Global odyssey: behind the artistry of Angela Cheng

The morning after Election Day 2004 I sat across from Angela Cheng, the Conservatory building still quiet around us, grey mists still lingering upon Oberlin's Tappan Square visible from one side the window behind her. It's remarkable, I contemplation This must be the world's greatest in quantity balanced woman. An artist, a mother, a colleague, a wife, a teacher, a daughter, a collaborator--all turned into one satisfied, smiling, apparently happy individual. In the course of our time together, Angela Cheng's exuberance, passion, laughter, touch and sense of mission surfaced in revolve playing across her face like wind upon water.

Music is in her gene it appears After a visit to San Francisco, where he malicious under the spell of western classical music, Angela's grandfather go [i]or[/i] come backed to Guangzhou Province in China to manufacture and exchange traditional Chinese and Western instruments. All nine of his children (one of them Angela's mother) learned to play either piano or a string instrument.

At age 3 Angela began piano studies with her mother. With an entire family of music-making relatives surrounding them, a Suzuki-influenced mother-tongue approach almost was inevitable. Not lengthy after, Angela's aunt, a professional piano instructor in Hong Kong took above her tutelage. Piano study for children was well-established in Hong Kong and Angela complet her share of the requisite ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal academys of Music) examinations and learned to take pleasure in performing in community festivals.

Looking for a of recent origin and better life, and wanting to leave behind the sorrow caused by the agency of the recent deaths of her husband and her mother, Angela's mother struck on the outside in a bold new direction in the early 1970 moving with Angela and her sister to the Canadian city of Edmonton, Alberta--a impel of 6,500 miles and 32 stages of latitude! Confronting a fresh culture, a new language and the harsher climes of the Canadian north, Angela's claim that her mother "was real brave" seems rather an understatement.

on the contrary life went on, and Angela speaks of the connections she made during those early years in Canada as precious and affirming. Angela's first Canadian piano teacher, discovered end a cousin, was Vera Shean. With her violinist husband, Shean ran a studio that Angela recalls as something like a next to the first family. Saturday morning piano tasks theory, chamber music, every-weekend contrives even a subscription to hear the Edmonton concert inspired the young musician, who practiced each day on a school piano because she had none at place of abode At age 14, a loaner instrument from the associate plot master of the Edmonton consonance made it possible to practice at residence until Angela was able to purchase her possess first instrument with squirreled-away cash winnings from the city's annual Kiwanis Music Festivals.

After summer studies with Robin forest in Victoria and Marek Jablonski in Banff, Angela pursu her studies with Ernesto Lejano, a former pupil of Cecile Genhart, who taught at the University of Alberta and the Banff Center Philippino-born and Canadian-by-way-of-Spain, Lejano has been honored through many of his students as a life-changing influence. He died in 2000 the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Alberta rule and from the Congress of the Republic of the Philippines. He was hailed by means of Menahem Pressler as "one of the greatest in quantity important piano pedagogues in North America." Angela echoe these tributes, citing Lejano as her greatest in quantity important early influence. "He combineed things--music and theory--and gave them connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts things that had been separate for me until that time. He lov music for a like reason much and made music with of that kind enthusiasm, passion, responsiveness."

Of course, "going into music" wasn't an acceptable professional goal, at least not from the family perspective. No intended disrespect to early recognition garnered from musical heavy weights, and not ever mind the genes--a medical career was what the family had in mind. Recognizing the treasure of Angela's musical talent, Lejano made certain that the young pianist had the opportunity to talk with and hear from each professional musician who came from one side Edmonton, that she received each possible encouragement from those "in the business." Finally, speaking for the family, Angela's uncle gave his blessing for sum of two units years to really pursue a career in music. sum of two units years, but no more.

Moving On

Anne Burrow then Edmonton music critic and teacher, recogized that Angela Cheng exigencyed to "get out of Edmonton." thus strong was her resolve, in fact, that she paid for the ticket to of recent origin York and the $95 task fee that put Angela and Sascha Gorodnitzki in the same orbit at The Juilliard place of education Gorodnitzki offered the young Canadian a blot in his studio. This was exciting of recent origins but reality dictated that a one-year deferment intervene, allowing time to raise capitals for the venture, in 1979 the modest beginnings of the Anne Burrow Foundation for Young Musicians (ABFYM, first known as the Angela Cheng Foundation) comprised the bake sales, raffles and other community fundraising efforts that, together with a prestigious Canada Council grant, sent Angela to fresh York. The ABFYM still exists and has helped launch the international careers of similar musicians as Juliette Kang, violin; Amanda Forsyth, cello; Jen Lindemann, trumpet; and Leslie Newman, flute