Regaling the world with music

Renowned concert pianist lives his passion on the global stage

The internationally acclaimed pianist Rueibin Chen has always believed in the overarching importance of music.

"Music is my life, my passion, my destiny," he said in Hong Kong recently before catching a plane to Los Angeles for his next performance.

Chen is a much sought-after performer and composer. He has won numerous awards and accolades, proof of his love for the piano, which perhaps is matched only by his passion for charity.

Well dressed, but not extravagantly, Chen often wears a constant smile on his face.

Born in Tainan City, in southern Taiwan, Chen was introduced to classical music by his father, an elementary school teacher who taught and loved music. "My whole family is musical," Chen says. "There was a piano at my home before I was even born."

Chen's father bought the 120-year-old vintage piano with an ivory keyboard third-hand, and it became a sentimental family heirloom. "They stopped making that kind of piano a long time ago," Chen says. "It means so much to me that I couldn't give it up to any museum."

He started taking piano lessons at the age of 5 from his father and uncle, who had won a national piano championship in Taiwan. Chen was expected to practice four hours every day and the lessons would be recorded for his strict father to review after dinner.

Learning to play the piano was more difficult when Chen, now 47, was a child. It was harder to find records then, so he would go to the city with his father on a motorcycle to find vinyl records of Beethoven compositions.

The lessons he received were often erratically scheduled.

"My uncle was living in the northern part of Taiwan. He would come down to my house once every six months to teach me some basic (piano lessons), and I would write down notes and practice for half a year," Chen says.

At the age of 6, the child prodigy won his first piano competition in Taiwan playing Beethoven's piano sonata Pathetique.

At the age of 10, he made his debut as a concert pianist with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. Three years later, the Taiwan government adjudged him extraordinarily gifted. He was later sent to Austria to study.

Still in his teens, he entered the Vienna Conservatory as its youngest student, since all his classmates were in their 20s. Owing to financial constraints, it took 10 years before he saw his family again.

He kept in touch with them by writing letters. Every lunar new year and Mid-Autumn Festival, when it was cheaper to make calls, Chen would get on the phone to spend a few precious moments with his loved ones.

"It was even more heartbreaking to speak with them," he says. "It only reminded me of the fact that I was away and made me miss them more."

In Vienna, where he studied under master teacher Dianko Iliew, he devoted almost all his time to practicing piano and going to the opera. He lived in a shabby building with no elevator, no private toilet or bath, so that neighbors would not complain about his constant practicing.

He devoured all the music the Austrian capital had to offer, alongside opera. As he could only afford the cheapest standing tickets, he would stand there for hours at a time, completely lost in the music.

"Being a true music fanatic, I went to almost a hundred opera performances," he says. "I was amazed because it was impossible at the time to have such access to classical music in Taiwan or even (elsewhere in Asia)."

After graduating with a diploma in piano performance with the highest marks, he continued to study under maestro Arie Vardi at the Hannover Hochschule fur Musik and received the soloist's examination award. Later he studied with the world-renowned Russian piano virtuoso Lazar Berman, as his only disciple from Asia.

"It is very important to understand Western culture before you can perform their art," he says. "Your audience can tell whether you have an understanding of their culture and music.

"Interpersonal communication in the West is very different from what we have in Asia," Chen says. With his Western friends, "we'd be talking about their history and culture. I learned a lot from our conversations."

Chen has performed around the world, from the Americas to Europe and Asia, and amazes his audience each time.

"I have audience members leaving messages on my fan page saying that they thought I was Russian in my previous life and that my soul was Russian," Chen says, laughing. "Some ladies from Moscow came to me with tears and told me they were so impressed that I spoke their musical language so well.

"When I play, I put myself into the time, the weather, the atmosphere the music describes."

Chen has won many international piano competitions and awards such as the Bosendorfer prize in Vienna. He has named Best Young Artist by Taiwan's Minister of Culture, and won the Best Prize for Contributions to Music at the Salzburg International Music Festival, and the Albert Roussel Prize in Paris.

For all his achievements, Chen remains modest.

"I don't have a definition of success. I don't know if I'm successful yet," he says with a laugh. "I never thought of having audiences enjoy my performances as being successful but it, indeed, has always been one of the driving forces of my entire career."

When he is not performing, Chen conducts master classes in places like the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Master Player International Music Academy in Lugano, Switzerland.

He wants to pass on what he has learned, "especially (to) students coming from my Chinese culture".

Charity is another of Chen's passions. "If I weren't a pianist, I would have worked in charity for sure," he says.

He holds free concerts for the underprivileged whenever he can. He once put 200 wheelchairs in the VIP area of a venue to make sure those in the audience with special needs could enjoy his music.

In 2012, Chen organized the first National Piano Competition for Disabled Youngsters in Taiwan. The winners performed with him before an audience of about 2,000.

"I want to let them know that everyone is entitled and able to enjoy music," he says.

Despite having spent his formative years of piano study practicing hard, he says he hardly has time to do that nowadays "due to all the tightly scheduled performances".

"But I do take time off every year to create new music. I'm very interested in creating something new." In recent years, Chen has done a lot of collaboration and premiering of new solo and piano concerto works in addition to his solo recitals and orchestral performances of classical repertoire.

"My father ... wanted me to become a teacher like him," says Chen. "Now I've proved that I chose the right way for myself and they're very proud of me."

For China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 02/20/2015 page29)