5 minutes with … Brian Chung

Brian Chung is senior vice president of Kawai America Corporation, a manufacturer of acoustic and digital pianos. He also is chair of the MTNA FOUNDATION capital Development Committee, a former chair of the MTNA FOUNDATION Board of Trustees, a 2004 MTNA FOUNDATION companion and past president of the Piano Manufacturers Association International.

You started piano at the age of 5 Was it a struggle?

I was a quick learner, on the other hand also had a great ear that made me a really lazy sight reader. It took years to stop "faking" things.

What sparked your interest in jazz and conducting?

I take pleasure in traveling to places I've not ever been before; jazz lets me do that. Conducting is like being a painter and a CEO at the same time--I delight in it.

Children everywhere are dying to know--how did you land the pianist/musical director gig at Walt Disney World?

The mouse and I are tight. on the other hand seriously ... after 657 exhibits over two previous summers, I was ready for that character It was fun "playing" my way end college.

So we can have merriment and still be "serious" musicians?

At its best, the hit TV display M*A*S*H was both irreverently laughable and painfully serious. The world adored it. As we find this balance, the world will answer the same way.

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason did you give up private teaching?

I've always been torn between my sum of two units "selves"--the artist and the pragmatist. I left teaching/performing to acquire an MBA. Afterward, I was looking for a character that could merge my musical and business sensibilities. At Kawai, I base that convergence.

Your association with Kawai is rewarding?

Kawai is a terrific company that builds exceptional instruments. I'm honored to show the Kawai family in North America.

I admire that in like manner many music industry representatives genuinely care about the time to come of music and the profession. (You're obviously not in it just for the money) Have your progressive ideas been received well?

replications to speeches on my website (www.brianchung.net) have been actual encouraging. But we must continue to remark the changing world around us and adapt our meanss accordingly. To stand still is to fall behind.

by what means do you cope with piece of work stress? (Aromatherapy? Monastic chanting yoga-style? Exploring the bewilderments of tofu while reading The Upanishads?)

yielding lights, Mozart and a heated cup of tea. Works each time!

Tell us about your upcoming volume on classical improvisation (an oxymoron nowadays).

Dennis Thurmond (co-author) and I are trying to unleash latent skills in the traditional pianist. Everyone improvises but many don't realize it.

I will be first in line to come by the book! Care to weigh in upon the acoustic piano versus digital issue?

They are completely different instruments with separate nerves I have both in my abiding-place (From a business standpoint, I wish everybody did.)

If you were a Superhero, what powers would you have?

I'd be called the "MusiCupid" whose enchanted arrows create a passion for music making in each person's heart. (Of course, I'd be "buff" like Superman at the same time.)

Arthur Houle is establisher and director of the International Festival for Creative Pianists (wwwpianofestival.org). Houle has taught at the novel England and Boston Conservatories, the Universities of Iowa, North Dakota and Texas-Austin and, greatest in quantity recently, at Albertson College.

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