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Kay Zavislak was barely four years old when she first touched the ivory keys of a piano — and she hasn’t left them since.
Zavislak will perform her first University of Idaho faculty recital at 4 p.m. on Saturday in the Lionel Hampton School of Music Recital Hall.
The pieces played will reflect Zavislak’s cultural past with both Japanese and Western music.
She grew up in Japan, spending her first 14 years of playing piano under the tutelage of one teacher before she entered high school.
After a three-day intensive audition, Zavislak was accepted into the prestigious Gakuen High School of Music.
“It made a complete shift in my life, to be surrounded by brilliant musicians. The music scene is a very unique environment,” Zavislak said.
Zavislak could have continued through to the college level at Gakuen, but decided instead to go to Michigan primarily to learn English.
“My father is an American citizen,” Zavislak said, “and every time we went to get our passports renewed, they would ask why I couldn’t speak English.”
The cultural differences between Zavislak’s Japanese teacher and her Michigan teacher were notable, each different in a positive way.
“My Japanese teachers worked on refinement and made detail work a top priority. My American teacher was encouraging and made the big picture take a higher priority,” Zavislak said.
Zavislak joined the LHSOM piano faculty this past fall and is “excited to be here.”
Piano professor Jonathan Mann performed with Zavislak last fall and said she has been a good addition to the music staff.
“She has reinforced the approachable and friendly quality of the faculty while still retaining incredibly rigorous musical standards,” Mann said.
She hopes her students will get the best from both the Japanese and American methods she was trained under.
Choosing music as a career was not a hard choice for her.
“I like to tell stories and this is the vehicle for me to do that. I have something to say and I say it through music,” Zavislak said.
Mann said her style is passionate without being crazy.
“It’s a reverent passion,” Mann said.
Zavislak makes a point to memorize all her music, something that is not uncommon for musicians, but is still impressive.
“Unless things are memorized, I can’t say what I want to say,” Zavislak said.
She will open Saturday with two pieces by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu.
The pieces, “Romance and Piano Distance,” are contrasting but are both influenced by the Japanese scale system.
“Piano Distance is abstract, exploring different timbres of the instrument,” Zavislak said.
Giving a different sense of timing and a new approach to silence, “Piano Distance” stands out from its more subdued sister piece, “Romance.”
For the second half, Zavislak will perform the extensive “Sonata in B Minor” by Franz Liszt.
“The piece is monumental, powerful and visceral, but at the same time quite poetic,” Mann said.
Considered one of the cornerstones of the romantic keyboard repertoire, the piece is a milestone for any pianist and is one solid 32-minute number.
“It is a structurally complicating piece and is very demanding both technically and emotionally,” Zavislak said.
It is this intricate structure that prevents boredom.
“An audience sitting through any other piece this long would go crazy, but in this one, there’s too much going on to get bored,” Zavislak said.
Zavislak supports music and said it uplifts life, which is why she has devoted most of her life to it.
“How could anyone give up something so beautiful?” Zavislak said.
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