Winning Pianist : Focus on Giving a Good Performance--Plus Perseverance--Pays Off the Second Time Around for 19-Year-Old Competitor

Winning was easier the second time around for 19-year-old pianist David Andruss.

Last year, Andruss entered the eighth annual Young Keyboard Artists Assn. West Coast International Piano Competition and made it to the finals but wasn’t able to place.

This year, he took both first place in the Concerto Division, winning a 7-foot Young Chang grand piano valued at $15,000, and first place in Division 6, for entrants ages 18 to 20, for which he pocketed $500. In all, more than 300 musicians competed in six divisions in the March 19-25 event at Chapman College in Orange.

What made the difference?

“I attended the association’s summer institute,” Andruss said in a recent interview. “I learned a lot about competitions, about what it means to become a performing artist and the work behind it all.”

But above that, he credits studying with Malcolm Hamilton at USC, where he enrolled in 1987.

“It seems like everything I’ve heard from the time I started studying with Dottie Nix (in Orange) has all been a piece of advice here and a piece there, and I haven’t really understood how they fit together.

“After I came back this year to USC, Malcolm Hamilton helped me (take) the information I’ve been getting from all these other sources and put it together. . . .

“Where I used to learn the notes and get tips on interpretation, now I’m more able to take a piece and see what it’s about using the analytical skills I’ve learned at the university, and apply those principles and make my own interpretations.”

He stressed: “It hasn’t restricted me in terms of interpretation. It’s opened up my musical ideas.”

Andruss was born in Covina, grew up in Placentia and, in 1987, moved to Anaheim, from which he commutes to USC.

“My mother tells me that I was getting up at the piano around 3 years old, trying to pick up things my brothers and sisters were playing,” he said. “I started lessons when I was 4. I’ve been taking lessons ever since.”

Fourth-born among the siblings, Andruss has one brother and three sisters. Of the others, only his youngest sister, a 17-year-old soprano, is pursuing music professionally, studying at Fullerton College.

“I always loved to play and practice,” Andruss said. “But in my senior year I really got serious about it. My teacher, Dottie Nix, started training me for the things I would have to do to really begin playing the piano professionally. Before then, it had been a matter of fun.”

Under her tutelage, he began entering competitions and waking up to the realities of better competitors.

“I heard others who were as good as if not better than I was, so I had a goal to look up to,” he said.

He placed first in a 1986 Musical Arts Club competition, an event at Cal State Fullerton open only to Orange County residents. Other small awards followed.

Andruss was cagey in his strategy, choosing the firepower Prokofiev First.

“It’s really one of my favorite concertos and also an excellent competition piece,” he said. “This was a one-movement concerto competition, and the First is a chance to play the entire one movement continually.

“In a sense, I get four movements in one with this concerto.”

For the Senior Division, he learned two new pieces: the Overture to Bach’s Partita in D and the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 4.

“I spent 20 hours a week practicing the solos, in addition to school work,” he said.

Andruss said he felt he was up against challenging competitors at the recent contest, but he confessed that he didn’t hear many of the others play.

“That makes me too nervous,” he said. “After I play, then I can go and listen to the others.”

The day of the finals was grueling for the young contestants: Andruss competed in the senior division during the day, then come back in the evening for the concerto finals.

“That’s a tough battle,” he said. “I was so exhausted. I went home to relax before coming back to play for the concerto. I tried to take a nap,” he said, laughing.

But he did have a change in attitude to help him. “It’s always been nerve-wracking before, going in thinking, how do I have to play to win the prize? But my goal has changed a little bit. Malcolm has helped me. I go in now trying to make music. . . .

“This was the first time I could go in and think, ‘What do I need to do to make a good performance?’ That was the goal this time. I was thrilled. I was so happy with the way I played.”

He is not letting winning the awards go to his head, however.

“I’m not really sure what (winning) does for me, to be truthful,” he said. “It feels wonderful. But at the same time I’m not sure what this means.

“The best thing for me to do is go right back to work, and if opportunities come as a result of this, I’ll be there and ready to take them.

“I can’t sit back and relax and think, ‘Look what I’ve done.’ If I do that, then this is really worthless.”

Andruss plans to compete in the Young Keyboard Artists Assn. East Coast International Competition, to be held June 26 through July 2 in Winter Park, Fla.

“I think it will be a lot tougher,” he said. “There will be a lot of people from the East Coast, maybe even from the Juilliard (School of Music) prep school and maybe even Juilliard students because it’s open to 20-year-olds. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”