Dentist/ pianist from Calgary in spotlight
Calgary pianist Thomas Yu takes a break from dental practice to earn national recognition
It wasn’t easy for Thomas Yu to become CBC Music’s 2015 Piano Hero.
For one thing, in order to advance to the finals earlier this year, the Calgary pianist — who spends his days practising dentistry — had to land enough online support from listeners to make it into the top 10.
Despite the fact that the odds were pretty good — none of his competitors had performed at Carnegie Hall, as Yu had — didn’t mean they couldn’t get him voted out of the Top 10.
“I’m thankful that I have a social network,” Yu says, “because otherwise, it felt at times like I was going up against high schoolers who had limitless friends that could vote for them, so I felt like, in some ways, I was the old guy in that competition — older than anybody in the top 10 by about 10 years or so.”
One morning, late in the competition, Yu awoke to discover himself sitting comfortably in the top five.
But by the time Yu, who performs with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Friday and Saturday night at Jack Singer Hall, got home from a day spent drilling teeth, he had slipped.
“After work, my dad called me and said, ‘ you’re down to number 11’ — and people were passing me like, every time I checked,” he says.
With time running out to claim a spot in the final round of a competition that offered the winner a performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a recording session at the Glenn Gould Studios at CBC Radio and a new Steinway piano — Yu executed the reality show equivalent of pulling the goalie in a one- goal game: he launched a last- minute social- media lobby effort, where he discovered a few good municipal allies.
“Even Mayor Nenshi was retweeting my plea for votes,” he says. “I just didn’t put my head down until the stroke of midnight, and looked up and just made it in the top 10.”
That was all Yu needed. Once the competition got into the hands of the judges in early February, he became the CBC’s new Piano Hero.
It was the prize package of a pianist’s lifetime, with one thing missing: time to prepare for all of it.
After work, my dad called me and said, ‘ you’re down to number 11’ — and people were passing me like, every time I checked. Calgary pianist Thomas Yu
“To be selected,” he says, “and to be called up and told that in two weeks, you are going to be playing with the TSO and recording at CBC studios in Toronto, and there’ll be a ( very expensive Steinway) piano coming your way — it just was a whirlwind.”
The next thing Yu, who grew up in Saskatoon, knew, he was onstage, preparing to rehearse at Roy Thomson Hall, next to pianist Emanuel Axe — one of his musical role models — who noticed that Yu was acting oddly.
“He caught me checking my pulse,” he says, “and asked me, were you checking your pulse?
“I was checking my wrist pulse,” he adds, “and ( I said), I most certainly was because it was starting to hit me onstage that all of this was happening.
“I just wanted to check,” he says, ( to see) if I was still alive!
“Usually,” he says, explaining, “when you have a concert, you have months to prepare both mentally and physically. This one was entirely different — but in the end, it took the pressure right off. I felt so calm to be onstage, at Roy Thomson Hall where I used to go as a spectator for so many years. It was great.”
( He was aided backstage, where he hung out in the green room with a veritable roster of all- star pianists, including Axe — who helped him chill by talking about the upcoming Super Bowl — Honens Laureate Pavel Kolesnikov, and Calgarian Jan Lisiecki).
And while gigging at Roy Thomson Hall fulfilled a childhood dream for Yu, his performances this weekend with the Calgary Philharmonic rank right up there on Yu’s concert bucket list.
Last time Calgary audiences caught Yu, it was a noon hour concert at Banker’s Hall, as part of the Honens ProAm, which Yu also won ( each contestant raised $ 20,000 for Honens).
Now, six months later, Yu is moving on up Stephen Avenue to the big room — Jack Singer Hall, where he will perform on a Fazioli. ( It turns out he’s looking for someone with piano passion to adopt the new Steinway.)
“I’ve now been ( living) here for five years,” he says, “and never really ( formally) performed here. I’ve performed everywhere else around the world — Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Hall and things like this — but in Calgary, I’ve just been a periodontist.
“I’ve never really behaved like a pianist here,” he says, “so I’m really really excited to get the opportunity to play here.
“Everybody knows me as the dental guy here,” he says, “but this year’s been a kind of piano breakout, so we’ll see — it’ll be fun.”
Question: any patients heading attending his concerts this weekend?
“Yeah there’ll be patients at the show,” Yu says, “but I hope they’re not all sitting together!
“It would make me very nervous,” he says, “to know they’re all sitting together, asking what ( sort of dental work) they had done, but some of them have already told me they’ve got tickets.
“A lot of dentists are going ( too)," he adds, “and patients — ( even though) most of my patients barely even know I play the piano, except that I have a digital piano in the waiting room.”