1er Chopin Competition Prize, extraordinary consecration but also unexpected ton of bricks on the head of a young man, changed the life of Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu. How did he experience the competition and what prospects are open to him? What implications for Montreal may have its success, which follows the 2e Price of Charles Richard-Hamelin six years ago? The duty discussed it at length with him.
Warsaw, October 20, 3:25 p.m. Bruce Liu, who we have always known here by his first name, Xiaoyu, completes the second movement of the 1er Concerto by Chopin. He is the last of the 12 finalists in the competition, and his ultimate test has gone very well so far. It is at this point that most of its competitors relax their attention or get tense about the issue. We have the impression that the last movement is taken less seriously. Yet it is he who understands many rhythmic and dynamic traps.
What is going on in candidate Liu’s head at this time? “I have a hard time remembering. Everything is so fast. The third movement is a mazurka-type Polish dance. It’s a bit like the Variations in the third test; a moment of happiness. And when there are things like that, I have fun. It’s in my nature. “
In fact, where in others the bellows falls, Xiaoyu Liu exults. “It is said all the time that Chopin is nostalgic and in pain. It’s not that I’m happy all the time, but I’m a pretty optimistic guy who gets content easily. So, in my approach to Chopin, we end up forgetting the sadness, we dance and we party: it comes with my naturalness. “
Show your abilities
Just before Xiaoyu Liu entered the scene, the cameras showed him discussing the score with conductor Andrei Boreyko. On social networks, we wondered: “As long as he has not followed the finals too much and is not really aware of the boulevard that opens in front of him. “
Indeed, Sorita the Japanese and Gadjiev the Italo-Slovenian, who in terms of musical and sound creativity had stood out with him during the preliminary rounds, had provided excellent but not decisive performances.
“I hadn’t listened to anyone,” Xiaoyu admits calmly and in cultivated French, “not out of arrogance, but to stay in my bubble. In fact, throughout the competition, I did not go to the hall ”.
The ease we felt on his part is explained. “In the final, I was relaxed because just being in the final made me happy: I could present all the repertoire I had prepared, and that was my goal. “
The pianist, who admits to us that he was “more nervous during the previous events”, is surrounded by a small team made up of his parents and his teachers. We understand that his parents do not push him, but support him and that his teachers respect him.
“I started the conservatory with Richard Raymond. He gave me my basic technical education, the attention to the score. Dang Thai Son, with whom I have worked for five years, has helped me develop my personality. “
Xiaoyu Liu attributes to the age and to Dang Thai Son to have “left adolescence”, a turning point which he places “at 20 years”. “Dang Thai Son found the best in me, in my nature. “
“When we are children, we play in a school way because we have nothing to express. It comes with age, and when you want to express something, it can become dangerous, because it can conflict with taste. It’s like getting dressed. If we don’t want to “show off”, We put on a t-shirt and jeans and it’s okay. But when you really want to dress, you can see the taste of the person. And there, it can be anything like it can be high-end. Dang Thai Son and Richard Raymond see that the students are all different and that we must find the best way to convince according to their nature rather than applying a method. “
Feel a story
One of the effects of Xiaoyu Liu’s victory, six years after Charles Richard-Hamelin’s second place in the previous edition of the world’s largest piano competition, will be to turn the spotlight on Montreal and its musical education. Is the metropolis called upon to become a training center attracting more pianists from all walks of life? “I think so,” Xiaoyu Liu tells us.
“I haven’t thought about it yet, because before the competition I really didn’t expect that. When I was getting ready, I just wanted to play my program. But there, I feel that we are bringing something to Montreal and Quebec, especially since Charles Richard-Hamelin is really an honest and sympathetic person who encouraged me. So I feel that musical life in Montreal is going to be very active. “
Xiaoyu Liu’s training in Montreal did not form him for Chopin. He says it himself: “I was never really a chopinist. He is interested in all the repertoire, in particular French music with, at the moment, a particular tropism for Rameau.
Wonny Song, Xiaoyu Liu’s first mentor, before he entered the conservatory, told us about the young child’s passion for listening to records and discovering interpretations in relation to the repertoires he tackled. Again, the taste changes with age. “When I was younger, I admired pianistic perfection. Of course also the music, but the sense of technical quality which aims for perfection, people like Zimerman or Perahia. I didn’t really like the old masters who we know make mistakes. Now it’s a bit the other way around. I admire Alfred Cortot, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, or Samson François even more. I even have a form of addiction to old sound, vinyls, those things where you can feel a story; a beauty that children do not understand. “
The main challenge
Since the end of the event, Xiaoyu Liu has really enjoyed the atmosphere in Warsaw, rubbing shoulders with the other finalists. “I knew them for some from other competitions. Others, I discovered them here. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic, but the friendship between the participants is very special. From the outside, we have the impression that we are competitors, but this time I really didn’t have that feeling. The chance to get together, to party; the positive vibes largely dominated. “
To see the happiness and ease of Xiaoyu Liu during the successive trials, it is undoubtedly the most difficult that begins now. The winner is monopolized by the concerts in Poland which follow the competition, while solicitations fall on him from all over the world. The state of preparation for a career varies greatly depending on the candidate. Alexander Gadjiev, 2e Price ex a quo with the Japanese Sorita, has its Internet site, which proposes to “start the experiment” and which from the first page questions the Net surfer: “Do you have a project? Let’s talk about it. Undoubtedly, the Chopin Competition is for him a stepping stone towards a programmed and organized career.
None of that for Xiaoyu. The “Bruce Liu pianist” research has only resulted this week in a fairly marginal Taiwanese site which organizes a few local tours. Before that, we couldn’t find anything. On the question of the practical management of the ton of proposals that fall on him, Xiaoyu Liu can only make a fatalistic observation: “In practice, it’s simple: I have hundreds of unread messages, because with all the gala concerts after the competition, all I can say is: “Give me a little time”. “
From this point of view, the Van Cliburn Competition, which takes care of post-competition career management for a certain period of time, may seem intrusive for some, but beneficial for profiles of this type. Because the stakes will be major and will depend on the career that Xiaoyu wants to lead under the surname Bruce Liu and the territories he wants to target. Deutsche Grammophon has already announced a record of the best moments of his trials. But what will this publisher do next, knowing that he is already selling globally another Canadian pianist, Jan Lisiecki, supposedly a great specialist in Chopin?
Pitfalls and challenges will rub shoulders with discovery and excitement for those who had just come to Warsaw to show what they had prepared.