Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer
World renowned Jamaican pianist Orrett Rhoden fell in love with music and the piano at age four. - Carlington Wilmot/Freelance Photographer
AT A very young age, Mrs. Norma Rhoden lost her son, not to gangs or any other negative social activity, but to the consuming love of music and the piano.
His mother recalls, "I did not have a piano (but) one day I went to my friend's home in Stony Hill where there was one. He (Orrett, who was about four then) went to the piano, climbed onto the stool and started playing. He was so excited.
Today, Orrett Rhoden is a virtuoso at the piano, world renowned and of whom it is
said that, when he played Chopin for the great master, Artur Rubenstein, in 1985, Rubenstein declared unreservedly, "You have a rare talent. Some pianists are not musicians, and some musicians are not pianists, but you, young man are both."
Coveted invitation
Rhoden subsequently received a coveted invitation to perform at an all Chopin recital in the composer's birthplace in Zelazowa Wola, Poland in 1985.
Those who heard Orrett play when he was just a toddler impressed upon his mother the need to get a piano for him and she did. Orrett, she says, would play all day. He had to be fed at the piano. Such was his passion for music.
Rhoden's first music teacher in Kingston was Daisy Hewitt who promptly informed his parents that the child was gifted. "He played anything and he would play it right through," his mother recalls. Other tutors in his young years included Rita Coore and Sydney Morris. He also did a short stint at the Jamaica School of Music.
Rita Coore, the mother of musician Cat Coore, was to have the greatest influence on young orrett. Mrs. Coore, he says, encouraged him by her unconventional methods to develop the free and spontaneous style which has characterised him ever since.
By age eight Orrett was performing locally on television, and at 13 he took first place in nine out of 11 classes in a major music competition in Toronto, Canada. He received his academic secondary education at Calabar College in Kingston, where he played the piano for morning chapel and accompanied the choir for school occasions such as prize-giving's and graduations.
His mother states that Orrett was by no means a quite nerd. " he was quite mischievous," she states.
Orrett Rhoden graduated from Calabar in 1977 and then went live in the United States with Dr. Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse, noted composer and conductor of the New England Youth Ensemble, and developed his talents while touring worldwide with the group. In 1979 he gave several recitals in England.
Others with whom he studied included Rosalyn Tureg, one of the world's greatest Bach interpreters. Another was Nina Svettanova a Russian teacher.
Orrett won several musical competitions, including the Viotti International competition in Italy after which he was selected to do an all-Bach concert in the country.
In 1983 he returned to Jamaica to perform during the visit of Queen Elizabeth II. The producer of a documentary which was made of the visit was so impressed with Rhoden's playing that she helped him to get an audition with the London Symphony Orchestra. In the same year he was invited to participate in the prestigious Caribbean and Latin American Festival of the Arts where he performed excerpts from Liszt's Transcendental Etudes at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Then in November 1984, he made his orchestral debut at the Barbican Centre, London, playing Tchaikovsky's Concerto No. 1 with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andre Bernard.
Rhoden performed in two recitals at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in March 1985, to further international acclaim. In October of the same year he made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, New York, performing Scarletti's Two Sonatas in A, Bach's Concerto in the Italian Style, Schubert's Fantasy Sentimentales and Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brilliante. This was a most significant milestone for the young artiste.
In the following years, he gave numerous performances in Spain, France, Poland, Italy, Mexico, Canada and Russia. He has performed as a soloist, with several of the world's leading orchestras and conductors, including Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has also given a number of recitals for BBC Radio and Television. About five years ago, he staged a classical concert in Jamaica to raise money for Calabar, organised by the Calabar Old Boys' Association.
Rhoden's repertoire is wide and includes music from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic and Contemporary periods. But he is known to be a die-hard romantic, and is naturally at his best with romantic composers.
An international career has been facilitated by living in London for nine years. Rhoden makes his Weill Recital Hall debut with special guest artist Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse, violin.
The programme featured Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in D major and other works by Beethoven, Chopin, and Rittenhouse's Jamaican Suite for violin and piano. Among other peices. The performance inaugurated MidAmerica Productions' 2003-2004 Fall/Winter Chamber Music Series.
Rhoden's first CD album, 'Orrett Rhoden plays Brahms and Chopin', was released by ASV in 1986, and a Schumann CD album will be released soon by LRP Recordings, New York.
According to Kitty Bocking, a music critic from London, to listen to Orrett Rhoden play the piano is to hear something new.
"Perhaps surprising at first, his unique and intensely felt approach to music is arresting, almost overwhelming, always leaving the listener wanting more."
The artiste is describes as at his best with the romantics, plumbing the depths of emotion even while bringing a playfulness and wit which is unusual to his performance.
"I see not only visually, but emotionally, " the artist explains.
Rhoden returned to Jamaica in 2004 to complete the DVD 'Orrett Rhoden plays Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande polonaise Brilliante Opus 22. The project, the musician says, was sponsored by several local corporate entities including COK and Cable and Wireless and will be distributed among schools.
His father, Hector Rhoden is not well and Orrett has committed himself to spending time in Kingston with him. He is also meditating on other ways in which to encourage a love of the musical classics among children.
"Jamaica is not just for reggae. Its for all types of music. I see my role as bringing classical music in a fresh and unique way not only to Jamaicans but to people all over the world."
Rhoden has a strong following in North America and Europe.
"An artists, mission is to bring about joy and peace. I think that my mission or work is to do just that," the pianist says..
