By Cecilia Keehan

Famed concert pianist Jon Nakamatsu not only told the Morning Forum audience about his love for the piano - he showed them as well.

Along with the personal narrative, the Feb. 23 audience enjoyed several moving and beautifully executed piano selections and the one piece that projected Nakamatsu into piano lessons and his career.

When Nakamatsu was 4 years old, his mother took him to day care where the teacher showed the youngsters how the piano worked, but at the same time admonished them that it was off limits to them. But the 4 year old knew that despite the teacher’s admonition, he had to taste of the forbidden fruit. Once he did, his career was launched.

His parents bought him a little two-tier organ, which he played constantly from age 4 to 6, when his parents began to look for and soon found a music teacher suitable for his obvious and emerging talent.

Marina Derryberry was Nakamatsu’s teacher and coach for over 27 years. Nakamatsu said that she cared about who he was and worked with him from the time he was 6 until the Van Cliburn competition in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1997.

Their reward came in 1997, when Nakamatsu won the Van Cliburn competition, the first American to win the competition since 1981.

His first public performance was at age 7, yet his parents tried to give him a normal upbringing. He studied German for two years at Foothill College before transferring to Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in German and a master’s degree in education. After graduating, he became a popular German teacher at St. Francis High School in Mountain View. All the while, he kept studying piano. Teaching, he said, gave him the finances to go to music festivals.

Nakamatsu said the Van Cliburn competition is held every four years. Those who wish to participate must submit long, detailed applications, and hundreds compete. The first round lasts a week and is open to the public.

The list is then dwindled down to 12, and they must play a piece that has been selected by the Van Cliburn organization, a 75-minute solo recital. Six finalists emerge from the round. Two people play two concertos on the same evening, scored for a full symphony.

Nakamatsu himself had been rejected four years earlier, but he thought at age 27 he’d try one last time. No matter whether he won or lost the competition, he said, he knew he would get to play with the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet.

He became one of the six finalists. After the finals came the day for the announcement of prizes. When he heard his name called, Nakamatsu said it was a moment of disbelief.

What followed, he said, was a complete change in his life. He received two years of managed concerts, a $10,000 wardrobe and recording sessions in the United States, Europe and South America.

At Morning Forum, Nakamatsu played the piece that brought him to the piano, Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer.” His first selection, a sonata, was by a contemporary of Beethoven’s, Joseph Woelfl. The next selections were two pieces of Opus 90, Nos. 2 and 3, by Schubert, showing the dramatic and the lyric sides of Schumann. The last piece was a song transcription from Schumann’s “Widmung” that translates as “Dedication.”

At the end of the talk and performance, the audience stood and gave the pianist a sustained and well-earned applause.

Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. To get on a waiting list for membership, write to: Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.