O.C. MUSIC : Liu Rose to Occasion--and Stardom

It was just like in the movies. Andre Watts was all set to play a piano recital last year at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music when the flu bug bit him. Hard. Feeling miserable, Watts stopped his afternoon rehearsal and begged off. Three hours later, a 21-year-old pianist just about to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music stepped on stage in Watts’ place.

Two days later, a review appeared by Lesley Valdes, music critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer: “It’s not very often you get to witness the birth of a career.” Meng-Chieh Liu, Valdes added, had “proved himself a young artist of considerable grace--and guts.”

Career doors started swinging open. Liu was all set to make his debut with the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra last Thursday at the Mann Music Center, an outdoor venue. And then the sky seemed to break wide open. It rained. It poured. “It flooded the whole city,” Liu recalled the next day from his home in the City of Brotherly Love.

“I was to have played the Chopin Second. We had had a rehearsal. It started to rain, and then it really came down. Nobody could get there. So they called the musicians at 6:45 in the evening and canceled the concert.

“I wasn’t upset that I didn’t play. I probably wasn’t meant to play it. I felt really lucky that I was called. I had a wonderful rehearsal with the orchestra. That’s what made me happy, bringing a performance off. That’s what’s important. But I’m hoping the weather will be better next time.”

Rain isn’t predicted for Saturday when Liu is scheduled to play the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto with Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony at Irvine Meadows. (The program will be repeated the following day at the Pearson Park Amphitheatre in Anaheim.)

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Liu, who turns 23 on Thursday, was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, to a musical family. His mother taught piano and was his first teacher. Liu studied the violin as well because “in Taiwan you had to take up two instruments. I was pretty good with the violin too; I was concertmaster of a youth orchestra. But the violin never quite became part of my expression. The piano was always something I could dig into much more.”

Indeed, Liu pursued the piano with a singular vengeance. At 11, he decided he had to go study in Taipei “because Kaohsiung is not exactly a great environment. My parents were very reluctant to let me leave home at such a young age. But I was very firm on getting a good education.”

He studied in Taipei for two years. His teacher pondered whether Liu should continue in Vienna or the United States. The teacher decided on the U.S., and Liu came to Curtis in 1985 to study with Jorge Bolet, Eleanor Sokoloff and Claude Frank successively. He planned further studies at Yale, where he’d been accepted on full scholarship, when fate intervened in the form of the Watts’ cancellation.

“It totally changed my life,” Liu said. Big-league Columbia Artists put him on its roster. Meanwhile, Curtis director Gary Graffman, himself a distinguished pianist, cautioned Liu that the first year with a management company can be slow. Mindful that Liu might need a supplemental form of work to tide him over, Graffman offered him the chance to fill an opening on the Curtis faculty. Liu became the youngest teacher on the school’s staff.

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Artistically, Liu says that he is “still in the process of maturing. I pretty much know what kind of style I’m more suited to and what sort of repertory I’m more suited to. I’m much more suited to the Romantics and from the Romantics on, up to Stravinsky.

“But I never want to avoid a certain style, or for people think I have a deficiency of any kind. I’m always willing to open my mind (to try) just about anything.”

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Building repertory is “not an aspect I’m worried about,” he said. “Right now, I’m much more (interested in) performance itself, the way of communication.

“I don’t want to become competitive with other people. I just want to compete with myself artistically. It’s definitely depressing to look into (the international directory) Musical America to see so many names and so many managements. But I really think if you have great substance in your playing and have great potential, just solidifying what you have inside you will make you shine, no matter what.”

* Meng-Chieh Liu will join Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony in the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto Saturday at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine (8 p.m. $14 to $48. (714) 740-2000 (TicketMaster)) and Sunday at the Pearson Park Amphitheatre, Harbor Boulevard and Cypress Avenue, Anaheim (7 p.m. $15. (714) 755-5799). Each program also will include the orchestra playing works by Beethoven. *

FULLERTON SERIES--The Fullerton Friends of Music have announced their 36th season of free Sunday afternoon concerts, to be played at Sunny Hills High School, 1801 Warburton Way, Fullerton:

* Oct. 16: The Chester String Quartet will play Haydn’s Quartet in C minor, Opus 17, No. 4; Bartok’s Quartet No. 2, and Dvorak’s Quartet No. 13.

* Dec. 4: The Pacific Classical Winds, a group using period instruments, will play Beethoven’s Sonata in F for Horn and Piano, and Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds; Rodolphe Kreutzer’s Trio in E-flat, and Weber’s Variations on a Theme from “Silvana” for Clarinet and Piano.

* Jan. 22: The Trio West will play Haydn’s Trio No. 3, Beethoven’s Trio No. 4 (“Ghost”) and Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor.

* April 9: The Ysaye Quartet with guest pianist Ayke Agus will play Mozart’s Quartet No. 20 (“Hoffmeister”), Erwin Schulhoff’s String Quartet No. 2 and Franck’s Quintet in F minor for Piano and Strings.

* May 7: The Masters of the Baroque will play instrumental and vocal works by Vivaldi, Bach and Handel.

Each concert will begin at 3:30 p.m. Information: (714) 525-9504.