‘Double Junior’ shows how to be a star’s son
How is to be a child of the star? I try to guess – not easy. I do not have any experience. My father was not a music star. I respect him as an engineer, officer and prisoner of WW II. My mother was a pianist and a good teacher and she said her husband was the only student she failed to teach playing piano. My two sons played piano very good but after graduating at the Harvard University, one of them became the Professor of Biology at the California University but the other one – a skillful financier.
However sometimes musicians have sons who are also musicians. (In the misogenic world the daughters, long time ago were not serious enough about make real career, also in music, maybe except for singers and ballerinas’?)
Like in every profession, sometimes it becomes a family tradition passed from generation to generation. The most spectacular example is the Bach Dynasty. Poor boy Johann Sebastian (1685-1750) walked for few weeks on foot to Luebeck, to listen to the Organ Master Buxtehude and started to study there and came back with the knowledge that one has to be ‘a smith of his own fate’. However, after a few decades he left that entire world in Leipzig as famous, extremely respectable Master. With his two wives he had twenty children and all four sons became famous respectable composers and musicians serving as Royal composers on European Courts.
The Bach Dynasty looks at the history of music as an exception. Not only Bach’s contemporary and competitor, born the same year, G. F. Haendel (1685-1759), but also many successors to the classical music throne passed away without any successors (not only on keyboard): J. Haydn, L. van Beethoven, F. Schubert R. Schumann, F. Chopin… List looks endless. (NB/ Fr. Liszt had a daughter, Cosima.)
Survived
Somehow an exception was Mozart (1756-1791) – his youngest son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (1791-1844) was the sixth child of the Genius and his wife Constanze, and second who survived.
He became a composer, pianist, conductor and teacher, strongly influenced by his father’s style, however rather early ‘Romantic’. Born five months before his father’s death he got good musical education from his father’s colleagues and made his debut at the Vienne Theater also as a child.
However with his introverting character his further successes were moderate. He became a teacher of aristocratic children in Poland. He also concerted there in several cities. Finally he became the shadow of his great father.
Mozart died so early and so extremely poor that he had no chance to take care of his son as a successor. Contemporary artistes, especially famous stars are in quite different situation. And quite frequently we would observe their efforts to support their children entering lights of the stage, if they are skillful and willing to continue father’s or mother’s profession. Sometimes literally – a few months ago I wrote about Ashkenazy Senior and Junior two pianos (and 4 hands too) duo.
Placido Domingo (1941) is one of the greatest tenor singers of our time. He is a top representative of the singers’ dynasty; Spanish, born in Madrid, to Pepita, soprano singer and father, Placido, the baritone singer.
They performed in typical Spanish operetta – zarzuela. In 1949 they moved to Mexico, where young Placido Jr was growing, studying and making his debut in 1961 on the stage of National Opera. A year later he got a son, also Placido, with his first wife, pianist Ana Maria Guerra Cue. (They married when they were sixteen.) NB: In 1962 he married again his colleague from the Academy, soprano singer, Marta Ornelas. This marriage has survived until date.
Maestro Placido soon deserved high position on the Opera stage. As a result since 1962 he started to exist in a ‘permanent way,’ as well as his family. Enough to mention Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, additionally he debuted successfully as a conductor, also ‘travelers’ profession.
More stable is a position of Opera Director but the Maestro somehow became a ‘visiting director’ – again ‘permanent way’ (Washington, Los Angeles etc). No need to add glorious period of wonderful ‘Three Tenors’ – everybody knows about it.
At last they were again writing and talking more in the media about the famous tenor, Placido Domingo, unfortunately not too fortunate for him. He stepped down as Opera Director post and cancelled several performances, under pressure of the ‘public opinion’.
Performances
As mentioned above, Placido has a son – Placido Domingo Junior (Double Junior?), also tenor – singer. The Senior presented several times the Junior on common performances. Junior is a good musician and looks to be a fine young man. For sure, growing and (living) in the shadow of a big star is not easy. Let us follow the fate of the next member of The Dynasty, OK?
Junior is an exceptional person: he sings, composes and ‘is on the way’. Everywhere he feels like at home but he couldn’t stay anywhere longer than two weeks. At last, he fell in love in the Argentinean tango and toured Europe. Who he feels himself like? Italian, Spanish, Mexican…? ‘I am always moving. I was living in many countries: four… five… six countries? Or more? I speak four… five… many languages. I was born in Mexico but I was raised in Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Britain. It looks like I am a real cosmopolitan. However my heart is Spanish!’
His life combines from changes. Even when he spends (with many travels) twenty four years in States, he was settled in New York, Florida, California, than he finds himself also in North American. In 2013 he decided to settle in Europe, and began to feel like an European. ‘I am changing, depends where I am staying, what I am experiencing, it is inevitable.’
‘Basically I am at home everywhere… That’s a wonderful thing about my life. I enjoy every city, every country. And anything I would take from this country and from this period of life – I accept. I like to travel. I don’t like to stay in one place. Even if I find the best country and town in the whole world, within a couple of days or weeks I will say: OK, I have to go somewhere else. I will just sketch a plan and take a trip even if I don’t have to go to work. I would just say: OK, I need to go out now.’
‘Double Junior’ is not interesting in conducting neither managing but he became also a composer. He composed at night, sometimes up to 4 o’clock in the morning. It is possible to do alone, in your own room. Being alone has advantages and quite opposite – just loneliness. Composing is a very lonely work. You have to be alone. Nobody sees you. When you are singing, you need to be completely present, you need to smile and – you need to perform. When you compose… you can do it in your pajamas. You can have a coffee there… It is a very private enterprise.
Satisfaction
Satisfaction is immediate in singing … because I sing I do it I hear the sound and it comes out. In composition it’s a little longer – you have to repeat and you have to change. Sometimes you don’t hear the final recording or you don’t hear a singer singing it. I don’t think I get the same satisfaction; not the same doesn’t mean ‘worse’ but ‘different’. He never sings his own song, never composes for himself. I don’t understand my voice! I’ve never wanted to… ‘Never say never…’ Once Double Junior broke his principle, he confesses: ‘I’ve only written one song that I actually sang. It was on album ‘Amore Infinito’ with the poems of …Karol Wojtył (it means Saint Pope John Paul II, who was also a poet and …actor) Notabene: I wrote that song… for my Father, he adds.
Thanks Double Junior we know a bit how to be a son of The Star. Something more intimate? He often performed with his father. Did he get to know him better because of it? Of course! It’s a very intimate moment. You go on stage. You are together. Sometimes you have 10 thousand people there and you are sharing that intimate moment. It helps me.
How to be a child of…? Not easy, but sometimes, even rarely – maybe nice?
Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by wellknown musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His email address is: cowerkowicz @ yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@ hotmail.com