Most memorable performance for you?
Performing in 2012 at the opening ceremony of the UEFA European Football Championship. I played a unique interpretation of Chopin’s Winterwind in front of 60,000 football fans when Poland took on Greece at the brand new National Stadium in Warsaw. The Polish fans were delighted to hear Chopin at a national game and the live television broadcast went out live to 300 million people across the world.
Did you go through the school of hard knocks to get where you are today?
A great moment came when I was 18, I called my piano teacher to cancel a lesson because I hadn’t practised. He had such wonderful personality and he just kept talking and I couldn’t even say that I had called him to cancel. He was explaining that a Japanese pianist had cancelled a concert at The Liszt Academy Great Hall and nobody was able to jump in. The concert was sold out and my teacher asked, “What am I going to do?” He kept talking for 20 minutes until I just interrupted him and said, “I’m going to jump in!” I did jump in and I played at the Liszt Academy Great Hall to a full house and it was after this concert that I was invited to Southeast Asia. Then when I was in my early twenties I wanted to be known in the US and had a dream to play at Carnegie Hall, so i went to North America. I went from one venue to another until I was discovered. I had two suitcases with me, one with a broken handle. My father created this rubber band and I could connect the rubber band to the front suitcase so I could pull the second suitcase. I was walking like a train all around the place and people laughed at me. I literally didn’t earn anything, I went from one friend to another sleeping on sofas.
Do you think pianists are sexy?
I certainly think being a pianist is very sexy. Music making requires a lot of sensitivity, eroticism, and the communication of honest and sometimes very deep emotions. When I’m in the audience I also want to like what I see of the performerit’s sometimes unfair, but that’s the truth. On a personal level, in high school there were 32 female classmates and just five guys—the ratio was completely in the girls’ favour. Some of them liked me but I did not really embrace that or realise that potential in my life, though the tables turned when I started to be comfortable about myself and be more successful as a pianist.
Most bizarre performance setting?
It has to be playing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 in Jakarta. There was no piano available at the only scheduled rehearsal and so we had to play a concert to the audience without having rehearsed.
Tell us more about your inspirational piano program.
The Adam Gyorgy Castle Castle Academy in Hungary and at the new academy launching in Bali this December has a manifesto that reads, “Inspiration, music, and technique”. This approach helps to develop our students’ musicianship and encourages them to develop so that they can be not only a better musician but also better person, and to practise this in their lives every day.
What’s your constant habit before a performance?
I like to meditate and get into my zone. If you prepare well, then there is not much to do before you perform. Most times, success depends on your longer preparation period and how much rest you get before a certain performance.
Is greatness achieved with 99 percent perspiration?
Greatness can be achieved by aiming at delivering 120 per cent on stage, though usually only 80 per cent comes out of it. What happens off stage is just as important.
Cheekiest gift you’ve received from a female fan?
Oh, I knew we were going to get here. [laughs] I have received books handwritten to me, pieces of clothing, my favourite chocolates and also interestingly detailed love letters…
What role would you like to play with your gift in music?
I think music is everything. Music is in everyone—it heals us; speaks for us; guides us; we move to the beat; we sing our sorrow and we cry to our favourite melodies. Creating raises the question if we can actually change the world and make it a better place. I don’t go for [anything] less. I believe I can.
Three things world-class pianists have in common?
Dedication, passion and discipline.
Adam Gyorgy plays at the Esplanade Concert Hall on October 22. Tickets from $18-$118 from Sistic.
