CULTURE

Keys to success

Hwaen Ch’uqi has overcome disability to become a prize-winning pianist.

By Galina Stolyarova

Staff Writer

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times The extraordinary pianist Hwaen Ch’uqi makes his St. Petersburg debut at the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall on Friday.

Learning to play the piano was originally anti-stress therapy for blind Incan musician Hwaen Ch’uqi but his talent has made him a recognized globe-trotting performer, most recently the winner of a special prize at the Second International Sviatoslav Richter Piano Competition in Moscow in June.

Friday sees Ch’uqi appear at the Shostakovich Philharmonic in a program of Haydn’s Piano Sonata E major, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Franck’s Prelude, Choral and Fugue H minor and his own piece “Loss.”

Born in Lancaster, Peru, Ch’uqi was abandoned by his parents and later adopted at the age of five by George and Inez Tomlinson, who took the boy to the U.S. and introduced him to the piano.

“There were some deeply personal traumas in my early childhood that I could not easily communicate to anyone so I found my comfort in sharing the emotions with the instrument, confiding them to the piano,” Ch’uqi said.

Ch’uqi’s concert is being arranged by the Musical Collection concert agency.

“We spotted him at the Richter competition and his performance made such a profound emotional impact,” agency artistic director Yekaterina Artyushkina said. “I felt we absolutely must introduce this musician to Russian audiences. This is true talent, a genuine diamond that you so rarely see.”

“The musician could not advance to the third round owing to physical limitations: in the final round you have to perform with the orchestra, and Hwaen would not be able to look at the conductor,” Artyushkina added. “For this reason, the jury could not award him a Grand Prix but they have established a special prize for Ch’uqi — which they do not normally do — and the Richter Foundation has become a patron of the musician.”

Ch’uqi had his first piano lessons from Cindy Wittenberg of the “Silver, Wood and Ivory” ensemble on a Suzuki piano stipend. Eventually the musician moved on to study under the emigre Russian professor Natalya Antonova at the respected Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

When Ch’uqi listened to his first-ever classical work — a recording of Brahm’s Second Piano Concerto — he found it impossible to believe he was hearing a lone musician playing a single musical instrument. “Inca folk music is performed by many people, and listening to the concerto gave me a similar impression,” he said. “I imagined many voices, and it gave me a shock to learn that all this wealth of sound can be produced by just one instrument.”

Russian influences — from Shostakovich to Prokofiev to Rachmaninov — can be traced in Ch’uqi’s own music, and he favors the Russian repertoire as much as Bach. Musically, there is a Peruvian connection too, yet it is not an obvious one.

“When one thinks of Inca folk music they mean primarily the pentatonic scale [musical scale with five pitches per octave in contrast to the traditional heptatonic, or seven note, scale],” Ch’-uqi said. “This does not apply to my works. The Inca culture affects my music in a different way. The Inca folk music tradition of many people’s voices — or many musical lines — creating a single beautiful and harmonious piece of music is very close to me, and therefore I always wanted to compose with the use of counterpoint, which is really a similar idea.”

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times Hwaen Ch’uqi studied piano in the United States.

In his leisure time Ch’uqi is learning to play banjo and an Inca folk instrument, the reed quena — a kind of flute.

As a blind pianist, Ch’uqi did not have a model to follow and was probing his way with the use of his senses. “Inca are very sensitive people, and many of them have a gift for music and the arts,” he said. “Feeling this connection was an enormous help.”

The pianist learns a new score either from the notes from the collection of the U.S. Library of Congress, which has a Braile section, or through hiring a reader. “I usually learn one large movement from a sonata — or two shorter ones — in one day,” he said. “But works like, for example, the Goldberg variations, would take several months.”

Ch’uqi’s most admired pianist is Richter, and a meeting with the great Soviet pianist — who died in 1997 aged 82 — was always his sacred dream.

“I still remember the day when Richter died and the way I felt; my devastation at the loss of a genuis,” Ch’uqi remembers. “Richter has a unique distinct performing style: after the first touch of the instrument I always immediately know that it is him playing. He produces such a grand, broad picture, such a wonderful musical landscape. I really want to learn his sound.”

What especially appealed to the musician about the Richter Piano Competition was that he saw numerous references to Richter’s life and career in music.

“The bottom [age] limit for the participants is set at 23 years old — while there is no top limit at all — and Richter’s performing career in piano started relatively late,” Ch’uqi explains. “The festival also encourages the participants to perform their own music — a nod to the fact that Richter had been interested in composing and conducting before choosing to settle on the piano.”

As he noted in a recent interview, when describing his physical condition, Ch’uqi uses the words “I am unable to see” rather than saying he is blind.

“I much prefer these simple words to a broad spectrum of stereotypes which is often associated with words, ‘blind,’ ‘visually impaired’ and so on,” he said. “These days, I frame the events surrounding my condition in the grander context of being an Inca; a point of which I am truly proud.”

“I really wish that all people — regardless of whether they are blind or have a perfect eyesight — learn to see their own potential in life,” Ch’uqi said. “Many of us never become aware of the hidden talents that they have.”

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