minor fandom

Warning: casual language ahead. Do not read if you're searching for cheem-ness.

Well, yeah, there's major fandom of the Coetzee, Beethoven, and pre-2000 U2 genre, and then there's minor fandom like the kind that's driving me to contemplate going for Brit pianist Stephen Hough's concert this evening (checks time: 12:18am - yes, this evening), just because he's such a good musician, a passionate teacher, and a lovely person.

I first heard Hough in concert about seven or eight years ago, in the old days before the Esplanade. I remember that occasion because, firstly, his playing was good enough for me to be able to tell it was good, and secondly, because by some wonderful quirk of circumstance, I ended up tagging along with a group of music afficionados (of whom I only knew one other person) when they went off for supper with the soloist after the concert. He struck me as wonderfully down-to-earth, humble, and yet thoughtful, intelligent, articulate, and witty. (Yes, yes, I know - what can you tell after one encounter? But other people have agreed.)

So when I heard about the piano masterclass he was giving at Yong Siew Toh earlier this week, it didn't take much for me to make my way there, even at the expense of some other fairly important and urgent work that needed to be done. (Sleep can always be sacrificed. It's sometimes such a waste of time.) And I'm so glad I went. There's no way I could have known, simply from that one performance and suppertime encounter, what a good teacher Hough is. Teaching takes passion, quick-wittedness, sensitivity, tact, toughness, and confidence - and all this was evident in the way he took the students through some very challenging repertoire, at points leaping up from his seat to emphasise a point. He was one happy camper. And yet, he was always so subtly aware of exactly what each student's strengths and weaknesses were, and articulate enough to say exactly what needed to be said, in memorable language.

So, yeah, I left that masterclass on a musical and linguistic high. That's the first time I've come away from something that married both my loves so happily. Who needs cannabis when you've got good music ecstatically described with the best possible words in the best possible order?
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