Piano virtuoso Angela Cheng joins Vetta for all-Dvořák gala concert
Included in the program is a four-hands, one-piano piece Cheng will play with her husband, fellow Juilliard grad and Oberlin professor, Alvin Chow
Angela Cheng.
Vetta Chamber Music presents Angela Cheng with Vetta Chamber Players on May 14 at 7 pm at Christ Church Cathedral
ACCLAIMED PIANIST ANGELA CHENG comes from a musical family: her grandfather started a factory making violins in China that still exists, and his nine children and their kids were all expected to take piano or violin lessons. Classical music filled their home, and she spent time at the keys with her mom and aunts. After Cheng’s family moved to Edmonton when she was in elementary school, they didn’t have a piano at home, and she recalls how, in this new land, she felt utterly lost without it.
“I remember asking my mom if we could get a piano,” Cheng tells Stir on the line from Ohio, where she’s a professor of piano at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. “I was miserable not speaking the language—I was a very good student, but I was failing because of the language—and having no friends. I had no more aunts to study with, and I needed the piano. I needed it.
“She arranged it and found me a teacher,” she says. “I didn’t have a piano, but I had a teacher, and it was a big step. The more I studied, the more I knew this had to be my life.”
Cheng went on to get her bachelor of music at the Juilliard School (where she met her husband, pianist Alvin Chow, a fellow Oberlin professor) and her master’s at Indiana University. She has performed with orchestras across Canada and the U.S. and appeared in concert around the world. In 2009, Pinchas Zukerman invited her to tour Europe and China as a member of the Zukerman Chamber Players and as his collaborative pianist. Known for her razor-sharp technique and fine musicianship, Cheng has won gold at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition and was the first Canadian to win the prestigious Montreal International Piano Competition.
Cheng has close ties to Vancouver, with many close relationships in the local music community. She’ll be the guest star at the grand finale of Vetta Chamber Music’s 2021-22 season, performing alongside Vetta artistic director Joan Blackman, violin; David Gillham, violin; Yariv Aloni, viola; Zoltan Rozsnyai, cello; and Chow.
The gala concert features an all-Dvořák program: Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, Nos. 4, 6, and 8; Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor “Dumky”; and Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81.
“Dvořák is such beautiful music,” Cheng says. “It’s so attractive not only to audiences but to the musicians, especially the piano and strings repertoire.”
Cheng’s friendship with Blackman goes back to their days in Alberta, where the two met through the Edmonton Youth Orchestra. “I remember Angela was a star way back then, and she has never stopped shining brightly,” Blackman tells Stir. “I can’t wait to spend time with her rehearsing and performing with her in our program of some of the most touching music Dvorak has ever written. I know this is going to be a very special and heartfelt concert.”
At the Vetta concert, Cheng and Chow will perform Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, Nos. 4, 6, and 8 together, four hands on one piano. “When you share an actual instrument with someone—the pedal, the keyboard—it really has to be somebody you feel very, very close to,” Cheng says. “It’s a joy. It’s not without its challenges; we argue, too. We have to express how we feel, but in the end we want the same thing, and I’m so glad Joan included this in the program.”
At the pair’s home in Oberlin, Cheng has two pianos: a seven-foot Steinway and a Yamaha grand. She purchased the latter when she was 17 after saving up enough money from wins at Kiwanis Music Festivals. “I don’t practise on it, but it’s very special to me,” Cheng says. “It’s quite old now and tiny. It’s not a great piano, but it’s sentimental.”
Cheng still gets nervous before performances, although she doesn’t see that as a bad thing, and readies herself simply by practising, practising, and practising.
“I think it’s okay to be nervous,” says Cheng, who recently performed with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at its Ode to Joy: Beethoven’s 9th concert. “That means you care a lot about what you do. I’m nervous when I'm not nervous.
“I think I practise more now than I ever have over the years,” she says. “It has turned from a chore to something I really love, and luckily as a pianist we are blessed with such an enormous repertoire that even when you have studied something and you have played it a dozen or 30 times, that doesn’t mean you’ve discovered everything that one has to know about it. It’s an ongoing, lifelong search, a journey that keeps fulfilling you. It’s never done, it’s never perfect. But the more you study, the more you learn, and from your experiences working with other musicians and what you’ve experienced in your own life, you can express it through the music. I just enjoy the music. When I’m playing I don’t think of anything else; it’s so incredibly inspirational and beautiful, and it’s such a great feeling to be able to share that with people.”
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