Love of Mozart blossomed early
What: Orli Shaham with the Victoria Symphony
When: Monday, 8 p.m.
Where: Royal Theatre Tickets: $30 to $80 (250-385-6515 or victoriasymphony.ca)
Orli Shaham was just a pre-schooler when she was first captivated by the beauty of Mozart.
The classical pianist’s older brother (now a scientist) was playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor on an antique upright piano. This was when her family still lived in Jerusalem.
“I have a very strong, conscious memory of being about five years old and hearing him practise and saying to myself: ‘Some day I’m going to play that piece,’ ” Shaham, 39, said this week from her New York City home.
“In many ways I became a pianist because of Mozart,” she added.
On Monday night, Shaham will play an early Mozart work, Piano Concerto No. 9 in E Flat Major, with the Victoria Symphony. The concert includes the première of Echoes of Autumn by composer-inresidence Jared Miller, as well as Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, conducted by Stilian Kirov.
Deemed a “first-rate Mozartean” by the Chicago Tribune, Shaman has performed with many of North America’s major symphony orchestras. Her 2015 recording Brahms Inspired was praised by the New York Times as a “treasurable album.”
Shaham comes from an uncommonly accomplished family. Her parents were both scientists; her late father, Jacob Shaham, was considered one of the world’s leading theoretical astrophysicists. One of her brothers is the noted violinist Gil Shaham.
“Gil and I, we went towards the music, partly because we felt the level of science at the house was way too high for us to approach. We would be struggling to keep up with dinner-table conversation,” Shaham said, laughing.
“I never realized until I grew up and saw more of the world, what an incredible group of people that was to have grown up in the same house as.”
The concerto she will play here is an early one, written when Mozart was just 21. Shaham notes that, perhaps because of his youth, the composer broke a few rules. For instance, contrary to established practice, the piano makes its entrance at the beginning of the first movement. And in the final movement, there’s another surprise: a wee minuet.
Shaham returns to Mozart’s Piano Concert No. 9 after a decade. She used to play it often. In fact, she has sweet memories of first tackling it as a 12-year-old.
“I can remember because I had a boyfriend then who was working on it. I thought: ‘What a great piece, I should work on that, too.’ It was not much of a boy/girlfriend relationship. I’m pretty sure we held hands.”