Piano ambassador

BY ANITA AMIRREZVANI

When Dang Thai Son was a child, his chances of becoming an international concert pianist seemed remote as he and his family struggled *****rvive the Vietnam War. At a time of life when American prodigies immerse themselves in their musical studies, Dang was holed up in a Vietnamese mountain hideout with his brother, sister and mother to escape the American bombing of Hanoi.

Dang's journey to become a pianist has taken him from the mountains of Vietnam to Moscow; Warsaw, Poland; Tokyo; and Montreal, where he now makes his home. Despite his unusual start, Dang, 43, has fulfilled his dream of becoming an international soloist. He will perform Saturday at the Santa Clara Convention Center Theater as a benefit for VNHELP, a San Jose organization that raises money for families and children in Vietnam.

Dang started learning piano under the tutelage of his mother, Thai Thi Lien, 83, who had become a professional pianist in Vietnam under French rule. As head of the piano section at the Hanoi Music Conservatory, she was charged with continuing to give lessons despite the war.

In 1965, soon after the American bombing began, Dang's family moved to a rustic mountain hut in Ha Bac, some 50 miles from Hanoi. They lived in about 150 square feet of space, with a bed as their primary piece of furniture. By day, the bed served as a table or as a place to do homework. By night, it was where all four of them slept.

The only other item of furniture was a precious piano, which had traveled to the mountains on the backs of buffalo and crossed rivers in places where bridges had been destroyed by bombing. The journey took nearly one month. By then, Dang remembers, half of the keys didn't make any sound.

Dang was allowed 20 minutes of practice time per day, like the other students, on an instrument that was often in terrible shape. Rainy weather and a leaky roof made it difficult to maintain. In any case, Dang didn't have much time to attend to his studies. He was charged with taking care of a village buffalo and chickens, and when American war planes flew overhead, he had to hide in an underground shelter. Food -- mostly rice mixed with roots -- was scarce, and he was often hungry. ``At that time, I did not think I could develop the technical side of piano playing,'' he says.

Dang lived in the village from age 7 to age 15, except for three years during which the family returned to Hanoi. When he was 12, his mother attended the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, and she returned with Chopin records, a record player and scores for the young Dang to read.

``I was so excited,'' he says. ``It was so overwhelming.'' It was the first time he had ever listened to a classical music recording, and it was the beginning of his love affair with the music of Frédéric Chopin.

When Dang was 16, he met a Russian teacher in Hanoi named Issak Katz who drilled him on technique and helped him get a scholarship to study in the Soviet Union. Dang spent eight years at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where his playing improved rapidly.

``Everybody was very surprised how I could develop within such a short period, but I think it was very simple,'' he says. ``In Moscow, I could eat well. Maybe it was not very tasty, but at least I had enough food to keep practicing and playing. Con***ions were good: I had a piano to practice on, excellent professors and many concerts to see.''

In 1980, Dang applied to compete at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He says he almost got rejected because he had so little artistic activity on his résumé. But Dang beat out 148 competitors to earn the Gold Medal -- the first Asian to take the top prize.

``It was my biggest dream, but when they announced I got the biggest prize, I got scared because I thought it was too much.''

That was the year pianist Ivo Pogorelich didn't make the final rounds of the competition, causing one of the judges to drop out in protest. The Gold Medal has led to stellar careers for some other pianists, but Dang's was marred by the controversy and by the problematic politics of being a Vietnamese national.

After completing his studies in Moscow, Dang wanted to go the West but couldn't. Instead, he got a job teaching music in Tokyo. After a concert date with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, he fell in love with Canada and emigrated in 1991. Now Dang performs as a soloist, and an important part of his career includes playing benefit recitals to raise money for his native country.

Saturday's concert at the Santa Clara Convention Center will mark the second time Dang has appeared to raise money for VNHELP (Viet Nam Health, Education and Literature Projects). He will perform the music of Chopin, as well as music by 20th century composers Claude Debussy, Frederic Mompou and Maurice Ravel.

``Many people associate my image with Chopin, so I want to change this image, because there's much other wonderful music,'' he says.

Dang has recorded about a dozen CDs of music by Chopin, but the CDs are not available in the United States. Some of them will be for sale at the show.

Despite all that he has had to endure to become a pianist, Dang talks about his life with a sense of humor, whether he's discussing the problems with his first piano, the privations of his childhood or his struggles with English, which is his fourth language. He attributes his philosophical point of his view to his father, Dang Dinh Hung, a poet whom he says was imprisoned in 1957 by the Vietnamese government for advocating free speech.

``I try to keep everything as peaceful as possible, because the more you become ambitious, the more you suffer,'' he says. ``It's a bit of a contradiction for the career of a pianist.''




Dang Thai Son recital
A benefit for VNHELP
Where: Santa Clara Convention Center Theater, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $35-$100; (408) 398-2063, (408) 885-1791; www.vnhelp.org


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