Vanessa Huang is a straight-A student in Mrs. Behrend’s fifth grade class at Millstone River School, and like many 11-year-olds, she is very busy with many things. She plays lacrosse on two different teams –– Lightning and Five-Star –– and just finished swimming with the Winter Whalers. She loves to cook whip up special dishes for her family, including an especially juicy turkey last Thanksgiving from a recipe she found on the Internet. She also makes traditional Italian spaghetti and lo mein, Chinese noodles from the land of her parents’ birth. She plays the oboe in the school band, and, oh, yes, in just a couple of weeks, she will be playing the piano for a recital at Carnegie Hall. Just once would be impressive enough, but this will be for the second time in her musical career, one that began with piano lessons at the tender age of five.
I learned about Vanessa’s impending Carnegie Hall appearance from Will, who is in her class and has heard her play. We were shooting a soccer ball around in the yard when he asked, “Hey, mom, is it a big deal to play at Carnegie Hall?” Let’s see, absolutely, yes, it is a big deal. Playing at Carnegie Hall is like the Holy Grail for musicians. That landmark New York recital hall is legendary for its acoustics, beauty, and the famous people who have graced its stage. It was built in 1891 by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and is one of America’s premier venues for showcasing both classical and popular music as well as talented young musicians from New Jersey, including West Windsor’s own Vanessa Huang. There is even a well-known joke that has one man asking another how to get to Carnegie Hall. The answer? Practice, practice, practice.
And just how much practice does it take, I ask Vanessa. She tells me that she practices 45 minutes to an hour a day. And what does it take to get her to practice, I ask her mother, May, wondering if any form of bribery might be involved, since I know how difficult it is to get children to practice. I still have nightmares about the battles to get Will’s sisters to sit down and practice the piano, and Will considers himself more of an athlete than a musician, though he did choose to play the violin in the school orchestra on his own.
“Actually, we try not to force her to practice or give her rewards,” she tells me. “She knows the importance of working hard and then playing better as a result. And her teacher made playing the piano fun, because Vanessa had other friends who also played, and they would play duets together. So it was like they were getting together for a social event so they felt like they weren’t even working.”
When you get to Vanessa’s level of playing, there are various annual competitions drawing musicians locally, around the state, country, and even on the international level. Last year she won a spot on the Carnegie Hall stage in the Winner’s Concert of Rising Talents Festival through an audition at Music-Fest 09. She played “An Evening in the Village” by Bela Bartok, a Hungarian composer and pianist. This year she won the coveted performance prize through the Golden Key of the United States Music Festival, which is billed as a “major cultural event that attracts young instrumentalists and vocalists from across the United States and other countries.” The winners were judged by a panel of judges in six age divisions. On Saturday, May 1, Vanessa will take the stage to play Sonatina in C, Opus 20, #1, by Friedrich Kuhlau. “Last year I wasn’t nervous at all because I really didn’t realize the importance of playing at Carnegie Hall,” says Vanessa. “This year I’m more nervous because I understand more what it means.”
But when Vanessa sits down to play her selection for me, she is all focus and grace; no nervousness here, as her virtuoso fingers fly over the keys to perform the lively and energetic first movement. Her mother watches proudly, her head moving to the notes she has heard over and over and over again, surely, but that never lose their impact. She knows what it means to introduce a child to an art and nurture that talent day-to-day, year-to-year with a loving mixture of support and discipline.
May Huang doesn’t know where Vanessa’s talent came from; neither she nor her husband really plays the piano. She is a respiratory therapist at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in Hamilton, and her husband, Weilin, is a professor of environmental science at Rutgers University. May believes that some of Vanessa’s drive was influenced by her older sister, Angela, a junior at High School South who also played the piano and whom Vanessa regards as her hero. “Vanessa really looks up to her big sister,” says May. “Of course, sometimes, like all sisters they might have disagreements, but Angela is smart and talented, and Vanessa sees her as a role model. When she makes lunch for herself, she will also prepare lunch for her older sister too.”
Vanessa’s piano teachers have also been role models. Her first teacher, Heather Atagan, with whom she studied through the Westminster Conservatory of Music in Princeton, recently moved to Texas and had her first baby; Vanessa now studies with Fiorella Araya-Cheng in Kingston.
“I love seeing people smile when they hear me play,” Vanessa tells me, but at this point she doesn’t see herself as a concert pianist when she grows up and rather is thinking about becoming a lawyer or a pharmacist. Her dreams include going to the University of Pennsylvania and having a grand piano of her own. And I can’t resist asking her this question: “When you grow up and have kids, are you going to have them play the piano and are you going to make them practice?” Her answer, not surprisingly, is yes. Between now and her recital, you can guess exactly what Vanessa will be doing to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.
