Temirzhan Yerzhanov is a Kazakh and Moscow-trained, prize-winning concert pianist who is about to make his London début at the Wigmore Hall.  I went to see him in his new London home to find out more about his life and career to date.  He turned out to be a charming, engaging young man, who was very forthcoming about his life in the latter years of the Soviet Union.  (Editor.)

DH: When did you first discover that you had such a talent for music?

TY: I remember it was when I was three.  I admired figure skating which was, and still is, a cult sport in the USSR, and at that time classical music was used to skate to.  Nowadays electronic and pop music are played, but then it was mostly classical music, and so I came to it through dance, that is through figure skating.  I remember in particular a Canadian skater, Toller Cranston: I vividly remember his performances and I myself also danced on the floor as I re-enacted his routines.  So I came to music through dance.  Also my older sisters were encouraged by my mother to play the piano, so the piano, as an instrument, was there before I was born.  So when I turned seven I found it quite natural to be interested in the piano and music, which I studied at the prestigious music school in Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan.  It was very hard to get into the school—there was a lot of competition for places.  So I passed the examination and was accepted.  Of course, at that age, I didn’t realize my destiny would be that of a concert pianist, but it was a natural progression for me—I could sing, I could dance, I had a good musical ear...  It was only much later, when I was sixteen or seventeen, that I realized that being a pianist was the only thing that I would love to do.  So it took some time—it did not come to me in a sudden flash.  Of course, during my life I had periods of doubt, whether I should make it my career, or not, because life as a concert pianist is tough, but I came through the difficult times convinced that this was the right profession and path for me.

DH: Did you get a lot of encouragement from your parents and family?

TY: Yes, but their support for me came in the form of a sacrifice, because they had to put me in a boarding school...  In the Soviet Union there was a kind of Olympic system even for music, just as for sport: you were chosen for your talent, which was obvious.  It was similar to the system now in China, where they copied the Soviet model in selecting kids, as we saw recently in the extraordinary number of medals they won in the last Olympic Games.  The Soviet regime took the same attitude towards other disciplines, such as music, and it was very demanding.  And scouts were sent out all over the Soviet Union from the Central Music School in Moscow to select the best of the best to go to Moscow, where we had to undergo more competitive selection procedures, and so I ended up in Moscow.  When I got there, although I’d been the best in Almaty, I realized I was not the best there!  I was somewhere in the middle, and so I had to start to climb the ladder all over again.  It was demoralizing and also, just as in Almaty at the boarding school, I was still far away from home and coincidentally I felt an even greater separation from my parents because they went to work abroad, as engineers, so we ended up even further apart in terms of distance.  So, this was the support I got from them—it was a great sacrifice for them not to have me close to them.  In this way, we both suffered, but they never pressurized me to play, it was a natural path to follow.  Now that I am a professional pianist they take great delight in what I have achieved, and this is their reward for that sacrifice they made.