Kids These Days

Carolyn Tsao practices to perfection

Conflicts often arise when a journalist is trying to schedule an interview with a musician: sometimes the musician is on the road and out of phone range, other times, they’re holed up in the recording studio. But when I was trying to confirm a time to chat with local pianist Carolyn Tsao, it had to be later in the afternoon because she’s in school during the day. Amazing that she has time for school; makes me think that she doesn’t need to practice at all.

“Practice is always involved—always,” says Tsao. “I definitely had to practice throughout the years. I’d say every person comes with a certain amount of musical talent and I guess I’m kind of lucky—I think I do have a little bit of music in me.”

Tsao, who was practicing when I call, is an incredible pianist—she can handle the works of Chopin and Schubert with what looks like no effort; she’s performed Mozart with the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra; she’s played to 40,000 people at the Symphony Splash.

And she’s in school during the day, attending her grade 10 classes. Tsao’s 15. She wears braces and speaks in a polite, cordial manner that belies her age. It’s almost chilling talking to someone so talented and so young; it’s like their life path is so clear it’s blinding. Or, not.

“Perhaps,” laughs Tsao when I say people would consider it foolish if she didn’t persue piano as a career. But she’s keeping her options open when it comes to what field she may enter. “Maybe medical or something like that. Keep all the doors open, as they say.”

Tsao, who started playing piano when she was about six and a half, laughs when I stammer over my words when I suggest that many talented children have parents that are, uh, “dictatorial” (which I inexplicably follow up with, “That’s not my word!”). By all accounts, it sounds like that is not the case here.

“Most parents are supporters and my parents are not the type that try to make me do things I don’t want to do,” she says. “If I want to perform at something they support me and I practice for it.”

And speaking of support, Tsao’s show on Sunday is a benefit for the Victoria Conservatory of Music; an anonymous donor will be matching all funds raised dollar for dollar. When I ask Tsao if she knows who the mysterious masked donor is, her reply, again, comes wiser than her years.

“I have the name, but I don’t know if I should say it,” she says with a laugh. Then, it’s back to practicing she goes.

---------------
Carolyn Tsao
(with the Chinese Consort of Victoria)
2:30pm Sunday, May 17
Alix Goolden Hall, 907 Pandora
Tickets $15 • 250-386-5311