Jonathan Tsay, surrounded by piano hammers. Tsay will perform a masterclass at Franklin College’s Custer Theatre March 24.
SUBMITTED PHOTO.
A select few Franklin College students will enter the spotlight this week, performing in front of an internationally-known pianist.
Franklin College will welcome Jonathan Tsay to its campus, where he will perform a free masterclass for students and attendees March 24, including music from Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann, John Corigliano, Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann, Jiang Wen-Ye, Franz Liszt and Christopher O’Riley, according to a Franklin College news release.
Along with Tsay performing, Franklin College students will get to perform pieces in front of the pianist, who is the principal keyboard of the Las Colinas Symphony and the Dallas Chamber Symphony. He has also performed at numerous venues in Asia, including what Tsay called the “Carnegie Hall of Taiwan.”
Tsay’s journey to music was a gradual one.
“I was not really what anyone would call a child prodigy,” he said. “I did lessons, but I wasn’t performing at a super young age. I was a late bloomer. I started to play out in my early 20s and fell in love with music after discovering chamber music and performing written music with other people.”
Tsay, who grew up in Dallas, went to Southern Methodist University before going to Montreal for graduate school. After college, he went back to the Dallas area, performing at small shows in piano stores that had concert halls attached to them, he said.
“Very few people get signed coming out of school,” he said. “Booking your own shows starts with a store that has a concert hall attached to it that has recitals and for free or a small fee they’ll let you book the hall and it has a nice instrument. They let you perform so they get foot traffic.”
Tsay’s talent was soon recognized, performing at the Cliburn International Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. But it wasn’t until he passed an audition for a 2016 international competition in Taiwan that he knew he had something special going.
“Playing at the National Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, it’s their version of Carnegie Hall. They have an audition process and you turn over your materials,” he said. “You turn them in alongside people who are internationally known artists, and people with the highest priority pick the first days. I was able to get on that picking list. It was the first time I thought that I will be recognized internationally. It’s a very reputable hall and I didn’t have many connections in 2016.”
Now, Tsay is an assistant professor of piano at the University of Memphis, and he’s appeared at masterclasses similar to the one he will be at at Franklin College. From those classes, which feature some of each college’s most dedicated musicians, he’s seen people later on become professional pianists, he said.
“People I’ve taken masterclasses with have become colleagues later down the road. People I’ve taught in a masterclass setting, 10 to 15 years later, have served on the same jury for a competition,” he said.
Franklin College junior Devyn Kerr began learning piano because he wanted to learn to play “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” by Elton John, getting his first keyboard for Christmas in 2018. Not until the start of the current school year did he begin taking regular lessons, after becoming a music major halfway through his sophomore year.
Last fall, Kerr performed in front of a crowd for the first time, at Franklin College’s Custer Theatre, the same theater where the masterclass will take place. Kerr, who will perform Chopin’s “Waltz in A Minor,” has been practicing his piece since October, he said.
“It’s kind of intimidating, but I’m really excited to learn what (Tsay) has to offer and what kind of advice he can give me,” Kerr said. “I’m really excited to get it out there and show my progress and what I’ve done.”
Rachel Krodel, a senior at Franklin College, has been taking piano lessons since she was six years old, but didn’t start performing in recitals until high school, when she got more involved in musical theatre, Krodel said.
“I would say that I’ve started playing more advanced pieces and I’ve also been working a lot more on general technique,” she said. “I’ve worked more on memorizing pieces rather than relying on sheet music. I have exposure to a lot more different styles. I used to do a lot more contemporary, but right now I’m working on a Bach piece and last semester I did a Debussy piece that was totally different.”
Krodel will perform Bach’s second “Fugue in C Minor” during the masterclass.
“I’m definitely nervous, but I think it will be a really good experience for me,” Krodel said. “Someone outside of my instructor will be giving me pointers and things to look for. I will be playing for him and other people attending the masterclass. I think it will be a good thing, confidence-wise.”
IF YOU GO
Jonathan Tsay’s masterclass will take place at 7 p.m. today at Franklin College’s Custer Theatre.
The event is free and open to the public
