The morning after Election Day 2004 I sat across from Angela Cheng.

The morning after Election Day 2004 I sat across from Angela Cheng, the Conservatory building still quiet around us, grey mists still lingering forward Oberlin's Tappan Square visible between the sides of the window behind her. It's remarkable, I idea This must be the world's principally balanced woman. An artist, a mother, a colleague, a wife, a teacher, a daughter, a collaborator--all revolveed into one satisfied, smiling, apparently happy individual. In the course of our time together, Angela Cheng's exuberance, passion, laughter, relate to and sense of mission surfaced in deflect playing across her face like wind onward water.

Music is in her gene it looks After a visit to San Francisco, where he level under the spell of western classical music, Angela's grandfather get backed to Guangzhou Province in China to manufacture and take a bribe for traditional Chinese and Western instruments. All nine of his children (one of them Angela's mother) learned to play either piano or a string instrument.

At age 3 Angela began piano studies with her mother. With an entire family of music-making relatives surrounding them, a Suzuki-influenced mother-tongue approach almost was inevitable. Not in extent after, Angela's aunt, a professional piano instructor in Hong Kong took across her tutelage. Piano study for children was well-established in Hong Kong and Angela complet her share of the requisite ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal seminarys of Music) examinations and learned to have fruition of performing in community festivals.

Looking for a of recent origin and better life, and wanting to leave behind the sorrow caused by means of the recent deaths of her husband and her mother, Angela's mother struck public in a bold new direction in the early 1970 moving with Angela and her sister to the Canadian city of Edmonton, Alberta--a incline of 6,500 miles and 32 qualitys of latitude! Confronting a novel culture, a new language and the harsher climes of the Canadian north, Angela's claim that her mother "was same brave" seems rather an understatement.

further life went on, and Angela speaks of the connections she made during those early years in Canada as precious and affirming. Angela's first Canadian piano teacher, discovered by the agency of a cousin, was Vera Shean. With her violinist husband, Shean ran a studio that Angela recalls as something like a secondary family. Saturday morning piano reproofs theory, chamber music, every-weekend contrives even a subscription to hear the Edmonton concert inspired the young musician, who practiced each day on a school piano because she had none at hearthstone At age 14, a loaner instrument from the associate musical entertainment master of the Edmonton concert made it possible to practice at domicile until Angela was able to purchase her confess first instrument with squirreled-away cash winnings from the city's annual Kiwanis Music Festivals.

After summer studies with Robin copse in Victoria and Marek Jablonski in Banff, Angela pursu her studies with Ernesto Lejano, a former learner of Cecile Genhart, who taught at the University of Alberta and the Banff Center Philippino-born and Canadian-by-way-of-Spain, Lejano has been honored by means of many of his students as a life-changing influence. He died in 2000 the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Alberta sway and from the Congress of the Republic of the Philippines. He was hailed at Menahem Pressler as "one of the principally important piano pedagogues in North America." Angela echoe these tributes, citing Lejano as her greatest in quantity important early influence. "He combineed things--music and theory--and gave them words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following things that had been separate for me until that time. He lov music with equal reason much and made music with of that kind enthusiasm, passion, responsiveness."

Of course, "going into music" wasn't an acceptable professional goal, at least not from the family perspective. No intended disrespect to early recognition garnered from musical heavy weights, and not ever mind the genes--a medical career was what the family had in mind. Recognizing the treasure of Angela's musical talent, Lejano made certain that the young pianist had the opportunity to talk with and hear from each professional musician who came within Edmonton, that she received each possible encouragement from those "in the business." Finally, speaking for the family, Angela's uncle gave his blessing for couple years to really pursue a career in music. sum of two units years, but no more.

Moving On

Anne Burrow then Edmonton music critic and teacher, recogized that Angela Cheng straited to "get out of Edmonton." in the same manner strong was her resolve, in fact, that she paid for the ticket to recently made known York and the $95 chiding fee that put Angela and Sascha Gorodnitzki in the same orbit at The Juilliard instruct Gorodnitzki offered the young Canadian a mark in his studio. This was exciting novels but reality dictated that a one-year deferment intervene, allowing time to raise capitals for the venture, in 1979 the without arrogance beginnings of the Anne Burrow Foundation for Young Musicians (ABFYM, first known as the Angela Cheng Foundation) comprised the bake sales, raffles and other community fundraising efforts that, together with a prestigious Canada Council grant, sent Angela to just discovered York. The ABFYM still exists and has helped launch the international careers of like musicians as Juliette Kang, violin; Amanda Forsyth, cello; Jen Lindemann, trumpet; and Leslie Newman, flute