Fingers Talked Terrence Wilson Knew Right Away He Loved Playing Piano

Some musicians are already into a performing career before they even know whether they want a musical career. Terrence Wilson knew from his very first concert.

“There was no one time I knew I wanted to be a professional musician more than when I debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra,” Wilson says. “All that excitement was something I knew I wanted to relive and to re-experience.”

Wilson, soon to celebrate his 25th birthday, made his concert debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was 16. “I had entered the orchestra’s Junior Concerto Competition and I won,” Wilson says, still sounding a bit amazed.

Wilson will perform Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor with the Spokane Symphony at the Opera House Friday, repeated Saturday at North Idaho College’s Schuler Auditorium in Coeur d’Alene. Guest conductor Peter McCoppin will lead the orchestra in a program that also includes Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture and his Symphony No. 6 (“The Pastorale”).

Born in the Bronx in New York City, Wilson took an early interest in music, playing songs he heard on the radio on an electronic keyboard.

“Both my parents had been rhythm-and-blues and rock ‘n’ roll musicians. They toured and even made some records,” he says. “But when they decided to raise a family, they thought that lifestyle wasn’t healthy for kids and a stable home, so they gave that up and it was long gone by the time I came along.”

Wilson encountered classical music by accident when he was 7 or 8 years old and heard Chopin playing on a New York classical music radio station. This led to lessons with a local teacher, then to enrollment in the Professional Children’s School, and before long, his appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

“When one plays with the Philadelphia Orchestra, other presenters hear about it and get curious and ask me to appear with them,” Wilson says.

He now plays between 45 and 50 concerts a year, including orchestral performances and solo recitals. Those performances have been with major orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony and recital appearances in Paris at the Louvre.

Performing can be fun, Wilson says. “The most fun I’ve ever had at a concert was this summer when I played a work called `Tombeau de Liberace’ by the American composer Michael Daugherty. The piece reflects on Liberace and his style and his whole aura.

“The candelabra and the Liberace regalia are optional with this piece,” the pianist says, “but for the performance at the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz we were loaned two authentic candelabra by the Liberace Foundation. A friend of mine did a lot of research and designed a Liberace outfit for me to wear. It was the wildest thing I’ve ever done on stage. Not just the accouterments, but the music itself was fun.”

But what makes Wilson really love performing, he says, is the element of surprise. During a performance, he discovers aspects of the music he hadn’t encountered while practicing in a cubicle.

“In concert, you get nervous, your adrenaline is flowing and you take certain risks. In the practice room, the point is not to take risks. The point there is to be very careful, to build up a certain security or facility with what you’re doing to make the things you’re trying to do with the music easier to project.”

In concert, the dynamics are different. “Once you go out on to the stage,” Wilson insists, “the point is to take some chances. Then you discover things; things happen that make a performance exciting. There’s the element of spontaneity and the play of human emotions that bring music to life. Those surprises help me when I go back to the practice room. That’s exciting.”

Grieg’s Piano Concerto, the work Wilson will perform here, used to be one of the most frequently performed works in the pianists’ repertoire. Now pianists often dismiss it as corny and stale.

“This concerto has gotten a bad rep. The Grieg Concerto is one of my favorite pieces to play,” Wilson says, “and one of my favorite pieces to listen to as well. People say it’s hackneyed or it’s trite. That’s not the fault of the concerto; it’s the fault of the people who have played it that way … It’s not a tiresome piece unless it is in the hands of a tiresome pianist.”

Wilson adds, “I don’t try to distort the natural flow of the piece in order to impose a certain `individuality’ just for the sake of being `original.’ If you look at the score, you never run out of new things to discover in the music. I try to forget all of the boring performances I’ve heard of it and make it seem as though I’m presenting it at the premiere.”

Peter McCoppin, who conducts Friday’s program and its repeat performance in Coeur d’Alene, is conductor laureate of the Victoria Symphony in British Columbia. He still conducts there regularly and serves as music director for the Charlotte Symphony in North Carolina. The much-traveled McCoppin has also conducted in Mexico, Korea, Japan and the Chinese Republic.

Born in Toronto, McCoppin studied conducting with Erich Leinsdorf and later with Hans Swarowsky and Sergiu Celibidache.

McCoppin, who also hosts musical programs on Canadian and U.S. radio, will discuss the music on Friday’s program as a part of the Gladys Brooks Pre-Concert Talks series in the Opera House Auditorium at 7 p.m.

ON STAGE Spokane Symphony The Spokane Symphony and pianist Terrence Wilson perform Friday at 8 p.m. at the Spokane Opera House and Saturday at 8 at NIC’s Schuler Auditorium. Tickets: $16 to $32, at the Symphony Ticket Office (624-1200) and G&B (325-SEAT or 1-800-325-SEAT).