When This 9-Year-Old Pianist Plays, He Feels The Music

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

This pianist plays with feeling. When this piece, "The Lark," by Glinka, turns sad, he does, too.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LARK")

SIEGEL: He is Oscar Paz Suaznabar of Alexandria, Va. He's played in Carnegie Hall, at the Kennedy Center and on the NPR show From the Top. That's where I heard him and invited him to play for us here. Oscar is nine and a half. He started playing his older sister's keyboard by ear when he was two. And that sorrow that he conveys when he plays "The Lark" is drawn from the kind of loss that any nine-and-a-half-year-old can understand.

OSCAR PAZ SUAZNABAR: It reminds me of when I lost my pet bunny. I named her Symphony.

SIEGEL: Symphony?

OSCAR: Symphony.

SIEGEL: (Laughter).

OSCAR: And we let her run around in our yard. And we always closed the fences, but at night, we always put her back in her cage so she could sleep. And once, when I came out to put her back in her cage, the fence was open, and Symphony wasn't there.

SIEGEL: Symphony was gone.

OSCAR: Symphony was gone. And I was really sad, and this reminds me of "The Lark." It's a very sad and emotional piece that have ups and downs.

SIEGEL: And when you're playing it, do you think about the bunny?

OSCAR: I think about many sad things that happened, like especially my bunny.

SIEGEL: You want to feel that sadness as you're playing a very sad thing.

OSCAR: I want to show the sadness.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LARK")

SIEGEL: Bravo.

OSCAR: Thank you.

SIEGEL: Boy, when the lark starts flying and fluttering, it's a pretty fast piece. When the piece is upbeat, what do you think about then?

OSCAR: I think about a prankster.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LARK")

SIEGEL: A prankster.

OSCAR: Like in the Haydn "Sonata."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAYDN SONATA")

OSCAR: Unlike Beethoven, Haydn was a happy composer. He wrote very joyful pieces. It is like a prankster is trying to do a trick on you.

SIEGEL: Tell me more about the prankster.

OSCAR: Well, sometimes, it's like the prankster stays quiet, but then, like, some loud parts, the prankster does the prank. And it reminds me of, like, the contrast of the piece and dynamics - like, two opposite things, like black and white. But in music, it's forte and piano, which is forte - loud - and piano - soft.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAYDN SONATA")

SIEGEL: So, you know, you're doing all this. Your hands are not fully grown yet.

OSCAR: No, they're not fully grown.

SIEGEL: So what's your reach now with them?

OSCAR: A ninth. (Playing ninth chord).

SIEGEL: A ninth - an octave plus one. You can go from C up to the D above that.

OSCAR: I was trying to get to the E, but I can't reach.

SIEGEL: Not yet, not yet.

OSCAR: Close, though.

SIEGEL: But what you expect? How many notes do you think you'll be able to do when you're...

OSCAR: C to G.

SIEGEL: C to G. Wow.

OSCAR: (Laughter).

SIEGEL: I don't how to do that.

OSCAR: But the "Rachmaninoff Prelude In G" - the - (playing piano). It had these - since I only had a small hand, I could only reach to F, to E. It was really hard for me to do the octaves in the second page, like...

SIEGEL: So how'd you do it?

OSCAR: (Playing piano) I don't know.

SIEGEL: (Laughter).

OSCAR: I just had to reach as much as I can.

SIEGEL: So how - you've increased over the years how many notes you can - you can play.

OSCAR: I used to only go to the C to G.

SIEGEL: Used to do a fifth. That was all? When you started playing, you could only...

OSCAR: No, not when I started playing, when I was doing it by ear - C to G.

SIEGEL: (Laughter) That would be very limiting, if you could play, but that's why there's so few great two-year-old pianists in the world.

(LAUGHTER)

SIEGEL: I read that one of your nonmusical interests is comic books.

OSCAR: Comic books, yes.

SIEGEL: Yeah? Really?

OSCAR: I like the series "Calvin And Hobbes." My mom bought me the whole series. It's about a tiger and a boy, and the boy's a troublemaker. And also, Garfield.

SIEGEL: And Garfield. I see.

OSCAR: The cat.

SIEGEL: OK. Well, is there one more piece that you'd just like to surprise us with or play for us before you go, Oscar?

OSCAR: Yeah, I'd like to pay a three-page piece called the "Lyadov Bagatelle in D-Flat Major."

SIEGEL: OK. Oscar Paz Suaznabar, thank you very much for taking a break from the fourth grade to be with us today.

OSCAR: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LYADOV BAGATELLE IN D-FLAT MAJOR")

SIEGEL: Along with his appearance on From the Top, Oscar has a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship. We should note that the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is also a supporter of NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.