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You are listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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Welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod. I am Eric Hunter.
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I am Clara John. I'm Yukimi Song.
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Our guest today needs no introduction. We are very excited to have Frederick Chu on
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our show, who is an international concert pianist with performances on five continents
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in venues such as Lincoln Center, New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Châtelet
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in Paris, and the Mozartium in Buenos Aires. He has recorded over 30 albums. He is the
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founder of Deeper Performance Studies and recently a distinguished faculty member at
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Carnegie Mellon University and the Hart School. His non-traditional and innovative approach
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to art, including interdisciplinary collaborations and integration of new technologies, distinguishes
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Mr. Chu as a 21st century pianist. So please join me in welcoming Mr. Frederick Chu.
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Yay, welcome. Thank you so much.
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It's a great pleasure to be with you.
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Frederick, I wanted to start off with a little anecdote. I'm sure you don't remember, but
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I actually played for you in a masterclass many, many years ago.
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I thought so.
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Yeah, I know. I didn't mention it before now. But yeah, I was thinking about that and you
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made a big impression on me in just this one class. And I wanted to share that with our
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listeners. I'll probably paraphrase you very badly, but I remember we were working on some
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Bach and you were having me work on a passage and you told me, don't think about whether
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it's good or it's bad on each repetition that you do, but think about what is my ideal that
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I want it to sound like and how much closer or further away from it am I getting. And
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that really stuck with me. That became an integral part of my practice after that, just
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from that one masterclass. So I wanted to share.
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I'm so happy, first of all, you saved it for the show, this big reveal, which is good.
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You got a reaction shot. And second, I'm very honored that you have a memory of that that's
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stayed with you, that's helped you. My goal in playing and teaching is to leave a memory
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and that obviously worked. So I'm really happy to hear that. And what you're saying is great.
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And that's a point that always comes up. A lot of people, when they play, nobody likes
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to make mistakes. But of course, a mistake is a great doorway into understanding something
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about your playing. I mean, nothing happens by mistake. A mistake happens because it's
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supposed to happen that way, for whatever reasons, all the things that you brought to
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it caused that to happen. And if you take the opportunity to look at it, instead of
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judging and saying, Oh, that was good. Oh, that was bad. And somehow being attracted
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or detracted from it because of some value judgment, then you're not going to learn as
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much as you can from that moment. And it's really about learning. And anything that we
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play no matter how good or how bad, if there's some learning that we can extract from it,
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then we've improved ourselves, then we've added to our knowledge base and we're higher
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for that. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. At the time, I think I had a very harsh inner
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critic, which I feel like a lot of musicians struggle with in their practice at one point
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or another. And you got me to kind of view it from a larger perspective. You know, as
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a natural part of the process, mistakes, mistakes are inevitable. That should really be in quotes,
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right? Because a mistake is not a mistake. Like you said, it shows you where you are.
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It's information. Right. And, and it's just another step on your journey towards becoming
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an economist. Also something for pianists, we have to do a lot of our work alone. And
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even a lot of our end goal is done alone. We perform solo stuff alone and we're very
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much in our own heads. And, you know, to be very self-critical is a great thing, but it's
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also a very dangerous thing in a, in a vacuum, in an isolation from others. And that's also
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something that I found for myself. When I started teaching, when I started working with
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others, there's so much that I learned from trying to communicate and communicating badly
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and then figuring out good ways to communicate. There's, there's so much to learn from just
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being forced to interact with other people and communicating things. And that takes you
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a little bit out of your bubble and gives you that perspective. So that's, that's also
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very important. Yes. Well, thank you. I just, that's become a permanent part of the pianist
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that I am today. Well, thank you very much. All right. So can you tell us a little bit
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about your background, how you came up, you know, um, your early studies and then, you
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know, how that transitioned into your career? Yeah. I think my, I think my early, like first
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10, 15 years is probably pretty typical looking. Um, I, I would, my parents are both immigrants
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from China, a very strong work ethic at home, uh, not very social in the sense of, you know,
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having sports and all these kinds of things to do. So, you know, like just doing a lot
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of good homework and a lot of good piano practice.
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Yeah. Good. The Chinese practice, you know, that kind of thing. I, I, I feel like music
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was something that I gravitate gravitated towards more because I was able to accomplish
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things, but not because I, you know, like saw a piano and said, Ooh, I want to play
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that thing. It was something that I could do well at it was suited. Uh, and I just moved
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ahead and I think a lot of people recognize that, especially, uh, uh, Asian, Asian American
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background, they, this idea that if you do this step well, then you go onto the next
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step. Of course you do this step well. And then you find yourself suddenly on this treadmill
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and you're at, at a far reach of that treadmill. And then you wonder, Oh, how did I get here?
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And for me, that moment of turning around and looking to see where I had been and deciding
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what to do going forward, didn't happen until I was in my mid twenties. And by that time
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I had already gone to the Jacob school in Bloomington. I had already gone to the Juilliard.
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I had already won competitions. I already had a manager, you know, so it wasn't like
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that. It was not a conscious choice until I was in my mid twenties. And there was a
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moment where all of a sudden everything came to light. And this was when I was, um, struggling
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a little bit, uh, first arrived in Paris after finishing my studies and, you know, Paris,
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of course is incredibly inspiring place. And particularly for classical music, I think,
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uh, and I was there for a year, at least that was the plan. And that year started off all
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of a sudden in catastrophe. And I found myself almost homeless for seven months and certainly
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piano, kitchenless, bathroomless for, for seven months. I had no idea. Uh, there, I
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knew that I was going to end up okay. So it was just a matter of getting through these
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months, but it was pretty traumatic and certainly very, very different than what I expected
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and different than what I wanted. And that was a very difficult time, but it was during
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this time that I was going all around Paris, looking for practice spaces and arranging
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with various contacts. You know, can I practice your place tomorrow? Can I practice your place
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next week? And one of the places was a little, uh, teaching studio in a private building,
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uh, near the, uh, gallery Lafayette, uh, Chausse-Denton. And that happened. I came to the building.
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There was a plaque on the door that said Chopin lived here from 1833 to 1836. So he was 23,
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26 years old when he lived there. I was 24 at the time. Somehow everything that I had
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studied up until that moment in history class, all the things I had read, all these facts
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that we load our mind with as pianists all of a sudden came to life. It was like, Oh
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wow. Chopin's a real person. Yes. Chopin was my age. I happened to be on this street in
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Paris that was probably still with the same cobblestones paving the street. And certainly
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this was the building. I'm going up the stairs. Perhaps Chopin put his hand on this rail and
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just like I am. And even though the life was completely different, all of a sudden I was
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able to connect and empathize with Chopin as a person and everything came to light.
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And all of a sudden everything that I was doing was put into a very different perspective.
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And I realized, wow, I had this training. It's brought me to a point where I can obviously
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have some expectation of being able to achieve something. And that was when I doubled down
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and really decided, okay, I'm going to be a pianist. I'm going to do what I can with
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what I have. And all of a sudden I started practicing more. I started developing other
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ways to practice. I started seeing every moment in my life as an opportunity to practice and
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to enlarge the idea of what practicing means to not just the time I spent sitting at the
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piano moving my fingers, but also non piano playing time and non music time. All of that
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was just feeding this system that allowed me to play the piano.
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Yeah. So can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I know for you non musical activities
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are a big part of the way you practice, right? And contribute to your music making. And I'm
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particularly interested in how you got this idea and how you drew the connections to see
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how it was affecting your musical output.
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Well, it was during these seven months where I literally was not practicing piano. I mean,
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not in the sense that I was expected, you know, that I had come to expect and need kind
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of emotionally need those hours of practicing at the piano. I wasn't getting that. And so
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out of desperation, I tried all sorts of things like making a to do list of passages that
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I really desperately needed to practice in the limited time that I had. And then the
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to do lists got me to open my scores to find things. And then I was basically doing a kind
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of improvised score study through that exercise. And then just the extreme emotional experiences
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that I was having during these seven months. My life was pretty normal, you know, like,
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you know, happy and sad and nervous and whatever. But up until that moment, it wasn't life or
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death. And it wasn't, you know, extreme stage fright. When I did go on stage during these
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seven months to play or to record something, it was just harrowing. Because even before
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getting on stage to see how I was reacting, I had convinced myself that I could not be
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playing at my best. Because obviously, I had not been practicing what one needs to practice
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in order to play at one's best. So it was just a self defined thing. And then of course,
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the self fulfilling prophecy, I didn't play well a lot. And then the system kind of reverts
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to the mean and all those years of training made me play okay. It helped me to, I don't
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forget C major scales just because I'm nervous. And because I haven't practiced C major scales.
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So the basic tools were still there. And all of a sudden, I realized that I could still
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kind of play. It wasn't terrible playing. And in fact, my memory was a lot better. And
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I started to calm down. But it did take you know, it's like going through withdrawal,
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it did take a number of weeks and months to get to the other side where I could look at
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myself and say, Hey, the results aren't horrific. I'm still alive. And in fact, I'm gaining
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insight into areas that I didn't have before. And what is that coming from? And that's my
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natural kind of scientists side, just analyzing things and putting one thing after another,
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you know, just structurally trying to recreate what's what was happening. And my understanding
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was, okay, it was actually my my work with the score, my work without the score. And
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then I started defining those things. I started reading stuff that you know, like the the
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inner game of tennis and the art of motorcycle maintenance, all these also great book, all
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these great books and and kind of philosophical disruptors. And that disrupted me, I was disrupted
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already. So it was it was great to have that. And that helped me codify some things. And
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I was wondering, many years afterwards, when I had kind of settled these things for myself,
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I was saying like, why, you know, somebody could have taught this. Yes, somebody could
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have at least given me some insight into this. And not just kind of depend on the random
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encounter with a person who happened to talk about these things, or experience these things.
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So I set out to create a curriculum, which turned into deeper performance studies, and,
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you know, taking people through some of these seminal experiences that I had that really
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give perspective that we don't get necessarily in school. Yes, we definitely want to ask
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you about deeper performance studies. I have so much to say about that. What a wonderful
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story. Thank you for sharing it. I think I'm going to latch on to the last little bit where
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you said you wish somebody could have taught you, you know, one thing I'm finding as we
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interview more people for the show, is a lot of people have this point where you learned
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what you've learned, you put in the work, you went to school, did what you're supposed
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to do, right? And then at some point, you're just flying blind. For whatever reason, nobody
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can help you anymore. You're on your own, you faced with something that you've never
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dealt with before. And, and for anybody listening, I just want you to know that that's natural
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and normal and inevitable for many of us. But how you come out of that defines the kind
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of artists you're going to be. Yeah.
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Yeah. And I would say to encourage all pianists, I truly feel that it's there already. If you
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can, if you have the experience of getting on stage and playing a Beethoven sonata from
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memory for an audience, I mean, it takes a lot of work, a lot of different kind of work
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over many, many years to be able to do that. And embedded in that work is all the stuff
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that you need. It's just inside of you, you may or may not be aware of it. And you may
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or may not be confident or even knowledgeable about how to apply that to anything else except
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playing that Beethoven sonata. But it's there. If I think about somebody who goes to a country
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and is immersed in that country and learns the language, they can leave the country and
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still speak that language. You know, it's, they don't have to deal with things there
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geographically in order to use some of the skills that they learn. And playing the piano
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is like learning a language. It's a, it's a physical language. We have this understanding
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and control and sensitivity to our body and strength and balance and timing. It's this
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mental world where we're, especially for pianists, multitasking constantly. We're strategizing,
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we're decomposing and recomposing things. We're understanding theory and architecture. And
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it's this emotional life where we deal with students, we deal with teachers, we deal with
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chamber music colleagues, we deal with a person you're playing for. You deal with a hundred
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people that you're playing for as a group. You're dealing with an anonymous unknown listener
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behind the microphone who may be listening 10 years down, a hundred years down the road.
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We're thinking we have all these opportunities to think about these interpersonal, really
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diverse interpersonal relationships. And how many people really get an opportunity to practice
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these things, you know, to have the opportunity to get on stage and have full attention of
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people even for five minutes to memorize something and to be a master and solo, you know, responsible
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for something to have the day to day experience of discipline and delayed gratification to
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arrive at being able to do something incredible. It is a rare opportunity. Most people in the
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world don't even get the chance to experience these things. And we have all of that and
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that's our life. And so I really think that that is one of the things for pianists to
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encourage that encouraged me. And I think that's one of the great things. If you've
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already gone through all those years and you're frustrated at the end, you have to turn back
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and turn in and take those things and somehow appreciate them and redirect them. It may
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not be in piano playing. It might be something completely non pianist related, but your sense
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of discipline and your ability to present is going to aid you because you have it. Your
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ability to coordinate your fingers to type, you know, like pianists generally are pretty
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fast typists. You know, that's a lot of people don't know how to type. They're typing with
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that's my wife. You know, that's, that's, it's kind of silly, but that is something
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that we have an advantage over other people in that area. I think the most valuable thing
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is that it's something really to appreciate and to draw out because that will make you
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a better pianist. It will also make you better. Whatever. Yes. Whatever else you want to do.
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I mean, I think one of the most important things anybody can learn in life is how to
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learn and you know, serious study of musical instrument teaches you that. Because they
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teach it teaches you humility. Among other things. You're making you know, like what
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what piano performance does not have a mistake in it. Of course. And if you play something,
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you know, God forbid you play something perfectly once. Does that mean that you expect it's
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going to be just staying there and plateauing forever? Yeah, of course not. But a lot of
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people don't experience that day to day. We experience that day to day and we've found
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ways to deal with it. And that's a huge emotional strength that pianists have that musicians
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have pianists in particular have that. That's why we have resilience. Great. Right. Wow.
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These are really, really useful information. Thank you so much for sharing all of this
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with us. And I didn't know all this background, you know, when you first moved to Paris, but
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it's amazing. I mean, I feel like I almost can draw a little comparison with myself.
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You know, I moved here when I was 17 in Kansas and then I moved to New York when I was 23,
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24. I had already finished everything and life was great. You know, I decided to be
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a pianist when I was three. But at that point, I felt like everything was going smoothly.
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You know, I think that's also the problem. But you don't have that big, you know, and
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then you don't. And all of a sudden you arrive in New York, you're like, wow, it's like you
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basically feel homeless. You know, like, no, you're here. Everybody's here. You don't really
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know exactly how to get going. But here you are. You know, you just have to make something
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out of it. So I am so inspired now because of that. And I have this a little bit of Chinese
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background that I know your father is also from the city I was born in. What is and when
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you went to Paris as well, I know you still do a lot of collaboration. For example, you
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work with composer Gopin. And also, I saw this video. It was lovely of a French movie,
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but they were singing in Chinese. Just because all of the musicians nowadays are all overseas
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everywhere. You know, I want to hear your experience of drawing different culture and
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then you were born and raised here in America, right?
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I think that's definitely a strength of mine, having a Chinese upbringing, American culture.
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And then somehow, I went to the middle point between the US and China and landed in Paris
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and kind of immersed myself and I was drawn to Paris. I don't know why French was such
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a draw to me, but somehow a fascination with it. I never studied it in school, but I decided
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when the opportunity presented itself, oh, I'm going to spend some time in France. I
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ended up living 12 years there and having a whole life, getting married, having kids,
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becoming a citizen. And I think those three cultures really have forced me to look at
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things from different perspectives. And I didn't know it at the time, but I think that
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having three different points of view was very balancing and really kind of pushed me
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into a lot of the thinking that I came to for piano playing.
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And I think that those three cultures really have such strong and very different distinct
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thinking styles, their perception of time, their perception of work, their perception
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of beauty are also different. And perhaps you could have said that about any three cultures,
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but for me, it really was very striking and is always a point of reference for me. Am
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I American? And looking at this as American, what would I see? Am I Chinese? And looking
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at it from a Chinese perspective, what does that mean? And French, how would they see
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it? And I think that that kind of perspective just came very naturally to me from the very
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beginning.
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Wow. I can relate that so much. And I'm sure a lot of our audience, maybe later on watching
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us from wherever they are right now, currently, during pandemic, I hear everybody's back.
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And I moved to Kansas and without a word of English, so that was kind of became my identity.
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So even to this day, people here in New York call me Topeka, Topeka Kansas. So it's a
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very interesting thing. But I want to hear, I know you had a CD with Gao Ping and the
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WC. Can you talk about the connection that you draw from? I mean, obviously, both composers
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are beautiful.
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Yes. Well, well, Gao Ping, I think he's a good friend. And I met him many years ago
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when he was studying in Cincinnati, at Cincinnati Conservatory. And I heard him play one of his
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vocalizing pianist pieces and I was just my jaw dropped and I was like, I gotta get I
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gotta meet this guy. And I have to I have to play that piece. I have to somehow do that.
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And he's such a nice person for anybody who knows him. He's he's so nice. During the pandemic,
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I was in touch with him. I premiered a piece of his for violin and piano with my brother,
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who's a violinist in the Chicago Symphony. And we were all at home and doing nothing.
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And so I did this remote kind of collaboration with my brother to play.
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He was on TV, right?
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We interviewed him. Yes. And my brother was on a video screen and we were doing a live
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virtual combination. And, you know, by that time in April, things had kind of calmed down
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in terms of the pandemic in China, they had already kind of gotten it in control. And
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so Gowping said to me, you know, can I send you some masks? Do you need masks? We have
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a lot of masks. And I think we're at the end of our need for them. So I could definitely
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send you a supply. I said, that's so nice. That's great. So he put it in the mail. We
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ended up getting them in July. Because that's how long the mail was.
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Exactly. I ordered some in the beginning too. Yeah.
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And unfortunately, we still needed them in July. So that was not...
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Yes. When they arrived, I was like, what's, what did Gowping send us? Like, what's going
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on? But yeah, in terms of music, he also has, because he studied in the States, he has a
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perspective of Chinese music from a Western perspective. And his father is one of the
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great composers of traditional Chinese music. And so he's immersed in that. And so I think
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we connected on this differing perspective approach to things. And I find his music is
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that kind of bridge between Western and Eastern culture. And the combination with Debussy,
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of course, was, I think, pretty natural. Debussy, the pieces that I chose were the ones where
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he was discovering Eastern culture. And that was such a big revelation to him and to Europe
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in general, around the turn of the 19th, 20th century. So I think that there were, in that
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particular program, bridges from both sides that kind of met in the middle and exchanged.
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And I was very, I was very proud of that, that particular program.
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I really loved that. Yeah, that's, oh my goodness. So you see, sometimes I feel like there's
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always connection between every culture. We are so far away, but somehow we are also very
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much connected. And the last question I want to ask, Ashley, you heard, I mean, you went
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to Juilliard, and also Juilliard opened up a campus in Tianjin, I guess your father,
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in my hometown. And I have some friends working there now. And I actually knew someone who
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was the main architect, designed it. So I kind of, like my father said, he couldn't
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see, they used to drive up just to see, because they feel so proud that Juilliard decided
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to choose Tianjin as the second. And I don't know if you know much about Chinese culture,
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besides that we work hard, but there's also a lot of culture, especially in Tianjin, right?
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We have a lot of musicians, we have a lot of comedians. So what is your take? What do
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you think this means for the world? You know, now, you know, I see my friends have so much
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more gigs than we have, you know, in Asia, in Shanghai, or in Tianjin, or in Beijing.
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Well, I think, you know, I think China definitely is the future of classical piano. I mean,
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there's my parents left mainland China in 49 and came to the States in the 50s. And
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they weren't particularly exposed to classical music. But then when they were, they became
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extremely passionate about it. And, you know, more Catholic than the Pope, that kind of
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thing. Like all of a sudden, all of a sudden to have something revealed to you sometimes
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can be more inspiring than to grow up immersed in it, you don't really appreciate what you
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have. I think that was their case. I think, you know, to generalize very broadly, I think
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there is a kind of that there's that dynamic happening in China. Piano music, the great
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canon of 400 years of piano music is inspiring. It is incredible. Yeah, for sure. And to not
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have it in your culture, then suddenly somehow have it at your disposal is a huge energy
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force that can power, you know, a lot of things. I think that's generally what one you know,
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I can describe Chinese relationship with with Western classical piano like that. And I think
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that there is a sense of work ethic and a sense of discipline. And that that really
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coincides well with the work that one needs to do to become a good pianist. Sure. So I
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think that that general Asian kind of approach to to working and and and time even the concept
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of time is very adapted there. But I do believe that there are some cultural vacuums, some
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misunderstandings that can happen. I that for me, that really has inspired me to see
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myself as as much as possible a bridge persona. Because I straddle both of those cultures
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and because I I have been to China quite a bit and teaching there and hearing things
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since my first visit in 1989. Wow. In 19 let's see. Yeah, 1989. Just before Tiananmen happened,
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I was there for like a month for a residency teaching and playing in Beijing, in Beijing
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and Xi'an. Okay. And, you know, and I've been there regularly since then. And it's
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always been very interesting to see that the talent of the nine year olds that I heard
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no matter what year I went, there are always these amazing nine year olds. Yeah, playing
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Chopin etudes and then and Mozart slow movements. And just like, oh my god, unbelievable. Yeah.
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But then as the students got older, they became more and more fitting the mold and the personality
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was not there. And a lot of my work with the older students in China and people who have
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studied in China and who I've taught in Europe or the States is opening that up. Like it's
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there. The knowledge, the desire for expression, the personal voice is inside. But there's
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not a there's no permission to let it out. There's no incentive to let it out. And there's
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no instruction from from the schooling there currently to let it out. And it's it's interesting
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to see, even over the last 30 years of my experience, that that's been a pretty consistent
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situation. Right. So I really feel like there has to be this cultural opening that allows
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all this training to to flower to blossom because it's an it's amazing the potential.
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Yes. There. And as I said, not just for piano, you know, you have these hundreds of thousands
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of trained pianists, millions of trained pianists, and they all think they're going to do something
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in piano. You know, I hope not. But literally, business leaders, these could be cultural
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community leaders, these could be inventors, these could be math, you know, these could
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be so many things informed by by piano training. And that's exciting.
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Yeah, and you say you have some right piano students even know right online that you're
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teaching. So I'm sure that's this pandemic maybe is changing. So I'm thinking, yes, the
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connection and the idea of who's teaching who and how and when it's all opening up,
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which is I think a really good thing.
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This concludes part one of our interview with Frederick Chu. Tune in next time for part
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two, where we talk about innovation and programming advice for young artists and more.
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You are listening to the PianoPod, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
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about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
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Welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod. I am Eric Hunter.
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I am Clara John. I'm Yukimi Song.
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Our guest today needs no introduction. We are very excited to have Frederick Chu on
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our show, who is an international concert pianist with performances on five continents
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in venues such as Lincoln Center, New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Châtelet
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in Paris, and the Mozartium in Buenos Aires. He has recorded over 30 albums. He is the
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founder of Deeper Performance Studies and recently a distinguished faculty member at
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Carnegie Mellon University and the Hart School. His non-traditional and innovative approach
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to art, including interdisciplinary collaborations and integration of new technologies, distinguishes
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Mr. Chu as a 21st century pianist. So please join me in welcoming Mr. Frederick Chu.
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Yay, welcome. Thank you so much.
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It's a great pleasure to be with you.
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Frederick, I wanted to start off with a little anecdote. I'm sure you don't remember, but
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I actually played for you in a masterclass many, many years ago.
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I thought so.
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Yeah, I know. I didn't mention it before now. But yeah, I was thinking about that and you
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made a big impression on me in just this one class. And I wanted to share that with our
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listeners. I'll probably paraphrase you very badly, but I remember we were working on some
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Bach and you were having me work on a passage and you told me, don't think about whether
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it's good or it's bad on each repetition that you do, but think about what is my ideal that
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I want it to sound like and how much closer or further away from it am I getting. And
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that really stuck with me. That became an integral part of my practice after that, just
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from that one masterclass. So I wanted to share.
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I'm so happy, first of all, you saved it for the show, this big reveal, which is good.
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You got a reaction shot. And second, I'm very honored that you have a memory of that that's
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stayed with you, that's helped you. My goal in playing and teaching is to leave a memory
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and that obviously worked. So I'm really happy to hear that. And what you're saying is great.
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And that's a point that always comes up. A lot of people, when they play, nobody likes
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to make mistakes. But of course, a mistake is a great doorway into understanding something
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about your playing. I mean, nothing happens by mistake. A mistake happens because it's
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supposed to happen that way, for whatever reasons, all the things that you brought to
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it caused that to happen. And if you take the opportunity to look at it, instead of
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judging and saying, Oh, that was good. Oh, that was bad. And somehow being attracted
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or detracted from it because of some value judgment, then you're not going to learn as
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much as you can from that moment. And it's really about learning. And anything that we
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play no matter how good or how bad, if there's some learning that we can extract from it,
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then we've improved ourselves, then we've added to our knowledge base and we're higher
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for that. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. At the time, I think I had a very harsh inner
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critic, which I feel like a lot of musicians struggle with in their practice at one point
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or another. And you got me to kind of view it from a larger perspective. You know, as
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a natural part of the process, mistakes, mistakes are inevitable. That should really be in quotes,
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right? Because a mistake is not a mistake. Like you said, it shows you where you are.
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It's information. Right. And, and it's just another step on your journey towards becoming
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an economist. Also something for pianists, we have to do a lot of our work alone. And
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even a lot of our end goal is done alone. We perform solo stuff alone and we're very
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much in our own heads. And, you know, to be very self-critical is a great thing, but it's
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also a very dangerous thing in a, in a vacuum, in an isolation from others. And that's also
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something that I found for myself. When I started teaching, when I started working with
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others, there's so much that I learned from trying to communicate and communicating badly
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and then figuring out good ways to communicate. There's, there's so much to learn from just
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being forced to interact with other people and communicating things. And that takes you
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a little bit out of your bubble and gives you that perspective. So that's, that's also
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very important. Yes. Well, thank you. I just, that's become a permanent part of the pianist
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that I am today. Well, thank you very much. All right. So can you tell us a little bit
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about your background, how you came up, you know, um, your early studies and then, you
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know, how that transitioned into your career? Yeah. I think my, I think my early, like first
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10, 15 years is probably pretty typical looking. Um, I, I would, my parents are both immigrants
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from China, a very strong work ethic at home, uh, not very social in the sense of, you know,
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having sports and all these kinds of things to do. So, you know, like just doing a lot
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of good homework and a lot of good piano practice.
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Yeah. Good. The Chinese practice, you know, that kind of thing. I, I, I feel like music
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was something that I gravitate gravitated towards more because I was able to accomplish
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things, but not because I, you know, like saw a piano and said, Ooh, I want to play
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that thing. It was something that I could do well at it was suited. Uh, and I just moved
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ahead and I think a lot of people recognize that, especially, uh, uh, Asian, Asian American
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background, they, this idea that if you do this step well, then you go onto the next
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step. Of course you do this step well. And then you find yourself suddenly on this treadmill
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and you're at, at a far reach of that treadmill. And then you wonder, Oh, how did I get here?
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And for me, that moment of turning around and looking to see where I had been and deciding
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what to do going forward, didn't happen until I was in my mid twenties. And by that time
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I had already gone to the Jacob school in Bloomington. I had already gone to the Juilliard.
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I had already won competitions. I already had a manager, you know, so it wasn't like
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that. It was not a conscious choice until I was in my mid twenties. And there was a
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moment where all of a sudden everything came to light. And this was when I was, um, struggling
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a little bit, uh, first arrived in Paris after finishing my studies and, you know, Paris,
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of course is incredibly inspiring place. And particularly for classical music, I think,
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uh, and I was there for a year, at least that was the plan. And that year started off all
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of a sudden in catastrophe. And I found myself almost homeless for seven months and certainly
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piano, kitchenless, bathroomless for, for seven months. I had no idea. Uh, there, I
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knew that I was going to end up okay. So it was just a matter of getting through these
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months, but it was pretty traumatic and certainly very, very different than what I expected
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and different than what I wanted. And that was a very difficult time, but it was during
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this time that I was going all around Paris, looking for practice spaces and arranging
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with various contacts. You know, can I practice your place tomorrow? Can I practice your place
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next week? And one of the places was a little, uh, teaching studio in a private building,
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uh, near the, uh, gallery Lafayette, uh, Chausse-Denton. And that happened. I came to the building.
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There was a plaque on the door that said Chopin lived here from 1833 to 1836. So he was 23,
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26 years old when he lived there. I was 24 at the time. Somehow everything that I had
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studied up until that moment in history class, all the things I had read, all these facts
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that we load our mind with as pianists all of a sudden came to life. It was like, Oh
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wow. Chopin's a real person. Yes. Chopin was my age. I happened to be on this street in
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Paris that was probably still with the same cobblestones paving the street. And certainly
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this was the building. I'm going up the stairs. Perhaps Chopin put his hand on this rail and
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just like I am. And even though the life was completely different, all of a sudden I was
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able to connect and empathize with Chopin as a person and everything came to light.
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And all of a sudden everything that I was doing was put into a very different perspective.
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And I realized, wow, I had this training. It's brought me to a point where I can obviously
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have some expectation of being able to achieve something. And that was when I doubled down
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and really decided, okay, I'm going to be a pianist. I'm going to do what I can with
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what I have. And all of a sudden I started practicing more. I started developing other
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ways to practice. I started seeing every moment in my life as an opportunity to practice and
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to enlarge the idea of what practicing means to not just the time I spent sitting at the
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piano moving my fingers, but also non piano playing time and non music time. All of that
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was just feeding this system that allowed me to play the piano.
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Yeah. So can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I know for you non musical activities
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are a big part of the way you practice, right? And contribute to your music making. And I'm
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particularly interested in how you got this idea and how you drew the connections to see
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how it was affecting your musical output.
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Well, it was during these seven months where I literally was not practicing piano. I mean,
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not in the sense that I was expected, you know, that I had come to expect and need kind
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of emotionally need those hours of practicing at the piano. I wasn't getting that. And so
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out of desperation, I tried all sorts of things like making a to do list of passages that
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I really desperately needed to practice in the limited time that I had. And then the
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to do lists got me to open my scores to find things. And then I was basically doing a kind
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of improvised score study through that exercise. And then just the extreme emotional experiences
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that I was having during these seven months. My life was pretty normal, you know, like,
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you know, happy and sad and nervous and whatever. But up until that moment, it wasn't life or
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death. And it wasn't, you know, extreme stage fright. When I did go on stage during these
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seven months to play or to record something, it was just harrowing. Because even before
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getting on stage to see how I was reacting, I had convinced myself that I could not be
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playing at my best. Because obviously, I had not been practicing what one needs to practice
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in order to play at one's best. So it was just a self defined thing. And then of course,
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the self fulfilling prophecy, I didn't play well a lot. And then the system kind of reverts
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to the mean and all those years of training made me play okay. It helped me to, I don't
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forget C major scales just because I'm nervous. And because I haven't practiced C major scales.
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So the basic tools were still there. And all of a sudden, I realized that I could still
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kind of play. It wasn't terrible playing. And in fact, my memory was a lot better. And
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I started to calm down. But it did take you know, it's like going through withdrawal,
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it did take a number of weeks and months to get to the other side where I could look at
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myself and say, Hey, the results aren't horrific. I'm still alive. And in fact, I'm gaining
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insight into areas that I didn't have before. And what is that coming from? And that's my
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natural kind of scientists side, just analyzing things and putting one thing after another,
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you know, just structurally trying to recreate what's what was happening. And my understanding
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was, okay, it was actually my my work with the score, my work without the score. And
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then I started defining those things. I started reading stuff that you know, like the the
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inner game of tennis and the art of motorcycle maintenance, all these also great book, all
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these great books and and kind of philosophical disruptors. And that disrupted me, I was disrupted
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already. So it was it was great to have that. And that helped me codify some things. And
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I was wondering, many years afterwards, when I had kind of settled these things for myself,
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I was saying like, why, you know, somebody could have taught this. Yes, somebody could
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have at least given me some insight into this. And not just kind of depend on the random
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encounter with a person who happened to talk about these things, or experience these things.
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So I set out to create a curriculum, which turned into deeper performance studies, and,
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you know, taking people through some of these seminal experiences that I had that really
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give perspective that we don't get necessarily in school. Yes, we definitely want to ask
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you about deeper performance studies. I have so much to say about that. What a wonderful
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story. Thank you for sharing it. I think I'm going to latch on to the last little bit where
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you said you wish somebody could have taught you, you know, one thing I'm finding as we
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interview more people for the show, is a lot of people have this point where you learned
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what you've learned, you put in the work, you went to school, did what you're supposed
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to do, right? And then at some point, you're just flying blind. For whatever reason, nobody
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can help you anymore. You're on your own, you faced with something that you've never
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dealt with before. And, and for anybody listening, I just want you to know that that's natural
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and normal and inevitable for many of us. But how you come out of that defines the kind
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of artists you're going to be. Yeah.
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Yeah. And I would say to encourage all pianists, I truly feel that it's there already. If you
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can, if you have the experience of getting on stage and playing a Beethoven sonata from
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memory for an audience, I mean, it takes a lot of work, a lot of different kind of work
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over many, many years to be able to do that. And embedded in that work is all the stuff
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that you need. It's just inside of you, you may or may not be aware of it. And you may
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or may not be confident or even knowledgeable about how to apply that to anything else except
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playing that Beethoven sonata. But it's there. If I think about somebody who goes to a country
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and is immersed in that country and learns the language, they can leave the country and
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still speak that language. You know, it's, they don't have to deal with things there
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geographically in order to use some of the skills that they learn. And playing the piano
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is like learning a language. It's a, it's a physical language. We have this understanding
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and control and sensitivity to our body and strength and balance and timing. It's this
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mental world where we're, especially for pianists, multitasking constantly. We're strategizing,
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we're decomposing and recomposing things. We're understanding theory and architecture. And
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it's this emotional life where we deal with students, we deal with teachers, we deal with
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chamber music colleagues, we deal with a person you're playing for. You deal with a hundred
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people that you're playing for as a group. You're dealing with an anonymous unknown listener
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behind the microphone who may be listening 10 years down, a hundred years down the road.
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We're thinking we have all these opportunities to think about these interpersonal, really
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diverse interpersonal relationships. And how many people really get an opportunity to practice
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these things, you know, to have the opportunity to get on stage and have full attention of
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people even for five minutes to memorize something and to be a master and solo, you know, responsible
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for something to have the day to day experience of discipline and delayed gratification to
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arrive at being able to do something incredible. It is a rare opportunity. Most people in the
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world don't even get the chance to experience these things. And we have all of that and
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that's our life. And so I really think that that is one of the things for pianists to
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encourage that encouraged me. And I think that's one of the great things. If you've
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already gone through all those years and you're frustrated at the end, you have to turn back
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and turn in and take those things and somehow appreciate them and redirect them. It may
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not be in piano playing. It might be something completely non pianist related, but your sense
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of discipline and your ability to present is going to aid you because you have it. Your
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ability to coordinate your fingers to type, you know, like pianists generally are pretty
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fast typists. You know, that's a lot of people don't know how to type. They're typing with
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that's my wife. You know, that's, that's, it's kind of silly, but that is something
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that we have an advantage over other people in that area. I think the most valuable thing
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is that it's something really to appreciate and to draw out because that will make you
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a better pianist. It will also make you better. Whatever. Yes. Whatever else you want to do.
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I mean, I think one of the most important things anybody can learn in life is how to
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learn and you know, serious study of musical instrument teaches you that. Because they
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teach it teaches you humility. Among other things. You're making you know, like what
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what piano performance does not have a mistake in it. Of course. And if you play something,
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you know, God forbid you play something perfectly once. Does that mean that you expect it's
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going to be just staying there and plateauing forever? Yeah, of course not. But a lot of
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people don't experience that day to day. We experience that day to day and we've found
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ways to deal with it. And that's a huge emotional strength that pianists have that musicians
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have pianists in particular have that. That's why we have resilience. Great. Right. Wow.
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These are really, really useful information. Thank you so much for sharing all of this
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with us. And I didn't know all this background, you know, when you first moved to Paris, but
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it's amazing. I mean, I feel like I almost can draw a little comparison with myself.
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You know, I moved here when I was 17 in Kansas and then I moved to New York when I was 23,
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24. I had already finished everything and life was great. You know, I decided to be
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a pianist when I was three. But at that point, I felt like everything was going smoothly.
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You know, I think that's also the problem. But you don't have that big, you know, and
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then you don't. And all of a sudden you arrive in New York, you're like, wow, it's like you
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basically feel homeless. You know, like, no, you're here. Everybody's here. You don't really
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know exactly how to get going. But here you are. You know, you just have to make something
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out of it. So I am so inspired now because of that. And I have this a little bit of Chinese
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background that I know your father is also from the city I was born in. What is and when
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you went to Paris as well, I know you still do a lot of collaboration. For example, you
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work with composer Gopin. And also, I saw this video. It was lovely of a French movie,
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but they were singing in Chinese. Just because all of the musicians nowadays are all overseas
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everywhere. You know, I want to hear your experience of drawing different culture and
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then you were born and raised here in America, right?
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I think that's definitely a strength of mine, having a Chinese upbringing, American culture.
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And then somehow, I went to the middle point between the US and China and landed in Paris
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and kind of immersed myself and I was drawn to Paris. I don't know why French was such
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a draw to me, but somehow a fascination with it. I never studied it in school, but I decided
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when the opportunity presented itself, oh, I'm going to spend some time in France. I
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ended up living 12 years there and having a whole life, getting married, having kids,
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becoming a citizen. And I think those three cultures really have forced me to look at
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things from different perspectives. And I didn't know it at the time, but I think that
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having three different points of view was very balancing and really kind of pushed me
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into a lot of the thinking that I came to for piano playing.
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And I think that those three cultures really have such strong and very different distinct
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thinking styles, their perception of time, their perception of work, their perception
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of beauty are also different. And perhaps you could have said that about any three cultures,
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but for me, it really was very striking and is always a point of reference for me. Am
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I American? And looking at this as American, what would I see? Am I Chinese? And looking
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at it from a Chinese perspective, what does that mean? And French, how would they see
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it? And I think that that kind of perspective just came very naturally to me from the very
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beginning.
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Wow. I can relate that so much. And I'm sure a lot of our audience, maybe later on watching
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us from wherever they are right now, currently, during pandemic, I hear everybody's back.
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And I moved to Kansas and without a word of English, so that was kind of became my identity.
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So even to this day, people here in New York call me Topeka, Topeka Kansas. So it's a
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very interesting thing. But I want to hear, I know you had a CD with Gao Ping and the
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WC. Can you talk about the connection that you draw from? I mean, obviously, both composers
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are beautiful.
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Yes. Well, well, Gao Ping, I think he's a good friend. And I met him many years ago
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when he was studying in Cincinnati, at Cincinnati Conservatory. And I heard him play one of his
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vocalizing pianist pieces and I was just my jaw dropped and I was like, I gotta get I
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gotta meet this guy. And I have to I have to play that piece. I have to somehow do that.
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And he's such a nice person for anybody who knows him. He's he's so nice. During the pandemic,
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I was in touch with him. I premiered a piece of his for violin and piano with my brother,
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who's a violinist in the Chicago Symphony. And we were all at home and doing nothing.
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And so I did this remote kind of collaboration with my brother to play.
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He was on TV, right?
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We interviewed him. Yes. And my brother was on a video screen and we were doing a live
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virtual combination. And, you know, by that time in April, things had kind of calmed down
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in terms of the pandemic in China, they had already kind of gotten it in control. And
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so Gowping said to me, you know, can I send you some masks? Do you need masks? We have
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a lot of masks. And I think we're at the end of our need for them. So I could definitely
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send you a supply. I said, that's so nice. That's great. So he put it in the mail. We
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ended up getting them in July. Because that's how long the mail was.
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Exactly. I ordered some in the beginning too. Yeah.
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And unfortunately, we still needed them in July. So that was not...
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Yes. When they arrived, I was like, what's, what did Gowping send us? Like, what's going
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on? But yeah, in terms of music, he also has, because he studied in the States, he has a
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perspective of Chinese music from a Western perspective. And his father is one of the
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great composers of traditional Chinese music. And so he's immersed in that. And so I think
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we connected on this differing perspective approach to things. And I find his music is
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that kind of bridge between Western and Eastern culture. And the combination with Debussy,
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of course, was, I think, pretty natural. Debussy, the pieces that I chose were the ones where
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he was discovering Eastern culture. And that was such a big revelation to him and to Europe
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in general, around the turn of the 19th, 20th century. So I think that there were, in that
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particular program, bridges from both sides that kind of met in the middle and exchanged.
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And I was very, I was very proud of that, that particular program.
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I really loved that. Yeah, that's, oh my goodness. So you see, sometimes I feel like there's
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always connection between every culture. We are so far away, but somehow we are also very
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much connected. And the last question I want to ask, Ashley, you heard, I mean, you went
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to Juilliard, and also Juilliard opened up a campus in Tianjin, I guess your father,
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in my hometown. And I have some friends working there now. And I actually knew someone who
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was the main architect, designed it. So I kind of, like my father said, he couldn't
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see, they used to drive up just to see, because they feel so proud that Juilliard decided
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to choose Tianjin as the second. And I don't know if you know much about Chinese culture,
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besides that we work hard, but there's also a lot of culture, especially in Tianjin, right?
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We have a lot of musicians, we have a lot of comedians. So what is your take? What do
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you think this means for the world? You know, now, you know, I see my friends have so much
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more gigs than we have, you know, in Asia, in Shanghai, or in Tianjin, or in Beijing.
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Well, I think, you know, I think China definitely is the future of classical piano. I mean,
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there's my parents left mainland China in 49 and came to the States in the 50s. And
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they weren't particularly exposed to classical music. But then when they were, they became
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extremely passionate about it. And, you know, more Catholic than the Pope, that kind of
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thing. Like all of a sudden, all of a sudden to have something revealed to you sometimes
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can be more inspiring than to grow up immersed in it, you don't really appreciate what you
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have. I think that was their case. I think, you know, to generalize very broadly, I think
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there is a kind of that there's that dynamic happening in China. Piano music, the great
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canon of 400 years of piano music is inspiring. It is incredible. Yeah, for sure. And to not
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have it in your culture, then suddenly somehow have it at your disposal is a huge energy
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force that can power, you know, a lot of things. I think that's generally what one you know,
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I can describe Chinese relationship with with Western classical piano like that. And I think
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that there is a sense of work ethic and a sense of discipline. And that that really
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coincides well with the work that one needs to do to become a good pianist. Sure. So I
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think that that general Asian kind of approach to to working and and and time even the concept
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of time is very adapted there. But I do believe that there are some cultural vacuums, some
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misunderstandings that can happen. I that for me, that really has inspired me to see
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myself as as much as possible a bridge persona. Because I straddle both of those cultures
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and because I I have been to China quite a bit and teaching there and hearing things
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since my first visit in 1989. Wow. In 19 let's see. Yeah, 1989. Just before Tiananmen happened,
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I was there for like a month for a residency teaching and playing in Beijing, in Beijing
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and Xi'an. Okay. And, you know, and I've been there regularly since then. And it's
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always been very interesting to see that the talent of the nine year olds that I heard
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no matter what year I went, there are always these amazing nine year olds. Yeah, playing
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Chopin etudes and then and Mozart slow movements. And just like, oh my god, unbelievable. Yeah.
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But then as the students got older, they became more and more fitting the mold and the personality
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was not there. And a lot of my work with the older students in China and people who have
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studied in China and who I've taught in Europe or the States is opening that up. Like it's
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there. The knowledge, the desire for expression, the personal voice is inside. But there's
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not a there's no permission to let it out. There's no incentive to let it out. And there's
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no instruction from from the schooling there currently to let it out. And it's it's interesting
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to see, even over the last 30 years of my experience, that that's been a pretty consistent
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situation. Right. So I really feel like there has to be this cultural opening that allows
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all this training to to flower to blossom because it's an it's amazing the potential.
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Yes. There. And as I said, not just for piano, you know, you have these hundreds of thousands
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of trained pianists, millions of trained pianists, and they all think they're going to do something
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in piano. You know, I hope not. But literally, business leaders, these could be cultural
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community leaders, these could be inventors, these could be math, you know, these could
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be so many things informed by by piano training. And that's exciting.
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Yeah, and you say you have some right piano students even know right online that you're
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teaching. So I'm sure that's this pandemic maybe is changing. So I'm thinking, yes, the
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connection and the idea of who's teaching who and how and when it's all opening up,
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which is I think a really good thing.
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This concludes part one of our interview with Frederick Chu. Tune in next time for part
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two, where we talk about innovation and programming advice for young artists and more.
