Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What makes a concert pianist?

Is it starting at a young age under good tuition, developing top sight-reading skills or is it dedicated practice and excellent aural memory that eventually carries the day?

I guess the formula of achieving a success as a concert pianist is not only to be a technically excellent performer but also to be able to spellbound the audience. Piano performing is just as much show business (combined with smart marketing).

2 things, technically:

1) You have to be a pianist
2) You have to play in concerts

LOL

Although I'm a pianist and I play in concerts, but wouldn't consider myself a 'concert pianist'
How odd :p

Dave

2 things:

you gotta be good
you gotta be lucky

koji (STSD)

...or you need a lot of money and lots of friends so you can hire out concert halls, and fill them up with audiences.


btb,

Sight reading doesn't have as much to do with it.

hey
what a stupid thread!
look around and try to find a concert pianist who is able to make his living on playing, there are only a few buddies to do so, the "rest" , well sleeping the half of the day and practising the other

it's better learning a serios craft and be a lucky plummer than living in LA doing concerts or writing scores for Disney

all rite, fellows?

Thats a bit harsh

I think you are best listening to Brendan or Elena for this type of question.

I think it has a lot to do with luck. I mean, think about Lang Lang. He had nothing until he got a lucky break when some concert pianist got injured before a performance, so he stepped in, and after that one performance he got so much exposure that his life's not been the same since. Same thing for Horowitz, his career was abysmal (he played for half-empty auditoriums in France and to scathing reviews) until, in America, he subbed in for an injured pianist and played the Tchaikosvsky Concerto No 1 as if his fingers were on fire. His life was never the same.

I remember reading that, before the concert, the conductor at the time said to Horowitz something like, "just don't screw up and we'll make it out no problem." Remember that Horowitz had less than one day's notice to play in the concert. So, Horowitz proceeded to light the piano and the audience on fire with his fingers, and the shocked conductor occasionally stared at Horowitz's fingers in awe and amazement. I can imagine that if I was there, I would know that a special career was jumpstarting on the stage.

Pretty much everybody takes a different path.

So is Watts. That Liszt Concerto No.1 launched his huge career.

Cecil Licad had 6 listeners including the stage hand in her first recital. Listen to her new Gattschalk recording on Naxos will fully convince you that she IS cut out to be a professional pianist.

Or Koji (Thracozaag, who has already sounded off). Don't forget that he's a phenomenal pianist as well who went to Curtis and is now at Julliard working towards his Ph.D. He knows a thing or two about the business!

His post actually sums everything up perfectly and concisely. "Gotta be good; gotta be lucky" All of us can develop, overtime, an amazing technique and, if we love the music, a respectable sense of musicality. But as for hitting the concert stage and attracting an audience, well..that typically relies on who you know and on being at the right place at the right time.

True. Funny thing now is that a good number of pianists substituted for an "ailing" Watts and had a big boost because of it - Orion Weiss and Lang Lang come to mind immediately.

Edit:

To add my experience to the thread, you need:

1. Money or a sponsor.
2. Luck.
3. A bubbling personality.

And these days..

You gotta know the right people
You have to sell yourself! (aka provacative photography)

No I think you can be boring and make it big as a concert pianist. Yundi Li talking is probably about as exciting to listen to as a ceiling fan. I have on tape several of his interviews. But his playing is exquisite.

rofl

Meng-Chieh Liu as well! Watts has unwittingly helped a lot of pianists, haha.

koji (STSD)

Weiss is good but by boosting Lang Lang to fame, I'd say Watts has created a monster...