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Shanghai Dreams
Pianist Tian Jiang explores the creative process and strives to bring accessible classical music to the masses. By Virginia A. Sheridan
Piano virtuoso Tian Jiang doesn’t just perform, he puts on a show. His concerts have involved orchestral accompaniment, visual imagery, sophisticated stage lighting, a choir, even ballet dancers. "People love it because my music is very visual," he says of the original compositions he often plays after more classical selections. "The lighting, the choir – it’s really like another orchestration."
The flash is in no way an attempt to cover up any musical flaws. The Juilliard trained pianist has been playing the likes of Lizst and Chopin from the age of five, has performed with noted orchestras throughout Europe, North America and the Far East (including the Hong Kong Philharmonic), and has been lauded by one New York Times music critic as having "an enormous technique with extraordinary clarity." Why, then, mount productions that might be interpreted by colleagues as diverting from the seriousness of classical music?
"ln today’s audiences, thc number of people who truly understand classical music is small. The majority like to listen to selections that are, perhaps, not so intense. My own music – which I consider romantic in the classical tradition – is perhaps easier to access," explains Jiang, who is clearly passionate, as opposed to arrogant, about his work. "One of my missions is not only to perform to sophisticated audiences, but to bring a younger audience into the concert hall. As a performer, it doesn’t matter how academic you are – in the end the final goal should be to communicate with thc audience."
Which is why, for his sixteen-city tour of China this summer, the Shanghai-born pianist will perform selections from his own composition Shanghai Dreams and the traditional Chinese concerto Yellow River in addition to Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. There will also be audience participation, as individuals will be invited to submit ideas for a live improvisational piece. "I did this last September in Shanghai in a concert that was televised live to the entire nation. Someone read a piece of poetry and I played my immediate impressions of it," explains Jiang.
No surprise, then, that Jiang’s latest musical pursuits have been in the world of composing. His inspiration generally comes not while sitting at the piano, but while sitting on a beach. "I play about fifty to sixty concerts a year all around the world," explains the loquacious pianist, not at all lamenting his busy schedule. Instead the composer tries to make creative use of his time by recording his impressions of each place. "After a concert, perhaps in the South of France, I might drive to the ocean side and sit by myself. I see the lights, I listen to the waves and I get excited. l always bring a cassette player with me while traveling, and I might sing into it or talk about my feelings or hum a melody. When I get back to my piano, I listen to the tape then transfer those feelings to the keyboard – and I record this as well."
Jiang was discussing this very process on a US radio program when he was "discovered" by a documentary filmmaker and invited to be the feature subject of the film Into The Music. "The story is about the process of creation, but also about how I was inspired to play the piano – and how my family was inspired to support me in my career. [The director] gave me five subjects and, based on that, I composed five pieces of music. He also filmed me ice skating in Central Park and eating in Chinatown with my parents."
Now a US citizen and a resident of Manhattan [his Upper East Side apartment features a Steinway), Jiang spent his childhood in Cultural Revolution-era Shanghai, where he was initially prohibited from study music because of his family’s classification as "intellectuals" (his father was a Western opera singer and his mother was a dentist). "I remember when I was two-years old. I woke up and saw these people that seemed old to me then – but were really teenage Red Guards – taking my toys away," Jiang says, recalling the often-harsh treatment his family suffered during that time. Although Jiang was considered a child prodigy on the piano, he was twice denied admission to the state-sponsored music school.
But through persistence and a change in the political climate, Jiang pursued his passion and was chosen to represent his city at the Spring Music Concert when he was just twelve-years old. Later he was allowed to leave China to study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Mac McCray. "[He] taught me how to look at a piece as a whole rather than get caught up in the details," he says of his esteemed teacher. "He taught me how to be driven by my own spirit, by a kind of chi. That’s simple to say, but difficult to accomplish. To do it, one needs not only to practice, but to experience life so that you have something to draw from. When I play Rachmaninov, there’s a pain so deep I cannot even breathe. It’s the accumulation of the sad feelings of my past, and it helps me to be honest in my performance."
There are no foreseeable tears in the immediate future of this performer, who is booked to play with international symphonies and in his own commercial tour until April 2000.