Concerto Chris
Although there are many musicians on campus, only a select few can be characterized as truly dedicated to the art. Senior Chris Vazan is most definitely a leading member of this group of young, aspiring musicians, which anyone can see from his strong involvement with music on and off campus.
When Vazan came to the Academy, he was not an average student curious about the world of music, but rather someone already immersed within it. Vazan has studied piano since he was four years old; his parents, who both are pianists that have led musical careers, were the first to teach him basic techniques and how to sight-read. They hired a private lesson teacher for their son three years later.
During his lower year, Vazan auditioned for a chamber music group; after the audition, conductor Benjamin Vickers—who had led the Academy’s symphony orchestra that year—asked him if he would ever be interested in learning to conduct. Eager to involve himself in yet another facet of music, Vazan began taking private lessons from Vickers and has since fallen in love with the craft of conducting.
As the lessons continued, Vazan progressed from simply knowing the gestures associated with particular music meters to incorporating the level of sensitivity required on a more professional level to find the balance between clarity of tone and musical expression. When interviewed, Vazan described his interpretation of what constituted proper conducting.
“Conducting technique is a very fluid, very personal thing,” Vazan said. “But there are still small, specific things to take care of: how to position your body, keeping your arm relaxed, maintaining a speed at which your arm falls. A lot of [conducting] is trying to be consciously aware of what subconsciously makes the best communication between the music and the audience,” he said.
The same year, Vazan began playing in the Beethoven Third Piano Concerto in preparation for a concerto competition with the help of piano instructor Lodowick Crofoot and senior Darius Shi, a fellow student of Crofoot. Shi had a glowing response when asked about Vazan and his life outside of music.
Shi characterized Vazan as a “very curious person” and though many may see Vazan as a “lunatic” or a “music geek,” Shi said that Vazan was simply an individual with a broad range of interests. Vazan was noted to “spend hours comparing different European cities,” switch over to research modern music theory and try to relate it to mathematical group theory. At one point, Vazan reached out to Shi to discuss physics in a “spontaneous moment of inspiration,” which only further reaffirmed Shi’s respect for his “exuberance and spirit of exploration.”
Crofoot contributed much to the process of preparing both Shi and Vazan for the competition by lending insight on musical expression and technique. Further down the road, he helped Vazan develop many other pieces in his repertoire. During his upper spring, Vazan decided to formally take on Crofoot as his private lesson teacher at around the same time he was rehearsing for his MUS500, an advanced instrumental recital course usually taken by seniors.
“I was so thrilled when he decided to take lessons with me. I love teaching anyone who works and tries to get better, but to teach someone as good and ambitious as Chris is amazing,” Crofoot said.
Crofoot also commented on Vazan’s humble attitude, even when he’s playing pieces written to flaunt a pianist’s skill—a characteristic that isn’t always present in top-class musicians. “He has a very good attitude about music,” Crofoot said. “He loves playing. He’s a very exuberant player, and a passionate player. But even when he’s playing pieces that have a show-off element, I don’t see him as a pianist who plays to glorify himself.”
This past summer, Vazan became the student conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA). To do so, he had recorded over two hundred takes of his audition videos, proving his determination to obtain the singular available spot as student conductor. Vazan still recalls his surprise of how his hard work truly did pay off in fulfilling his dream.
The NYO-USA spent the first two weeks of the program on the campus of Purchase College in New York to rehearse and performed pieces by Beethoven, Berlioz and Tan Dun on campus. The group then played at Carnegie Hall before bringing the same repertoire to the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, China, and other venues in Shanghai, Suzhou, Xi’an, Shenzhen, Xinghai and Hong Kong.
Back on campus, Vazan has been singing as a bass in Concert Choir since his upper fall. With his participation in Concert Choir, he has connected with conductor Kristopher Johnson and the two have found their mutual love of opera and music through conversations about vocal repertoire and the professional music world.
“Chris is penetratingly curious,” Johnson said. “His appetite for musical information is insatiable, and he thinks clearly and deeply about both the technical and expressive components of music-making. I’ve always been delighted by his compassion and expansive intellectual reach when talking about music and musicians.”
Senior Eugene Park learned of Vazan’s music in a distinctly different way; he was in the music building one day, and heard “beautiful music” coming from Powell Hall. Park entered the large room, and when Vazan noticed he was there, he invited Park to sit down and listen to more.
“I sat next to him and as he opened up his musical world to me I realized that I was sitting next to a brilliant musical mind,” Park said.
“You can tell by the passion with which Chris plays that he’s practicing the piano and studying music not because he is forced to, but because he is genuinely happy when he plays music,” Park continued. “Chris is one of those rare types of people who is so madly in love with something, that he is already willing to devote the rest of his life to it.”