Average music prodigy practice time4/30/2023 Hahn made her major-orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony four years ago. "It was the only time in my life I said, I want that girl.' " "She played with such perfect intonation and so musically I was flabbergasted," he says. Her longtime violin teacher at Curtis, Jascha Brodsky, who has taught the instrument for 55 years, remembers her audition clearly. As a result, she was able to increase her practice time - as well as find time for ballet lessons, swimming at a nearby college pool, drawing and painting, cycling, reading. When she was 10, Hahn was accepted at Curtis, so the family switched her to home schooling through the external program of the Calvert School in Baltimore. After a while, her teacher Klara Berkovitch suggested to her young student that she knew enough pieces to consider a full recital. While attending an ordinary public school in Towson, Hahn says, she had no real sense of her own talent - though she did notice that the children in her music classes were getting older and older. So Steve Hahn, who worked part time and took care of Hilary while his wife was a full-time accountant, studied the instrument with his daughter. She learned violin by the Suzuki method, which required an adult's participation. Hahn's training was and continues to be closely monitored by her father. It's very unnatural having someone telling you how wonderful you are all the time if you can't also go ice skating or to soccer practice and regular school." Maazel at 65 and Hahn at 15 are examples of gifted early musicians who were pushed forward by their own creative instincts rather than parental urging. Children have to be allowed to develop as young people. "If the parents are pushing too hard, or the teacher doesn't watch out for the child, it can get very difficult. and in some cases - maybe most - are doing it intelligently and not exploitatively."īarry Jekowsky, associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, has showcased many young artists with his California Symphony Orchestra. But I think suddenly some of the managers have started to look at the next generation. Indeed, the image of the super-child is shadowed by the specter of the overeager parent or agent, the concomitant pressures to perform, and the child robbed of childhood. It's not so much that weren't there years ago, but perhaps there was less interest - and less exploitation." "I performed every year from the time I was 10. "To be a first-class pianist or violinist or cellist, you have to start early - very early, say at 3, 4 or 5," says Graffman. Musicians have known that empirically for years. "They can play more complex music at earlier ages. "We find prodigies are getting more prodigious," he says. Anders Ericsson, a psychology professor at Florida State University, has studied the effect of better training methods and earlier musical starts. "The numbers seem to go in cycles," he says.īut more parents do seem to be offering their children music lessons at an early age, and that is a crucial factor. And perhaps most prominently Midori, who was given her first violin at 3.Īre there more prodigies these days, or have early training and the interest of parents, agents and recording companies simply made them more visible? Former piano prodigy Gary Graffman, who heads the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where Hahn is an undergraduate, thinks we're probably not witnessing a marked increase. Violinists Sarah Chang, 14, and Leila Josefowicz, 17. Their performances are carefully marketed, and their names have become common knowledge even outside musical circles: pianist Helen Huang, who last year at 11 performed in Washington with the National Symphony Orchestra for conductor Leonard Slatkin. Today's prodigies, like their predecessors, all astound their audiences with extraordinary motor skills and an ability to produce beautiful music with feeling and understanding. At the Kennedy Center Wednesday night, as part of the orchestra's centennial tour, Hahn will perform alongside another former prodigy: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conductor Lorin Maazel. Their forebears are daunting: Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn Menuhin, Heifetz and Perlman. Now Hilary Hahn can't remember a time she didn't play the violin.Ī performer sought out by concert stages internationally, Hahn is one of a number of high-profile youngsters who in recent years have electrified the world of classical music. He soon discovered his daughter had a prodigious musical gift. But Steve Hahn, who was out taking a walk with his little girl, then almost 4, followed up on it. Many Baltimore parents passed by the sign in the window of a suburban branch of the renowned Peabody Conservatory.
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