Compared with pianists of the same age, Zhang Haiou is very lucky. His parents didn't take him to the piano bench to develop his talents when he was three or four years old. He had a happy childhood in which he enjoyed himself. In fact, he studied music by accident, which is his mother's bad habit. When Zhang Haiou was young, his impatient mother fed him when he ate slowly and tied his shoelaces when he didn't tie them properly. In this way, he was deprived of the opportunity to exercise his fingers and did not do well in some self-care aspects that he should learn.
This made my mother a little worried, so she took him to the Children's Palace to learn the electronic piano and wanted him to practice his fingers. Unexpectedly, his fingers are incredibly flexible on the electronic organ, and he has a good sense of music, so he can quickly master the music score. It didn't take long to learn the piano, which coincided with the provincial children's electronic piano competition, and he entered the final. To the surprise of the judges, he changed the difficult passage of hungarian rhapsody No.2, which he had always been fascinated with, into a sixth scale. He overcame it easily without learning any professional composition skills to adapt to his immature hands and won the first prize with absolute advantage. The judges praised Zhang Haiou's outstanding musical talent and suggested that he learn piano instead. In this way, at the age of eight, I began to learn piano with Mr. Chen.
Although he learns piano late, he is very capable. Every time he goes to Mr. Chen's class, he can not only express music well, but also make few mistakes, and he is often praised and encouraged by Mr. Chen, which is very important for a beginner! Teacher Chen has a good eye and intends to give him high marks. Zhang Haiou has made rapid progress in his studies. In less than a year, he has conquered the textbooks that other children will play for three to five years. Parents are also very relaxed about his piano practice and adhere to the principle of focusing on playing. His piano study life is full of sunshine and happiness!
When I studied piano for one year, it happened that three famous experts from the Central Conservatory of Music came to Inner Mongolia to take the amateur piano exam. He is very capable. Mr. Chen boldly chose level five for him from the beginning, but he could easily control the level six track during the exam. He is in the examination room of Professor Ling Yuan, a famous piano educator. She is a very strict teacher, but she is very satisfied with Zhang Haiou's performance, which enables him to successfully pass the CET-6 and be rated as an excellent candidate.
His talent moved teacher Chen and urged his parents to take him to the primary school attached to the Central Conservatory of Music. However, parents are hesitant, because the child who can be admitted is really a chicken feather, not to mention that he learns the piano late and has a short time. Teacher Chen, who especially likes talents, worried that the talents would be buried, so she left her newborn daughter at home and brought him to Beijing in person. After many twists and turns, I finally had the honor to meet Mr. Zhou Guangren, a leading figure in the piano field in China.
The amiable Mr. Zhou Guangren was very happy after hearing Zhang Haiou's performance. She said, I generally don't recommend that children engage in majors too early and take care of a child. But after listening to your performance, I can help you. She suggested that he get ready to come to Beijing and try to apply for the primary school attached to the Central Conservatory of Music. With her enthusiastic help and support, Zhang Haiou began to learn piano with Zhong Hui, a teacher from the Central Conservatory of Music.
However, his hometown is in remote Inner Mongolia, and his parents, who are at the peak of their careers, are very busy at work. For the sake of Zhang Haiou's future, his mother took him to start a hard life of playing truant: every Saturday night, he took an overnight train to Beijing, went to the Central Conservatory of Music immediately after arriving on Sunday, and then took an overnight train back at night. When he got home on Monday morning, he immediately went to school with his schoolbag on his back. His mother suffered a lot with him in those years, but he was very happy because he was going to study piano at the Central Conservatory of Music.
Seven months later, the day of the exam finally came. Parents are very nervous, because the children who come here to take the exam are very old, and many of them have won many prizes in domestic children's piano competitions, and their reputation is outstanding. Compared with them, Zhang Haiou is a blank sheet of paper. Bad news keeps coming. Originally, there were eight places for public students every year, but there were only four that year because of the shortage of teachers. Really worse!
When he was young, he was completely ignorant and still played the piano happily. During the exam, he walked into the examination room carefree and showed his talents without distractions. After three rounds of brutal competition, he came from a remote area less than two years after learning piano, and conquered the critical ears of the professors in the Conservatory of Music with his brilliant musical talent, becoming one of the four winners.
After entering the school, Zhang Haiou lived up to expectations and won the third place in the Beijing Hope Cup Children's Piano Competition and the first place in the National Youth Piano Competition.
Zhang Haiou has a distinct learning personality. As Mr. Zhou Guangren said, "This child has many things in his mind, his own things, and he is an active learning child. Knowledge is not instilled by teachers, but learned by oneself. He doesn't need that kind of indoctrination. "
He not only practiced hard, but also had a wide range of interests at an early age. He is fascinated by cars, ships, military affairs, maps, gems, death, the universe and so on. His parents bought him many books and periodicals related to his interests and took him to see related exhibitions. After entering the Central Conservatory of Music, he began to collect and study various versions of music scores, listen to a large number of CDs played by piano master, read Chinese and foreign literature and history materials, often write notes, and listen to operas, compose music, and write novels or poems when he is free.
The multi-cultural nutrients make Zhang Haiou's vision more open and his thinking more active. In his view, it is not enough for a pianist to have talent, sense of music and sensitivity to music. He also needs a rich cultural background, especially western culture, to make himself more imaginative and creative, instead of just being a pianist. The desire to study abroad began to sprout in his mind. Mr. Zhou Guangren also thinks that piano is a western culture and needs a big environment. You can go out to learn when necessary.
Hanover University of Music and Drama, a world-famous piano institution, is the German-Austrian music hall that he has been longing for for for a long time. On the recommendation of Mr. Zhou Guangren, Zhang Haiou was selected by Professor Bernd Goetzker, a famous piano educator. He likes Zhang Haiou very much. He personally drove to the airport in the rain to welcome Zhang Haiou, and also helped to arrange his residence, which made Zhang Haiou feel very warm when he first arrived in a foreign country.
Shortly after entering the school, the professor asked him to take part in the Holovitz International Piano Competition. When he set foot on a trip to Kiev, he was both excited and nervous, because five alumni in the same trade were not only older than him, but almost all of them had participated in international competitions, and some of them had won gold medals, which was his first time to participate in international competitions. This made him feel a little stressed. However, full of confidence, he feels that he is also very impactful!
After arriving in Kiev, Zhang Haiou first relaxed himself. He first visited the scenery, buildings and museums in this beautiful city and bought presents for his parents. Although the competition was cruel, five alumni were eliminated in the preliminary and semi-finals, leaving him alone, but he felt very calm and had the strength to compete for the final.
The final is a piano concerto with the Ukrainian National Symphony Orchestra, which is the first time that Zhang Haiou has cooperated with the Grand Symphony Orchestra. His piano concerto Rachmaninov No.3 in D minor is huge, difficult and difficult to play. The concert hall was packed and the sound of the orchestra infected him. He was not nervous at all, but excited. He felt that the stage and the orchestra belonged to him. The national flags of more than 20 finalists were hung at the scene. When he came to power, he saw the five-star red flag next to the piano, and suddenly he had an indescribable kindness and impulse, and wanted to get good grades for it. So the more he played, the more passionate he became, even crazy, and the whole person melted into the music. At the end of the music, he couldn't control himself in the stirring melody, and the last note actually stood up and played. The cheers of the audience resounded through the concert hall, and the scene was so warm that Zhang Haiou thanked the audience many times in a row, and the audience never gave up. He had to blow kisses to the audience again and again. However, the excited audience kept clapping and stamping their feet. Some people rushed to the stage and threw flowers and gifts at him, and then they even carried him out of the concert hall. Kiev Weekly praised him: "Zhang Haiou's Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor is great, as if he had played it himself ..."
Shortly after winning the prize, he struggled hard in the first German Derlager Music Awards Competition and became the only piano gold medal winner among the 50 finalists. He was awarded the Golden Award, with generous accommodation, piano room, scholarships, a series of concerts and recording opportunities. Then, in 2008, he won the special prize of the German Music Competition in Kisingen, and in 2009, he won the Carl Dorken Scholarship, followed by the Carl Dorken Foundation Music Award, the Leslob Music Award and the Mei Niuyin Foundation Music Award.