By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Anton Nel has experienced piano competitions from all sides.
He won his first competition at age 12 in his native South Africa. Many more followed. As a teacher now with the University of Texas at Austin his students perform in competitions. And he serves as a judge, including for the nation’s most prestigious piano festival, The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Even with all that experience, he finds it difficult to put into words that quality that elevates the very best performers above the rest of a highly qualified field.
This weekend Nel will be the guest artist and judge for the 13th David Dubois Piano Festival and Competition on campus. He will perform at recital of music by Schubert, Mozart, Debussy, and Chopin, Saturday, Jan. 28, at 8 p.m.in Bryan Recital Hall. He will also present a master class Friday from 2:30-4:30 p.m. also in Bryan which will also be live-streamed and serve as a judge for the finals Sunday, Jan. 29, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Kobacker Hall. All events are open to the public and free.
“My heart always goes out to the competitors because they’re putting lives on the line for however long they have to play,” Nel said in a recent telephone interview from Texas where he is the director of keyboard studies at the University of Texas. “I’m a very sympathetic juror.”
He’s sure given the high quality of contemporary piano students that the playing at the Dubois finals will be excellent. “What I look for most when I judge a competition is to be touched by the performer. I feel everyone is going to play technically fine then there is that kind of X factor that’s hard to describe that unexpectedly touches you.”
It’s rare, he said. As the judge of the early live round of the Van Cliburn competition, he listened to 72 pianists, “many, many outstanding pianists,” as he helped winnow the field down to 30 who would make it to the preliminary round.
Then one pianist began to play. It took only a few notes, and Nel, out of the corner of his eye, could tell no one was breathing. “He had this extra power of communication that had us spellbound.”
Nel advises his own students that “when you go in for something like this you have to understand that even if you play amazingly well, you may not win for any number of reasons.”
The quality of pianists is increasing. Just as in figure skating where a double toe loop was once notable and now quadruple jumps are expected, the level of technical accomplishment continues to rise.
“When there’s an artistic component involved it’s always a bit tricky,” he said.
“So much emphasis is put on perfection. … With the expectations that people will not make mistakes when they compete sometimes the stuff that makes the music speak is missing. That’s something I’m looking for because at the end of the day it is going to be what makes the difference.”
Nel said that for students the key is to cultivate a deeper appreciation for music. If a pianist is studying a Mozart sonata, they should also be listening to the composer’s string quartets and operas. “It’s a much more comprehensive experience than just playing the piano. … I like playing the piano, but I really love music.”
Having that deeper appreciation makes the musician a finer artist, Nel said.
His own musical journey began on a farm in rural South Africa. Television was not available at the time. But “there was always a lot of music in my house,” Nel, 61, said. “Everyone on my mother’s side either played the piano or sang. … I was always attracted to the sound of the instrument.”
His mother was a pianist, and though she never formally taught him, she encouraged his interest in music. He would pick out by ear the melodies she played and figure out the chords that supported them. He was 10 when “she realized that this would be a good idea to sign me up for piano lessons.”
Nel studied at first at a program at a small local college. He said he was lucky to have access to quality instruction in a rural area. As he advanced, he would travel three hours one way for lessons in Johannesburg.
By 12 he had won the distinction of playing Beethoven’s C Major Concerto with orchestra. This launched a half-century career as a performer and a teacher.
His playing career has taken him to the top concert halls around the world playing as a soloist and as a chamber musician and featured with top orchestras. He’s even had a turn on stage as the pianist in Moisés Kaufman’s play “33 Variations” during which he performed Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.
The centerpiece of his recital on Saturday will be Franz Schubert’s Fantasy in C Major “Wanderer” which will close the program. He has performed the fantasy since he was a graduate student.
Nel is drawn to the composer’s gift for melody. “Everything by Schubert is some song or other,” he said. “Harmonically it’s so sophisticated. It has interesting kind of structure. The nucleus of it is in the second movement. It’s cleverly organized through the transformations in each movement. … It hangs together in an amazing way.
“With Schubert in general his music speaks to me on a very deep level. The soul in the music is something I feel very close to.”
Nel finds that his artistic understanding of the work improves every time he returns to it. “The technical side needs more practice,” he added. “It demands a certain amount of endurance. You have to go at it gradually or you’ll injure yourself.”
The program builds to the concluding Schubert. Even within a shorter program, he wants variety in styles and textures. He’ll play three selections from Claude Debussy’s Second Book of Preludes. That reflects Nel’s love for French music. On the first half of the program Nel will perform W.A. Mozart’s Sonata No. in D Major and Frédéric Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major.
During his long education career, he spent a decade, 1990-2000, as chair of the piano department at the University of Michigan. He said he knows many of the music faculty at BGSU.
“I’m very fond of that part of the world,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it. It will be a lovely visit.”
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The 13th David D. Dubois will welcome 15 pianists grade 8 through grade 12 to campus for the semifinals in Kobacker Hall Saturday, Jan. 28 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the finals Sunday, Jan. 29 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
All events are free and open to the public.
The pianists are vying for awards of $3,000 for the first place, $2,000 for second place, and $1,000 for third place.
The semifinalists are:
Evan Yu – Dublin, Ohio
Alayna Hill – Marlow, Oklahoma
Sophia Lin – Falls Church, Virginia
Erik Jacoby – New Albany, Ohio
Roxane Park – Bedford, New Hampshire
Aurora Wang – Shoreview, Minnesota
Sunny Rong – Canton, Michigan
Cory Wu – Powell, Ohio
Sophia Suwiryo – Mason, Ohio
Keliang Yao – Lebanon, Ohio
Patrick Flythe – Gahanna, Ohio
Levi Li – Powell, Ohio
Jean Yu – Rochester Hills, Michigan
Katia Jacoby – New Albany, Ohio
Ella Kim – Herndon, Virginia
