Piano precision demands passion, commitment

LEAVENWORTH - At 20, Daniel Anastasio has already performed with his hometown San Antonio Symphony.

He traveled across the country, however, to have someone tell him he needs to keep his arms looser when he plays.

"What got in the way of you hitting your tempo?" quizzed instructor Christina Dahl after hearing Anastasio play for about 20 minutes, performing the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor.

Anastasio and eight other young accomplished pianists were in Leavenworth this weekend for the yearly "master class" in piano offered by Icicle Creek Music Center.

An appreciative crowd of about 20 people gathered Saturday morning at Canyon Wren Recital Hall to hear Anastasio and other students.

Anastasio described his performance as not quite at the pace he hoped to capture.

"I get energized," he said when asked by Dahl to explain further.

She offered Anastasio tips on arm placement and posture for controlling his sound.

"You were jazzed, and it took you awhile to deal with that," said Dahl, chair of the piano faculty at the Eastern Music Festival and School in North Carolina.

For piano musicians, there is always room for improvement, said Oksana Ezhokina, co-artistic director of the center and coordinator for the invitation-only master class.

She laughed when asked how many hours she studied as a young learner. Ezhokina, 34, has a doctorate in musical arts for piano performance and performs as part of the Icicle Creek Piano Trio.

She recalled lessons in her native Russia from an "extremely demanding" teacher. By age 15, she was enrolled in a specialized music school and practicing about five or six hours daily, she said.

Few learners will follow that path, but piano lessons remain popular among youth in the Wenatchee and Leavenworth areas - and with good reason, instructors say.

"If you master the piano, the other instruments become much easier for you," said Diane Stober, who has taught piano in Wenatchee for about 30 years.

Students learn about melody and how to read music, and though the piano's popularity may not be at its apex - Stober cites Disney's "High School Musical" as sparking strong interest in voice and dance lessons for youth - Stober said she has more than 30 students.

Families with students enrolled in the Valley Academy of Learning - part of the Wenatchee School District - can take advantage of free group piano lessons, and about 50 students in grades three through nine from the Wenatchee area are enrolled in the piano program.

Stober said it takes commitment to develop proficiency in the instrument.

"If they start in third grade, take five or six years of lessons ... my hope would be, if they did quit, they would continue making music and playing piano the rest of their lives," she said.

Exceptionally talented and motivated youths often practice three or four times more than average students, said another longtime local teacher, Jill Larson.

Anastasio said he tries to practice two to three hours a day while taking classes at Cornell University, where he is a sophomore studying under the other instructor at the Leavenworth master class, Xak Bjerken.

"It's tough to be a performer. ... I don't know if I have what it takes to be a concert pianist," Anastasio said, adding that becoming a faculty member at a university is another goal.

His talent brought him access to prestigious summer music camps, but his commitment wasn't solidified until, at 16, he heard a performance by pianist André Watts that was so powerful it moved him to tears.

"I've only found that with music," he said.

For more stories from The Wenatchee World, visit http://wenatcheeworld.com

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