Victoria Young’s Prodigious Poise

Victoria Young is coming. She’s 13 and by some accounts a prodigy. Her teacher is Mary Sauer, principal pianist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and piano chair of the New Music School, Chicago. Victoria is a Fellow student of the New Music School.

Victoria’s beginnings in music were accidental. Her mother, BeeLee, was learning to play the harp and discovered that Victoria had perfect pitch. Then, slowly, the door swung open. And now the world is tearing to get at her. She’s performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. In 2011, she won a $10,000 Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award for her performance on NPR’s “From the Top” program. She also won first place in the Nevada Piano Concerto Competition and the Stony Brook International Piano Festival Competition. In the 24-year history of the Rosalyn Tureck International Bach Piano Competition, Victoria is one of only two Americans ever to win first place.

The child gave her first public performance at 5 and played with the Nevada Chamber Orchestra at 7. The latter was a notable achievement for several reasons, not least because just then Victoria and her mother were living in a domestic violence shelter in Las Vegas. The day they arrived was one for the ages.

Shaking Off the Dust, Playing Music

Oh the road that girl and her mother have traveled.

They’ve been all over the world and back. At one point they returned to Malaysia and then, in 2009, they spent several months in China, at a music school in Chengdu. Last year there was a master class in Germany, the beginning of this year a concert in Spain. Last month they were in Switzerland — always just the two of them. This week, it’s Chicago. Back to Las Vegas on Friday. Off to San Francisco on Saturday and back to Las Vegas on Monday, and then back to Chicago on Tuesday. And you should see the calendar for next year.

And by the way, before coming to Chicago, Victoria didn’t miss her visit to the Heritage Springs Assisted Living Community and the Torrey Pines Care Center, two elderly care facilities where Victoria comes on the second Sunday of every month to play and talk. “With every note I play, I want them to see every beat of beauty in the music. … For some residents, I surely hope my music can ease their pain and loneliness.”

Twice a month, Victoria and BeeLee go to Chicago for the lessons, sometimes for one or two days, or more. As for school, she goes to Nevada Virtual Academy, and meets her teacher on classconnect.com.

“[A concert] is like a running a marathon, because you need so much confidence and you have to play well through the whole hour.” — Victoria Young

We reached her earlier this week at her teacher’s studio in Chicago. She was practicing for her recital at the Community Music Center, San Francisco. In the sweetest voice she explained how she practices, running through her program and imagining the audience.

“So I can get used to the feeling of that,” she said. “And I try to build up my stamina.”

How much stamina do you need?, we asked.

“It’s like a running a marathon, because you need so much confidence and you have to play well through the whole hour. And you’re onstage and everybody’s watching you, and so you have to maintain that high quality all through the performance.”

She added, “You just have to keep on going and don’t think about your mistakes, because if you do, you just make more. And so I just keep thinking about the moment I’m in and I’ll think about the mistakes later.”

Aren’t marathons lonely, we asked, thinking not just of the hour in performance?

“I have friends,” she replied, “although sometimes they don’t really understand my passion for music. They talk about other things or they just don’t want to talk about music. But I do have other friends who are very supportive, and they like to listen to me play.”

But your must find solace in the piano, we said. She agreed: “My instrument is my friend.” She went on to explain that a person had read her story in a newspaper and given her a Sohmer upright piano.

“It has a very light action, a bright tone quality. Very, very bright.”

Hard Times

BeeLee Ng arrived in the US in the 1990s and became a tour guide. She also fell into an abusive marriage, which, after several years, forced her to flee to a domestic violence shelter.

“I remember when we arrived, the kids seemed older than Victoria and all the mothers were crying. But Victoria was so happy when she saw a bunk bed. Our home was so hostile that I think being in the shelter was in many ways a relief. They say children can adjust to anything; and that’s true.”

Eventually a judge ordered BeeLee’s husband to leave the house they had been living in. But unbeknownst to BeeLee there was a second mortgage which she couldn’t pay and so sold the house. She turned crisis to opportunity and went to college, and got a degree. But the years have gotten no easier.

“Sometimes, it’s very stressful, of course,” she said. “There’s just so much …

“I know Victoria has talent,” she went on.

“I don’t know if she’s a prodigy but she works really hard, she’s so disciplined, and my responsibility is to encourage her. But it’s just so expensive and a lot of my friends tell me I'm crazy. ‘You have to eat today before you pay for all these lessons,’ they say, but then I have other friends who say, ‘just keep going.'

We are forever at extremes. But it’s just been so many years, and the longer I do it, the more I think I’m doing the right thing. In many ways we are just a perfect match. I’m sometimes kind of crazy; I’m always teasing her. But we have one ritual that we always share — we have our afternoon tea. Every day, we do it, to calm down.”

Paying the Dues for a Life in Music

When BeeLee was working as a tour leader she often took groups to Singapore and after a long day, she and other members of the tour would go to one of the hotels to drink tea. One day she went to the Continental Hotel where she saw a harpist playing in the lobby. She would never forget the image of the woman playing the harp, “She looked like an angel.” And a few years later, she took up the instrument and it was then that the sound found resonance with Victoria.

“She has told me that one day, she’s going to buy me a gold harp.” She paused. Is music going to be Victoria’s life, we asked.

“I know she has talent. I don’t know if she’s a prodigy but she works really hard, she’s so disciplined, and my responsibility is to encourage her.” — BeeLee Ng, Victoria’s mother

“I’ve asked her that. I’ve said, ‘Do you really want this to be for our life? I don’t want you to feel as though you are stuck in this. You can always change.’ But no, she wants to do this. She’s talking about Juilliard and, lately, programs in Germany. She would rather find someone to study with than a program. You can find a great program, but if you don’t find someone to inspire you then what good is that? I don’t know if we can do it. But if she wants it I’ve told her, well, we’ll just keep eating ramen noodles every day.”

And how does the money work? How do they pay for this most expensive of professions? A friend offers a piano. Suddenly a website is possible. Teachers don’t charge. Scholarships open up. Strangers appear out of nowhere and fund this or that. The universe pulls together.

We asked Victoria if she wanted to make music her life.

“Yeah,” she responded without hesitation, “this is it, absolutely, and I do want to pursue music as a career. Now it’s all worth it. So yes. It is my life.”

At the recital on Sunday, Victoria’s program includes Bach’s Partita No. 6 in E Minor; Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata (Op. 31 No. 2); Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1; and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6.

Sunday, September 15, 3 p.m., Capp Street Concert Hall, Community Music Center, San Francisco, FREE. More information