Mt. Lebanon graduate makes mark as musician, historian
A portrait of his late grandfather hangs in a prominent place above the piano in Alvin Zhu’s family home.
“As far as that goes,” the 2009 Mt. Lebanon High School graduate said, “I always thought that my grandpa was just very famous within our family.”
It turns out that Zhu Gong-Yi (1922-86) also is famous within the musical community of the nation of China, as Alvin learned when he was invited two years ago to play piano during a memorial festival honoring his grandfather at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
“It was packed,” he recalled. “People would come up to me and say, ‘Oh, your grandpa would be proud’ or ‘You look so much like him.’ And I was thinking, wow! My grandpa had such an influence on so many people.”
Alvin, a highly regarded concert pianist who is scheduled to complete his doctorate of musical arts at The Juilliard School in May, was sufficiently inspired to learn more about Zhu Gong-Yi, a former chairman of the Central Conservatory’s piano department.
In 2017, Alvin was awarded a Fulbright Research Scholarship to spend 10 months at the conservatory pursuing his goal.
“The project, itself, is looking at how my grandpa’s pedagogical techniques,” he said, “how the way he taught piano affected today’s generation of piano teachers and also has really bolstered the love for piano playing in China.”
That wasn’t necessarily widespread when his grandfather started learning the instrument.
“In those days, piano teaching was heavily influenced by the pursuit of technique,” Alvin explained. “It was not so much about being a musician, per se.”
Zhu Gong-Yi studied under Mario Paci (1878-1946), an Italian pianist and conductor who led the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, which at the time had exclusively foreign-born members.
Between exposure to those musicians and playing piano in Shanghai coffeehouses, where he learned about jazz, Zhu Gong-Yi was able to bring a different perspective to instructing his students.
“A lot of that helped in how he was able to teach music: much more creativity, much more emphasis on treating the sister arts – like dance, poetry, painting – as much more of an inspiration in music, rather than separate entities,” Alvin said. “He did this both before and after the Cultural Revolution, which is a very controversial era in modern Chinese history.”
The reference is to Mao Zedong’s call for the nation’s youth to purge the “impure” elements of Chinese society, resulting in some 1.5 million people killed in the decade leading up to Mao’s own death in 1976. The Central Conservatory’s piano department suspended operations until 1978, and Zhu Gong-Yi was named chairman four years later.
Alvin’s doctoral dissertation addresses his grandfather’s teaching method and “contributions to a larger scheme,” he said. “My next goal is to publish the first biography on my grandfather.”
In the meantime, he has accepted a faculty position at Tianjin Juilliard, located about 70 miles from Beijing, the renowned New York City music school’s first branch campus. Starting in September, he will teach piano, chamber music and music history as, at 28, the youngest professor on the roster.
His father, Huan Zhu, plays violin and viola, and his mother Qing Zhang, is a cellist.
“I grew up listening to a lot of music. I would often travel with my parents when they toured for concerts and rehearsals,” he recalled. “At a very young age, I was exposed to a lot of the great works of classical music.”
Alvin started taking piano lessons at 4 and, although he doesn’t have the opportunity to play the instrument much anymore, violin at 5.
“In the very beginning, I didn’t think that I was going to make a career. It was just something I grew up doing, and it never left me. I always kept my practicing and my passion for music very much alive, all the way up through high school,” he said.
“That was really when I made the decision. It was around junior year and senior year of high school when I decided: Hey, I’ve been doing this all my life so far, and why not give it a shot as a career? That’s when I auditioned for Juilliard,” an institution that accepts only 6 percent of applicants.
He continues to perform at venues throughout the world, having embarked on a mini-tour of China in late November and early December, and returning to New York City for two Juilliard recitals before heading to Pittsburgh to visit his parents for the holidays.
All the while, he’s working on his repertoire.
“I’m always excited right after a few sets of recitals. I call this a ‘shopping period,’ in which I look for works that not only have I never played, but I look for works that are rarely played,” he said. “I’m constantly listening to more and more new music, as well. I love playing contemporary music, and I’ve worked with a few living composers, playing their work.”
For more information, visit alvinzhu.com.