Touring Is Key to Edith Chen’s Success as Pianist

The touring has begun in earnest for Edith Chen.

The invitations began to roll in when she was named co-winner of the inaugural Ivo Pogorelich International Solo Piano Competition in 1993. One invitation, from the Pacific Symphony, brings her to the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Saturday. Another will bring her to the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Sept. 30 for a performance with the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

Meanwhile, she’s waxing ecstatic over Croatia.

“I played five different cities, all of them the best experiences I ever had,” said the 24-year-old, on the phone from her home in Manhattan. “In fact, I’m going back next month.

“The hall in Dubrovnik is an open-air hall, unlike any other hall. All of the concerts were close to the sea, some literally on islands. I personally drove a speedboat to one of the concerts--under guidance, of course.

“It’s so beautiful there--and much more relaxing than my debut in Munich.”

In Irvine, she will be the soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor. Pacific Symphony music director Carl St.Clair also will conduct “Finlandia” by Sibelius and excerpts from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.” (In Costa Mesa, Chen will play Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 3 with conductor David Atherton.)

Last summer’s Croatian tour may have been more relaxing than Chen’s recital debut in Munich, which took place in April, 1994. But that concert was far more relaxing than a performance this past April.

“I did a concert in Vancouver on 15 minutes notice. At 11:30 in the morning, my manager called and casually asked if I had a recital program in my fingers. She said there had been a cancellation in Vancouver [that night]. I said yes without thinking.

“Now Vancouver is a seven-hour flight from New York, it’s a half hour to the airport, and I had to pack. She said my flight was leaving in one hour and a car would be waiting in 10 minutes. I got dressed, took a bag, and the car was there already.”

The flight was delayed--of course. The concert was at 8, and Chen arrived at the hall with only enough time for a perfunctory run-through.

“I’d been working on a new program and hadn’t played this program in three or four months. But it was too late for any lame excuse I could come up with. . . . I played the beginning and end of every movement, so I knew I could at least start and finish. I thought if I could pull off this one, I could do anything. “

There was, she says, a standing ovation: “The presenter said to me afterward, ‘We’ve been looking for a pianist like you for years.’ I said, ‘Oh, a pianist who doesn’t practice?’ ”

(As for how much Chen really practices, she later confessed: “All the time. All the time”).

Born in Taiwan, she immigrated to the United States with her family in 1980; attended Los Angeles High School for the Performing Arts, and studied piano with Aube Tzerko, Robert Turner, Yin Cheng-Zong and Martin Canin. She earned her master’s degree at the Juilliard School of Music and continues private studies with Byron Janis.

She won first prize at the Taiwan National Piano Competition at age 9. Locally, she initiated the Laguna Beach Chamber Society’s Young Artists Series in 1987 and played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Young Musicians Foundation orchestras. The Pogorelich--whose namesake is Croatian, incidentally--capped five consecutive years of prize-winning at international competitions including the Tchaikovsky.

Last season she played concerts on three continents but was only half as busy as she will be during her upcoming, 1995-96 season. In the aftermath of the Pogorelich win, she noted, “I didn’t take all the offers. Byron Janis and Mr. and Mrs. Pogorelich gave me guidance and were very careful about what and how much I should do.”

* Carl St.Clair leads the Pacific Symphony in works by Sibelius, Prokofiev and Grieg Saturday at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. 8 p.m. $13-$49. Ticketmaster: (714) 740-2000.