"At that time, China had just opened to the Western world. We were not allowed to look around by ourselves and could only travel in a group," he says. "Our group was organized by a senior curator from the Chicago Museum. He had many contacts and access to places that ordinary tourists could not have accessed."
The group went to Jingdezhen, the town in Jiangxi province famous for its ceramics, and old towns around Taihu Lake (bordering Jiangsu and Zheijiang provinces in southern China), where many antiques remained well preserved by the old families.
Graffman has since returned to China often and boasts that he knows "every city of China".
His father was a violinist and lived in Shanghai for a while, before World War II.
"But he did not collect any Chinese artworks, and I don't think he has had much of an influence (on me) with respect to Chinese culture, but there must be a certain connection," Graffman says.
In 1949, Graffman won the prestigious Leventritt Award and emerged as a major figure in the world of classical music in the following three decades. His career suffered a serious setback in 1979, when he sprained a finger on his right hand. Uncertain of what he could do, he embraced his early interest by returning to Columbia University to take courses in Asian art.
After the finger injury forced him to play occasionally the limited but brilliant repertoire written for the left hand alone, the maestro devoted much of his time to coaching young talents. He joined the piano faculty of the renowned Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, in 1980 and became its director in 1986. In 1995, he was appointed president of the conservatory and served in that position until May 2006.
"I remember Lang Lang came at 13, Yuja at 15 and Haocheng at 14. They all play extremely well. Their auditions were fantastic. More importantly, they all learned very quickly," Graffman says, talking of them with a personal warmth.
"But of course, they are three very different persons. Lang Lang is emotional and I often need to hold him back and ask him not not to overdo things, while Yuja is the opposite. I have to inspire her to do more. Haocheng reads a lot and plays the virtuoso repertoire very well."
Though Graffman insists most of his trips to China have had nothing to do with music, his links with the Chinese music circles have grown in recent years.
In the summer of 2005, Gaffman was invited to head the piano department at the New Canton International Summer Music Academy in Guangdong province. In 2006, he came to Shanghai to participate in the 10th anniversary of the Morningside Music Bridge, a program that gave Yuja Wang the scholarship to go to Canada in 1999.
And this week, in addition to an all left-hand performance at the Forbidden City, Beijing Music Festival invited him to hold a master class at the Poly Theater, to coach three students from the China Central Conservatory of Music.
Hopefully, the great teacher will find more young Chinese talents and turn them into stars.
By Chen Jie
Editor: Dong Jirong
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