Prodigy sweeps awards

By WILLIAM DART


He came, he played, he conquered. Last week John Chen returned from Brisbane after cleaning up nearly all the prizes in the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition.

It reads like the musical equivalent of a decathlon - Best Concerto (Prokofiev 3), Best Sonata (Mozart K 284), Best Etude (Rachmaninov Opus 39 no 5), Best Prelude and Fugue (the E flat major set from Book 1 of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier) and Best Australian Work (Carl Vine's Five Bagatelles).

It's the single-mindedness of the 17-year-old Aucklander that most impresses. A prodigy ("it all started when I was 3 and my uncle left us a small portable keyboard"), Chen says his "first 10 years were spent practising on a $400 piano".

He has been studying with Rae De Lisle since he was 7, and finds her "not only a good teacher, but a good mentor, too, and that's important in any student-teacher relationship".

While other youngsters are assessing the form of cricketers and rugby players, Chen is listening to as many pianists as he can. He is critical of Gyorgy Cziffra whose "technique is phenomenal but it seems to me that was the only way he got around", but idolises Martha Argerich. "Her sound is amazing, particularly when it comes to articulation. It's this that brings music to life and enables it to speak".

There is praise for Markus Groh, a guest soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia last year. "I was learning the Brahms First and hated it. I had listened to recordings, but it had never struck me as a fantastic piece. After Groh played it, it became one of my favourites."

Chen's Brahms with the Auckland Youth Orchestra was a mighty achievement, as was his full-scale recital earlier this year. This required the sort of pacing you might find on a sports field.

"It was the first time I'd done a full 90-minute concert and it almost killed me. I've now learned how to conserve my energy over a 40-50 minute performance."

He recommends substantial carbohydrate intake three hours before and lots of fluids just before you go on.

The young man is only too aware of the pressures that lie ahead. "In music, you're only as good as your last performance. Just one bad performance can ruin your reputation and concert organisers will stop asking you back, whereas with sports you don't have that same problem.

"If you do badly in one there's always the next. In music there's not that leeway; you always have to be at your best."

We talk technicalities and it is clear that his is an independent spirit. He deliberately didn't speed up in the last movement of the Prokofiev Third Concerto, choosing to follow the composer's directions, and he slipped some subtle rubato into Ravel's Ondine.

"I work out what I want out of the piece, try to make it distinctive. There are so many CDs available and, if you're not distinctive, people can just listen to a standard recording."

He is booked to play Prokofiev's Third Concerto with Orchestra Victoria under the baton of Valdimir Verbitsky, and will do a recital in London's Australia House next year, but his future is fairly open.

Just a few weeks ago, he was determined to study in America, but now Europe appeals more, "because you can understand where the music and tradition has come from".

And in 10 years? "I'd like to be touring around giving concerts, but it's a hard life out there. It's such a privilege to be doing what I'm doing right now."