Pianist’s Stardom Bloomed When Boredom Ebbed

Soviet-born pianist Leonid Kuzmin didn’t exactly make a beeline from childhood prodigy to his string of first prizes in international competitions. Indeed, the prize-winning artist who makes his first West Coast appearance tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center likes to portray himself as the bad boy in a somewhat eccentric family.

“My brother, Alexander, was always an example for everybody,” Kuzmin, 24, said in a recent phone interview from New York. “Even at age of 10, he knew he wanted to be a pianist.

“Me, no. Completely different story. I always loved to play, I never liked to practice. My father would be in another room, and I would practice reading books on my lap. I read a lot of books that way.”

At that time, Kuzmin was at the keyboard largely to fulfill his father’s long-held vision for his future.

“My father had a dream before his two sons were born,” Kuzmin said. “He knew he would have two sons. Both would be pianists. So he read books about all the great pianists, all the literature he could get his hands on, and started making the first a pianist. My mother shared his interest but was not as crazy as my father.

“I’m like him. I get obsessed with an idea and go after it.”

An obsession with the piano would eventually take hold, leading to many victories in prestigious competitions. He won first-place awards in the 1984 International Piano Competition of Prague, the 1985 International Competition of the American Music Scholarship Assn., the 1985 Stravinsky Awards International Piano Competition and the 1986 Concerto Competition of the Manhattan School of Music.

But in his younger days, he just “fooled around,” which prompted his father to ship him back and forth from his home in Gomel, Byelorussia, where he could keep an eye on him, to the music academy in Minsk.

Even immigrating with his family to the United States in 1981 didn’t change Kuzmin’s attitude much.

“I was 17, in this beautiful county,” he said. “I wanted to make money to support my family. My brother was struggling. My parents were very sick. I had to work full time.

“To my satisfaction, we had come to a great country, and I wanted to succeed here. Who wanted to play the piano? I went to work in a candy store.”

He started working 12 hours a day at minimum wage, and like many teen-agers became fascinated with cars.

“I was crazy about American cars,” he said. “In Russia, you couldn’t ever dream of owning a car. Here, it’s so easy.”

But it wasn’t so easy for his brother, who, after failing to establish himself here as a concert pianist because of professional and health reasons, exchanged his musical career for one in computer programming.

Leonid Kuzmin continued desultory efforts at studying but nonetheless gave a brilliant audition and was admitted to the Manhattan School of Music in 1982. Not quite two months later, however, he was suspended for disciplinary reasons.

“I went for six weeks, then, well, accidents happen,” he said. “I was bored. One day, not thinking, I began scratching the piano with some keys I had. Then they kicked me out for a month. That was the most fortunate thing. I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t.”

The disciplinary action was the first crack in his bubble of complacency. But the real breakthrough came when he attended a recital by his teacher, Nina Svetlanova, in 1984.

“It was then I really decided to play the piano,” he said. “So for two years, I went mad. I would practice every day, somewhere near 10 hours a day. It was two years of just crazy. (To) those two years I owe everything I did, getting back everything I lost.

“It was then that I realized how hard it was to play the piano. Before that, it was easy.”

Kuzmin became hot property after his recital debut in Alice Tully Hall in 1985.

“I went from ugly duckling and became a beautiful swan,” he said. “Everything cooked for me that day, Nov. 25, 1985. I got a good review (from the New York Times). So 4,000 managers of New York called. I decided to go with the management my teacher had (Columbia Artists).”

Now Kuzmin speaks very seriously about his art.

“I believe in certain things,” he said. “I don’t want to sound arrogant, but for the past 50 years, American pianism has been declining. It went from Romantic to more academic playing. The same thing happened in Europe years ago. I want to bring back Romantic playing.”

Kuzmin described Romantic playing as a combination of virtuoso technique and creativity.

“The really great Romantic pianist is the one who overcomes the difficulty of playing the piano. When you have the equipment, utilization, the means of expression, technique, then you have to forget about the notes, the dynamics and so on, and you have to create.”

At this stage of his career, Kuzmin said virtuoso works are “the best music there is for young performer to play.”

“I still feel the hardest composer is Chopin at this stage (of my career),” he said. “The reason I don’t play Beethoven on the stage is not because I can’t, nor that I’m afraid. It’s that I don’t think I should. That’s the top. And no matter how I play, people will say, he’s too young. So why give them something to chew on?

“I can develop myself much more on the pieces I play now. I’m only 24. Give me a break. I have a whole life ahead of me.”

The audience at a Kuzmin concert not only gets to hear him play but also get to hear him.

“When I go to the concert, I like to talk to the audience, just a little bit,” he said. “We live in a century with all these computers, and then another computer comes out on the stage? No, I don’t believe it. We’re human beings, for God’s sake. I like to say something to break the ice.”

Kuzmin accepts the rigors of life on the road as a necessity in establishing his career: “So far, I like it. I’m willing to put up with any amount of travel, hotels, different people, just to play those two hours on the stage every other day. I want people to hear me, to hear what I know.

“And I learn from them. I get feedback, not just in the course of applause. That shows appreciation. But the biggest feedback is when maybe in one concert out of 20 people don’t start applauding right away.

“For that moment, I’m willing to play all my life.”

LEONID KUZMIN

Tonight, 8 p.m.

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa

$6 to $20

Information: (714) 556-2787