February 6, 2012
2Pianists:South African musical duo stops at Upper School on world tour Online Exclusive
The South African musical duo 2Pianists, renowned worldwide for their renderings of classical music, conducted master classes and performed a concert in the Nichols Auditorium on October 9.
The duo, Luis Magalhães and Nina Schumann, stopped in San Jose on the North American section of their tour. Married with two children, they are professors of piano at Stellenbosch University in South Africa; both have been playing piano for nearly their entire lives.
The classes and concert were made possible by Timothy Lin (11), who spent his sophomore year in South Africa as an apprentice pianist with the professionals themselves.
With the help of Timothy and his family, the Conservatory program was able to have the duo perform a 90-minute concert as well as provide enriching learning opportunities for student musicians through four master classes.
“Any time we can have an opportunity to have teachers of this caliber come through the school and work with our students just completely increases the status of our program, and shows what a terrific place we have here,” Orchestra director Christopher Florio said.
Melody Huang (10), Gene Wong (10), Benjamin Tien (11), and Sonya Huang (12) were selected after an audition process to have thirty-minute master classes on Friday afternoon. Each student prepared a classical or romantic piano piece for the professionals to critique, and other students came to watch as well.
Having taken piano lessons for ten years, Gene thought that the master class was very different from his own regular piano lessons.
“[Schumann] tells me to emphasize the more interesting chords in some places and stress the first instead of the second beat,” Gene said. “The single best part [was] when she play[ed] with me. She gave me a beat and a tempo to follow, and it turned out really well.”
The master classes benefited not only the students on stage but also the audience. Florio described these teachings as “much more the university experience, which [was] great.” The way the duo focused on the finer details such as posture and technique contrasted with the way he focuses on the “bigger picture.”
“I was as much of student during the master class as everyone else was,” Florio said. “I always consider myself a student of music—there are brilliant artists around who can always teach me something, and the kids as well.”
From all that the piano duo have experienced in their musical career, “[the hardest part] is the fact that you can never stop,” Schumann said. “You can’t take a day off because you are like an athlete. If you lose or one or two days, you lose the flexibility of your muscles, and that means that we never take holidays.”
Magalhães started playing piano from the age of five, and he gave his first concert at nine years old.
“My inspiration, I guess one can just say, is discovering music,” he said. “There’s so much to discover, and that gives the will [for me] to keep working more and more.”
“They really taught the kids how to look into the music, into every single little thing,” Florio said. “People tend to look over the little intricacies of the written music, like a text that you had to follow. It was really excellent.”
Magalhães and Schumann head to San Francisco and Dallas this month for the remainder of their tour.
