Eight concertos and two instruments in one night: Pianist Niu Niu takes on big challenge for kids with cancer
The former child prodigy is taking on one of his most ambitious performances yet for Viva Foundation’s 20th anniversary concert, bringing together Eastern and Western music in a performance involving movements from eight major concert works, while raising support for children with cancer.
Niu Niu was in Singapore to give a private recital ahead of his Oct 27 concert. (Photo: CNA/Wallace Woon)
New: You can now listen to articles.
This audio is generated by an AI tool.
Read a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
Pianist Niu Niu isn’t one to shy away from a challenge. At his upcoming concert in Singapore, the Xiamen-born Chinese musician will be performing highlights from no less than eight great concertos and making his stage debut on the violin, to boot.
Some might call him an overachiever – and they’d be objectively right. The 29-year-old, whose real name is Zhang Shengliang, started out as a child prodigy who embarked on his musical career at the age of six, going on to become the youngest student ever enrolled in the affiliated primary school of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at age eight, sign with record label EMI Classics at age nine and earn a full scholarship to The Juilliard School in New York at age 17.
At Viva Concerti: Where The Twain Shall Meet, to be held on Oct 27 at the Esplanade Concert Hall, he will be performing movements from concertos by Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Liszt and more, together with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra under the baton of Chan Tze Law.
The concert, organised by the Viva Foundation for Children with Cancer, is being held in celebration of the organisation’s 20th anniversary. The foundation is a Singapore charity dedicated to improving childhood cancer survival through medical care, research and education.
“Niu Niu is a very sensitive musician,” said Viva’s chairperson and founder Jennifer Yeo. “He has a very open mind and open heart to all kinds of music, which makes him an amazing musician. Most of all, he loves music, and you can hear it in his playing. I also know that he has a soft heart for those who are less fortunate, including children with cancer.” This made him an ideal collaborator for Viva’s 20th anniversary, she said.
“I think this concert also represents us all moving forward together, using music to share love and harmony,” Niu Niu said.
“With Maestro Chan Tze Law and the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, together with the audience as well as with the Viva Foundation, we are creating something very harmonious together, and I think that kind of power is very important. I hope to convey that kind of power to all the children with cancer. Even if there’s a very slight possibility of them getting power and reassurance from music – I would like to try.”
When deciding the concert lineup, Niu Niu said he particularly wanted to include pieces by Chinese composers. And so, he’ll be performing He Zhanhao and Chen Gang’s Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, as well as the fourth movement of the Yellow River Piano Concerto by Yin Chengzong et al.
“I started performing in Europe when I was seven or eight years old. I’ve always tried to play one or two Chinese pieces in the encore, even up until now,” Niu Niu explained. “People absolutely love it, because I think cultural pride is one of the most important things that allows a musician to stand in an international world.”
The Butterfly Lovers concerto will mark his Asian violin debut, and he feels “honoured” to be doing so with “this most famous Chinese violin concerto”, he said. “As a Chinese, I have a very deep feeling toward it. I feel a deeper connection with my homeland after all my years of studying abroad, and I hope to convey all these emotions on that night.”
He added: “I think being able to do something like playing the violin in the middle of the other seven piano concerto movements is a great challenge for me, but it’s also making my dream come true to do something that’s rarely or never been done before.”
Additionally, “I’m working toward my big goal of being able to play both of these Chinese concertos, the Butterfly Lovers and the full Yellow River concerto, in the same concert. We are planning that for next year, when there will be a tour in China.”
The concert’s theme is fitting because a confluence of Eastern and Western influences has shaped the musician he is, too.
“Honestly, I think I’m very fortunate to have received education in both China and the US,” he said. “I think China gave me very strong foundation that allowed me to have very solid techniques and skills to be able to fulfill what I want to express in music, and it also allowed me to build a very strong repertoire. In the US, I think it was more about elevating the imagination, individuality and originality, and then being able to achieve a higher artistic level. I would really say that one could not exist without the other.”
In his personal life, as well, east does meet west. “I try to keep a disciplined lifestyle – I practise at the same time every day, like going to work – while at the same time, being very spontaneous all the time,” he shared.
That said, playing the piano is never just a job for him. “Nowadays, I treasure every performance opportunity more and more, especially after COVID-19,” he said. Plus, “I really love music, because it is actually one of the languages in which I communicate with people.”
In his own time, he even likes playing pop songs on the piano, like JJ Lin’s Those Were The Days and Practice Love. “I really love listening to very sad, romantic songs,” he divulged.
He also enjoys dancing to hip hop and K-pop, especially right before a concert. “It helps me to relax,” he said.
While “many of my friends like to play pop songs to pursue girls”, “I don’t always use music as a pickup line – sometimes I say I’m an IT guy,” he quipped. That’s because “I want them to like me as a person, not because I can play JJ Lin or Jay Chou songs. I feel that having a genuine character is very important.”
One thing he’s asked all the time is how to deal with nervousness before a concert, he shared. “I always say that you have to embrace it.”
Before every concert, “I try to be a little bit nervous, because I have experienced many different stages of this, performing for 23 years”. As a child, “I was totally not nervous. When I played in front of Prince Charles, who’s now King Charles, I didn’t feel anything. I was just doing my thing, because I was into expressing myself in front of people. I really wanted to show that I could do this and that. As I grew up, I became more self-conscious – age 12 to 20 is a very weird time. Now, I know what I’m doing. I try to stay focused and a little bit nervous.”
Viva Concerti: Where The Twain Shall Meet is on Oct 27, 7.30pm at the Esplanade Concert Hall. For tickets, visit https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/donaviva1026 .
Source: CNA/my
RECOMMENDED
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST
Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
