It’s said that practice makes perfect, but one 9-year-old piano prodigy is busy proving it is more than routine repetition that makes true talent.
Xiaolin Zhang might be the best young player in the region, recently seeing off competition nearly twice his age to win the prestigious Young Musicians of the Gulf contest for a second year running.
Never mind that the youngster is regularly nagged by parents and teachers alike for not spending enough time behind the keys.
“His mum will tell you the same thing as me – he should do more practice,” says Ron Malanga, Xaiolin’s head of music at Dubai’s Horizon School. “He doesn’t practice enough,” his mother Janjie agrees. “I think really he needs to do more. The teacher always says he should practise.”
Zhang himself admits he “doesn’t know” why he stood out from the 116 other students who competed at the annual contest.
“Maybe it’s because I give the music feeling,” he says thoughtfully. “If I’m playing a waltz, I’m watching people dance a waltz in my head.
“A lot of people hear my piano and feel very good – I want people to feel good when I play.”
More astounding than his relatively brief practice schedule – typically less than two hours a day – is the fact Zhang has been playing for little more than four years. It was a decision the young player made himself after originally turning down the offer of lessons from his parents.
“If a child says he doesn’t want to learn it’s very difficult to push them and they won’t do well,” says his mother. “But if he wants to do it, he’s interested and will do much better.”
However if Zhang, who was born in the UAE to Chinese parents, is criticised by his teachers for not spending time honing his craft, he’s far from lacking parental encouragement.
“I like to hear him play,” Janjie says. “When he plays piano at home I’m very happy to hear this sound; it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.”
Malanga agrees, and points out that there is more to excelling at the piano than sitting down to “muscle dance” in front of the keys.
“I’m not arrogant enough to call myself Xiaolin’s teacher,” says the American expat. “Kids like that are learners – you keep them around the art and their natural genius does the rest. Some of the things Zhang is capable of defy reality.
“Kids like this are practising at every moment of the day – they’re just not using their fingers. When they play, they’re doing what we do when we text – they are tone texting. They own the language of music so well that they correct themselves automatically.”
The Young Musicians of the Gulf competition, organised by British Schools in the Middle East and in its 16th year, attracted entrants from 10 schools in Kuwait, Doha, Bahrain and the UAE.
Three music experts were flown in to judge the competition – the conductors Richard Dickins and Christopher Adey, and flautist and teacher Atarah Ben-Tobin – while the British ambassador to Bahrain, Iain Lindsay, presented the winner with his trophy. Despite being the youngest of the finalists in the competition – which accepts entrants between the ages of 8 to 18, who are judged equally without any consideration of age – Zhang triumphed over singers, a cellist and tabla player in the final after performing two pieces by Chopin, including the downbeat Piano Sonata No 2, commonly known as The Funeral March. That mature repertoire is something the young musician is eager to expand and he dreams one day of being a professional pianist.
“Next, I hope that I can play harder pieces and more beautiful pieces,” he says.
“After I grow up my hands will get bigger so I will be able to play a lot harder pieces with bigger stretches – there are a lot of pieces that I’d like to play but my hands are too small.”
Zhang will celebrate his 10th birthday next month and so will be eligible to compete in many more editions of the Young Musicians competition.
Asked what he wants for his birthday, he answers simply and directly: “More music books.”
[ rgarratt@thenational.ae ]
