The couple who are proof that music really is the food of love
Archie and Rhona hit the high notes when they met — now they even work together
THEY say music is the food of love and for one Irish couple at least that certainly rings true. Husband and wife team Archie Chen and Rhona Gouldson met through music and are now on a mission to encourage others to fall in love with classical tunes.
Above all else, Archie and Rhona want to bring classical piano music — often thought of as an elitist interest — to the Irish masses. And in many ways, it’s a fitting ambition, given that Ireland’s love affair with classical piano music goes back centuries; as far back as 1742, when Handel first performed his Messiah opus in Dublin.
‘People think of this as niche, elitist stuff, and it isn’t,’ explains Rhona. ‘You don’t have to come and know the music or the composers, you just have to come and appreciate it. Let the music do what it’s meant to, which is to take you away.’
Both Archie and Rhona grew up with a love of music that would one day become their careers — and change their lives forever.
And both shared a love for the keys from a very early age, starting lessons at six years old; Rhona, in Glasnevin, Dublin, and Archie, in his native Spokane, Washington (the birthplace of Bing Crosby).
‘My mom had an organ in the house so when I was about three years old, I would just go play and pick up tunes from TV commercials,’ recalls Archie. ‘After a few years it was thought that I should have piano lessons, and the irony is that we got a call out of the blue from a piano teacher, who was supposed to be calling my mom’s sister, who was asking about lessons for her son. So in a way, I learned the piano by accident. But I loved it from the get-go.’
Where Archie was an only child, Rhona was the youngest of five; her parents encouraged each of their children to take up two instruments each.
‘The girls in my family did piano and harp, and the boys did piano and violin,’ she recalls. ‘I wouldn’t have been all that drawn to it, and when I was 11 or 12 my brothers had asked if they could give up their music lessons as they had gotten more into sports. I remember asking my parents then, “why can’t I take a break from the piano?” but they were adamant that I stuck with it. Then something really unusual happened: I fell in love with it. I couldn’t get enough of it and was practising for around five hours a day on the weekend. I just loved it — it was a great way to channel emotions and express yourself. And at 13 or 14, I decided then and there, that’s what I would do for a living.’
Graduating from Trinity College Dublin after winning the Taylor Entrance Exhibition (a two-year scholarship), Rhona taught at the esteemed Leeson Park School of Music.
‘I had a vague idea that I might like to run my own school, but it was going to be something I did in my 40s,’ she recalls. ‘Even then I could see that running a music school was pretty intense.’
Deciding in her late 20s to take a break from her career as a pianist to travel the world, Rhona placed an ad in the Royal Irish Academy, looking for a pianist that could teach her students in her absence.
Around the same time, Archie — who had come to Ireland expressly to train under the esteemed musician John O’Connor at the Royal Irish Academy of Music — realised that his grant money was starting to run out.
‘I was here on a big scholarship and the person (who funded it) had passed away, so that was essentially gone,’ explains Archie. ‘So I started to look for some students to teach.’
After their fateful collision, the two decided on an arrangement: Archie would take Rhona’s students for lessons while she went travelling. Neither were expecting sparks to fly on their first meeting, but fly they nevertheless did.
‘I had a fiancé, and Archie was with somebody as well, so it was definitely strictly professional,’ recalls Rhona.
‘I was delighted that someone reliable and amazing was looking after my students. But I do remember thinking, when he arrived on his motorbike with his leathers and helmet, that he was gorgeous.’
Archie, for his part, believed Rhona to be out of his league. Yet when she returned home from travelling, Archie returned her students to her, and she bade him farewell.
A few months later however, he rang looking for more teaching work. Around that time, the idea of opening a school of her own began to form in Rhona’s mind.
‘I soon had a couple of great teachers on board within a few months, so the plan to open a school happened much sooner than I thought,’ she smiles. ‘Only later, things with Archie went romantic.’
THEN single, Rhona soon realised that she has feelings for Archie that went beyond the professional. It was while clearing up after their students’ concerts in June 2006, that Rhona and Archie first kissed, which took them both by surprise.
‘I remember ringing my sister, who was in France at the time and I was like, ‘oh, what will I do about this guy? He’s really amazing, but he’s also amazing as a teacher’. I didn’t want anything to jeopardise the school. I remember my sister telling me that she could hear in my voice that I was really keen on this guy, and that I should just go with the flow on this one.’
The pair are now married ten years and have a son Solomon aged nine and daughter, Sheba, eight. Happily, both children are as enamoured with the piano as their parents.
‘They’re both more advanced that I was at that age,’ observes Archie. ‘Solomon won the Feis Ceol a couple of years ago in his age category. They’re definitely high-fliers.’
The pair spend most of their time together — living and working in the same place, running the Piano Academy of Ireland in Rathgar and now the Dublin Piano Festival.
As for the prospect of living and working —very busily — together, Archie believes it’s about finding the right balance, and having a shared
passion which transcends family life.
‘People ask me all the time, “how do you do it? If I was with my spouse all the time we would have divorced long ago”,’ smiles Archie, ‘But it just works. We’re passionate about the same things, and there’s no competitive nature about what we do.
Rhona is happy for me to do most of the piano playing. It’s not like we have two divas in the house, which always helps.’
It was primarily Archie’s idea to start the festival, after he was inspired by other festivals worldwide that he attended as a music student.
‘I guess I was like a bee, going from festival to festival, and taking the best bits from them and adding my own elements to it,’ he explains.
‘It’s an amalgamation of all these great things, put together in one programme.’
The couple had drawn too from their experiences of running a festival for the National Piano Academy: ‘We had picked up a little bit of planning skill from that, but that first year we did the Dublin International Piano Festival, where you’re doing everything for the first time, was really tough,’ explains Rhona.
‘But now, once you’ve established a really good roster of folks, people are interested to see who we book. Like, we had Barry Douglas last year, how can they top that?’
It may be Archie and Rhona’s fifth year running the festival, but the two have run the Piano Academy of Ireland in Rathgar since 2006.
Proving they are a formidable pair in business, the couple also went on to create a pre-instrumental programme ‘#Sharp Kids’ and the Dublin Children’s Choir, in addition to organising regular concerts for their academy students, as well as for Archie himself.
The name Boris Berezovsky may not roll off the tongue quite as readily as, say, Ed Sheeran or Coldplay, but in the classical music world, the pianist is a true rockstar. And when Archie and Rhona booked him to appear at this summer’s festival they could barely believe their luck.
And for Archie, himself a player of no small repute, this year’s festival offers a chance to get up close and personal with his musical idol.
‘I was trying to explain to my son who Berezovsky is, and I told him, because his favourite football team is Real Madrid, that my version of Ronaldo was coming to town, so he understood how big a deal it was for us,’ enthuses Archie.
‘Berezovsky won the Tchaikovsky competition, which is held every four years in Russia and is like the Olympics of piano, when he was 19. He is just a phenomenal pianist: so spontaneous and fresh. No two performances are the same.’
Yet Berezovsky, who usually commands huge fees to perform, came up with a caveat of his own before signing on the dotted line to appear.
‘We couldn’t believe it when we got a booking like this, and normally, we wouldn’t be able to afford to book him, so he decided to appear at the festival for a reduced fee, but to bring a charity donation element into it.
‘We were so taken aback by that kind of generosity, as it just doesn’t happen like that normally,’ explains Rhona. ‘We looked at a few charities and because we have children ourselves, and wanted to do something with children.’
EVENTUALLY, the couple decided that ChildVision — a charity in Drumcondra that works alongside children with visual impairment and multiple disabilities — was the right fit. The charity has organised trips to the NASA Space Camp in the US for visually impaired children, and their work in many areas — Braille production, therapies, education — is ongoing.
‘The catalyst was Ruth Hickey (formerly a professional clarinet player), who I went to college with and who works as the head of fundraising for ChildVision,’ reveals Rhona.
‘We went around the site in Drumcondra and we were so blown away by the work that they do. Music is a really big part of their programme, which was a bonus. It’s amazing to be able to give back to the community with music.’
The prospect of raising funds for charity aside, the Dublin International Piano Festival and Summer Academy has been something of a labour of love for the pair since its inaugural event in 2013.
Billed as an attraction for international advanced students (who come for masterclasses and training from the US, Macedonia, Canada and France), and a chance for the Irish public to hear world renowned pianists, the week-long event promises to be a great experience for audiences of all ages.
÷The Dublin International Piano Festival & Summer Academy runs from July 22-30 (with Boris Berezovsky playing the National Concert Hall on July 25). For more information see pianofestival.ie. For more information on ChildVision, see childvision.ie.