Charlie Liu’s Blog

Charlie is one of the 3 lucky kids who got sent to the Youtube Symphony Orchestra’s (YSO) Carnegie Hall debut. From Sunday Apr. 12 we started sending the kids to Mrs. Elena Rossman, president of the AADGT (and agent for Charlie) to get the kids prepared on the Rachmaninov Waltz for 6 hands. The other two kids, Anna and Derek, are both from Boston area and had practiced together. However, Charlie did not work with them yet. This Waltz, although short, is rather difficult in terms of coordination. The 3 kids constantly have one hand conflicting with the neighboring kids, and since Charlie sits in the middle, he gets the most conflict. He’s also the only kid able to reach the pedal, so he needed to take care of the pedaling for all 3 kids’ melodies. None of this is too hard for the 3 talented kids of course, but it does take practice. Fortunately Mrs. Rossman set aside enough time to coach the kids and got them into a pretty good shape with the piece.  Eventually they were ready for the first big event on Apr. 13.

But wasn’t the Carnegie Hall performance on Apr. 15? What’s the big event on Apr. 13 then? Well, it’s a lesson for the 3 kids by Lang Lang’s famous teacher, Mr. Gary Graffman! Around 3 pm we gathered at Mr. Graffman’s apt. building together with Lang Lang Foundations’ Anastasia Boudanoque (the 3 kids had the great chance thanks to her and of course Lang Lang himself! And Jessica Lustig too, who helped arrange everything related to traveling and other organizational issues etc.). Together we went up to Mr. Graffman’s apt. BTW, his apt. building is almost right across street from the Carnegie Hall, incredibly convenient isn’t it? It has wonderful decorations inside too. Mr. Graffman greeted us at the door. He’s a nice gentleman who has this beautifully decorated apartment full of mostly Chinese paintings, 唐三彩, and other artifacts. If these things were in my house, one thing you can surely bet is that they’re not authentic! But Mr. Graffman’s are. Then again, our task was to have the kids practice and learn from Mr. Graffman, so I guess I digressed. With everyone settled down, Mr. Graffman asked the kids to play for him once. The kids started the now well-rehearsed piece nicely and we all enjoyed it. Mr. Graffman suggested better dynamics and the kids played again once or twice, and Mr. Graffman’s satisfied with the result and said the kids would be great. Then he led us to the dining room and gave the kids cookies made by his wife and told us some interesting anecdotes. One that I remember clearly was about him and Lang Lang, who has an apartment so close to his building they can practically see each other. So one day Mr. Graffman came back home, and immediately got this phone call. He picked it up and it was Lang Lang, who said:”You’re finally back!”. While we were talking about Lang Lang giving lesson to the other two kids in Boston (Charlie missed the lesson because Lang Lang was sick when he went to NYC, but he’ll get one when Lang Lang comes again), Charlie was clearly channeling his disappointment into appetite - he almost finished 1/3 of the bucket of cookies! I guess Mr. Graffman’s wife really makes good cookies!

On Apr. 14, another big event in the morning - the news conference. First time we went to a news conference with Charlie and other kids being presented. Everyone was present, including MTT (Michael Tilson Thomas), Tan Dun, Yujia Wang, Youtube and Carnegie Hall representatives, and of course, the 3 little kids. The spotlight was certainly on the YSO, but after the news conference is over and it was free interview time, the kids got interviewed by some of the NJ/NY area Chinese media. It was the usual questions, but when the news report came out, we didn’t know what to say - one newspaper wrote “Charlie Liu’s parents were developing him in all aspects” (sounds good so far) “and hope that he’ll become famous”. Huh?! When did we say that?! I wanted to fashionably deny it and say - it’s categorically untrue! - until I asked Charlie if he said something like that. He told me that they asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, and he said he didn’t know, maybe be famous. So the news reporter connected two facts together and made it sound like we were hoping to make Charlie famous! Well, we wouldn’t mind if it happened, but that’s not why we try to develop him in all aspects - we did it so he has so much fun in his life that if he decides he didn’t want to do piano he’d still feel very happy with his childhood. After all, extremely few kid (at all!) might have a chance to be another Lang Lang even if one plays as long and hard as he did when he’s a child. So why risk it?

In the afternoon, famous pianists Yujia Wang and Jeremy Denk both came to give the kids lessons.  Yujia Wang is a beautiful young lady who followed fairly similar route as Lang Lang did - receiving early piano education in China, became very famous, came to the U.S. as a teenager and furthered study, got great career boost when subbing for famous pianists and receiving rave reviews, and now has an insanely crowded concert schedule.  So we very much appreciate Yujia and Jeremy’s help with the kids given their schedules!  Yujia liked Charlie very much, rubbing his hair and calling him so cute many times (she jokingly apologized for it, but continued to do so many more times after Charlie’s Carnegie Hall performance. But I don’t think Charlie or anyone objected to it though ).  Jeremy spent a lot of time with the kids trying to fit their playing to his understanding of the music and he did a great job.  Musically the kids improved much after these two great pianists worked with them and they’re finally ready for the big stage!

April 15, the big day, FINALLY - quoted from everyone’s diaries except for MTT’s, who from the start had expressed unhappiness with only 3 days of practice.  Long before the show started, people started accumulating near the main entrance to the Carnegie Hall; the Youtube poster at the entrance bears a “SOLD OUT” tape; people carrying cameras and shotgun mics roaming; and one truly feels - that’s it!  That’s the big event environment the kids are so lucky to be part of (again thanks Mr. Lang Lang!), that’s what they’ve been practicing these few days for, and that’s a night they’ll remember for a long time!

In a dark hall, the show finally began.  Projectors projected the audition videos of the YSO members over the dome of Carnegie Hall while the YSO sits on the dark stage.  MTT appeared to an excited audience and big applause.  He introduced YSO, the ideas, the results (!) to an engrossed audience for the next 2.5 hours, finally ending the concert to a standing ovation.  It was a great success and I was pretty amazed at how well YSO performed together.  To the ears of a semi-layman like me, it was near perfect!  Kudos to YSO and MTT for this wonderful job!

Oh wait, oh, the kids of course!  The show’s not just YSO’s - the kids came right after the intermission and performed the 6-hand waltz wonderfully, to the audience’s amazement and delight.  In fact, AP kindly wrote “The show was nearly stolen by three youngsters mentored by pianist Lang Lang - 8-year-old Charlie Liu of Plainsboro Township, N.J.; Anna Larsen, also 8; and fellow Boston resident Derek Wang, 10. They plopped down on a bench and played a six-hand waltz by Rachmaninoff without a hitch, then took their bows to the audience’s delight.”  Indeed, we all enjoyed the kids’ performance very much, and the audience loved them too.  I especially enjoyed Charlie smiling so shy, and as if he didn’t want others to see that he was smiling, he lowered his head and sneakily smiled several more times, so cute!

Here are some other Chinese media describing the kids’ performances: qq.com (with a nice photo of the kids!), 世界日报 (with the funny 哭笑不得的 report), 香港文汇报.

Without further ado, here’s the video with the 3 kids’ performance (our own video was shot from too far away as we gave our tickets to the kids and were sitting at very top of balcony, and the audio was quite low; Youtube’s video has far better quality and shots, also better audio, so I didn’t bother uploading my own version yet):

BTW, thanks for reading this long post! Hope you enjoy the performance!