelle Fung, James
Ehnes, Andrew Wan and Raphael Wallfisch
among many others, makes his Toronto recital debut
for Music Toronto on November 28.
In a mid-October email exchange, the talented and personable
Hong Kong-born pianist told me that he was excited to come back to
Toronto, “very much my hometown and place of musical birth.” He
left when he completed his studies at the Glenn Gould School in 2006
and has returned many times for concerts and recitals (most recently
with Jonathan Crow at Toronto Summer Music) “but this feels like a
real homecoming artistically, especially since it’s a return to form as
a soloist.”
WN: Who was the first composer you fell in love with as a child?
Who were the first performers you fell in love with?
PC: I like this pair of questions because I can answer them with
the same story: In brief, 1) Mendelssohn 2) Jon Kimura Parker. I
forget exactly how old I was, maybe 14 or 15, when I was studying
Mendelssohn’s G Minor Piano Concerto. Between working feverishly
on that piece (so many arpeggios!) and constant exposure to the
Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, I had completely succumbed to
the infectious effervescence of Mendelssohn’s writing. Up until this
point in our story, I never really listened to much classical music, so
after years of taking me to classical music concerts and trying to keep
me awake, my parents must’ve been totally confused to be hearing
orchestral music coming from my room... I’m sure they thought I
was hiding something! Suffice it to say, I was not your classic case of a
young pianist dreaming of being the next Rubinstein or Horowitz.
One day I happened to catch a performance of that same concerto
on CBC, and I was so thrilled to hear someone playing it the way I
hoped I could play it! I caught the name of the pianist (Jackie Parker)
and tried locating a recording to purchase. Sadly, his website revealed
no such recording. In mild distress, I wrote to the email address on his
website expressing my admiration for the recording I had heard and
asked if it was available for purchase (expecting an efficient, dismissive
reply from his agent).
I was totally floored when I received a reply from Jackie just a few
days later. He had written an explanation of the recording (a live CBC
recording that was not available for purchase) and excitedly asked
about my progress with the concerto and shared his thoughts on the
piece. He finished by saying that he would ask his father to search for
the recording in his archives and to send me a copy (on cassette tape,
of course) as soon as possible. I received the recording with another
kind letter from his father within a short period.
This tiny, personal moment has stayed with me these last 15 years;
among other things, it has shaped my idea of what it means to have
success and to encourage those coming up (in my case, from very, very
far away) behind you.
You’re known as a top collaborative pianist. What are the challenges
of a solo recital?
Going solo involves an interesting mix of challenges and rewards.
First and foremost, the memory component of the solo piano recital
requires its own special mention: No thanks to Liszt for creating an
expectation of pianists that far exceeds those of any other instrument.
I am not one of those musicians with a prodigious mind that memorizes
music the first time they hear it on the radio; it was one thing when
I was a teenager and my brain was a soft, malleable mass, but now,
trying to find the time to memorize about 85 minutes of music (for one
program!) is not particularly easy nor, frankly, the most rewarding part
of music-making. I am buoyed by more and more famous pianists (e.g.
Alexandre Theraud, Gilbert Kalish) having scores on stage, but it’s still
quite hard to shake the stigma associated with doing so.
Another challenging aspect of performing solo, as someone who has
found some degree of success as a “very sociable pianist,” is convincing
the established musical community that a pianist can be many
things and, shockingly, even perform all roles extremely well. There
is little doubt that collaborative pianism and solo pianism have some
stark differences in their skillsets, but there is a surprising amount of
bias (from all sides) about the ability of one to perform the other.
I absolutely love the thrill of having the stage to myself; the notinconsiderable
allocation of brain power dedicated to playing with
others is now freed up for... anything! Even the finest of collaborations
have some limitations to how far one can stretch timing/phrasing or
introduce new ideas on the fly (of course, one of the joys of chamber
music is pushing that boundary and being amazed by the results), but
when I’m alone on stage, I have only to answer to the composer, the
audience, and myself.
10 | November 2017 thewholenote.com