For Louis Lortie, No Contest

Pianist Louis Lortie, 37, doesn’t fit into any neat category. Born in Montreal, he is usually identified as a Quebecois pianist, but he lives in Berlin with his wife, architect Katharina Gerold, and their 7-month-old son, Victor, and spends most of his time in Europe.

A prizewinner in major competitions, he doesn’t think very much of them. Ditto: schools and conservatories.

He hates being pegged as a specialist and reacts happily when critics praise his excellence in the very different demands of Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel and Liszt.

Even his motivation to begin playing was unorthodox. He wanted to outdo his father.

“My father had been forced to learn piano when he was young and wasn’t thinking about inflicting that on his children,” Lortie said in a recent phone interview from Salt Lake City, where he was on tour before concerts Thursday in Irvine and Saturday in Glendale with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

“He worked for a pharmaceutical company as a salesman and later became a manager. My mother was a housewife. We’re talking about early-’70s suburbia. We moved to a lot of places.

“The home we moved back to in Montreal when I was about 7 already had an upright in the house. They couldn’t take it away. It was in the basement. When the guy finished rebuilding the staircase, he found he couldn’t take the piano out.

“It was a horrible orange, and it wasn’t really in tune. The first one who played it was my father. It was pathetic. I can remember how he played. That was the incentive. This was so bad, I was sure I could do better.”

Lortie began studying privately. “I never cared about schools,” he said. “For a performer, schools are not important. What is important is with whom you are studying. I don’t think going to Juilliard or going to an unknown school will make a big difference.”

Lortie credits “many teachers” but singles out his first, Madame Yvonne Hubert, with whom he studied for many years. “She had studied with [great French pianist Alfred] Cortot. She taught everybody in Canada.”

A professional career wasn’t in his plans at first. “We start so early. When you’re so young you don’t think about earning a living. I just loved playing the piano, and it evolved. I started making money with it. Then there was a crisis: ‘This is something commercial. It cannot remain something you do at home.’ But that’s life. You have to give a shape to your life.”

After winning first prize in Canada’s two major competitions when he was 16, Lortie went on to win unanimously first prize in the 1984 Busoni Competition in Bolzano, Italy, and he placed fourth in the Leeds International Pianforte Competition in Great Britain the same year.

“I did only two [international competitions], and that was that,” Lortie said. “It was something I needed to do. Most people don’t have an uncle or an aunt who works in a manager’s office. You have to do something to become known.

“People know the system is not fair. The winner is not the most interesting artist. He’s the only one who rings consensus. Musicality is a different matter.

“Technical brilliance is part of our generation,” he continued. “For me, well, it’s good if we have it, but it should never be something noted in reviews. Everybody plays well now. What matters is the concept, the mind and soul behind the playing.”

His Southland concerts mark his first appearances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He will be the soloist in Ravel’s Concerto in G, usually performed by larger orchestras. But he sees nothing strange about that.

“Ravel called for 16 violins in the score,” Lortie said. “He wanted a small orchestra. Usually it’s played with a larger orchestra, and the conductor has to shut [the players] up.”

The concerto was the orchestra’s choice. “I haven’t let myself play any Ravel for the last four or five years,” Lortie said. “I’ve played [this work] so much, I wanted to put it aside. But the G major is such a popular piece. They really wanted it.”

When he plays, Lortie relies “very much on collaboration with the conductor and the musicians. I never see myself alone onstage, even when I play in recital.”

In these budget-conscious days, collaboration has to happen pretty quickly because rehearsal time is limited. “Even if I would like more [rehearsal] time, I’m not even allowed to ask, can’t even suggest it. It’s contractual. You have to go back to a time when I wasn’t even born, when a soloist could say, ‘Hey, listen . . .’ But there is an advantage to it.

“Orchestras have such knowledge of the standard repertory now, and if the conductor is good, things can happen so quickly. I can see a second rehearsal even diminishing the results, and I would not want to penalize the whole process. It’s very strange. It’s forced complicity. We’re all really on a tightrope. It does work sometimes. It’s not always negative.”

* Louis Lortie will be the soloist in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra led by Gilbert Varga on Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive. The program, sponsored by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, will include works by Haydn, Bartok and Milhaud. $22-$35. (714) 553-2422.

The program will be repeated Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. $12-$42. (800) 233-3123.