Pianist's true calling rests off-stage

Pianist Wang Xiaohan plays at a recital in Beijing. Photo provided to China Daily

Millions of children and young adults in China learn the piano. Some do so for purely musical reasons, but others may find it easier to score points while applying for higher education, if they have an "activity" alongside to show.

Most talented Chinese with genuine interest in the piano either win international competitions or learn from renowned masters and become career pianists, but few decide to take up full-time teaching.

Wang Xiaohan, 34, is one of them.

He teaches piano at the middle school attached to the China Central Conservatory of Music. Every year, he presents about 20 onstage recitals and paints and composes in his spare time. On Dec 13, he played at the Forbidden City Concert Hall, where he presented a mixed recital of compositions by Schumann, Beethoven, Scriabin and his own Piano Paintings.

In the early 1980s, Chinese parents in big cities started to send their children to learn musical instruments. Wang says his diplomat father spent about 1,700 yuan ($274), manyfold his salary, and bought a piano and found a teacher through advertisements in the newspaper.

Wang, then 5, learned from his teacher, who lived in a small lane, for nearly six months before turning to professors Jin Aiping and Li Qifang at the China Central Conservatory of Music.

At 10, he won the Xinghai Cup Piano Competition, the highest national contest for children. He impressed the judges, including famous pianists Bao Huiqiao and Zhou Guangren, and both met Wang's father to tell him that Wang should become a pianist.