Pianist Andre Watts, who terrified audiences with his powerful technique and magnetic charm and was catapulted into one of the first black superstars in classical music, died Wednesday at his home in Bloomington, Indiana. bottom. He is 77 years old.
His wife, Joan Brand Watts, said the cause was prostate cancer.
Mr. Watts was an old world virtuoso with a talent for electricity and emotion. His idol was the composer and showman Franz Liszt. He sometimes hummed, stamped his feet, and shook his head during his performance, although some critics accused him of overdoing it. But his charisma and technical prowess are undeniable, and it’s what propels him to the top concert halls in the world.
In 1971, at the age of 25, Watts told The New York Times, “My greatest satisfaction is performing.” Performing is for me a way of being part of humanity, a way of sharing. “
“There is something beautiful about the whole audience concentrating on one sound,” he added.
Watts, whose father was black and his mother white, was a rarity in a field where musicians of color have long been underrepresented. Although he didn’t like to talk about race, he was hailed as a pioneer who helped defy his stereotypes about classical music and open doors for aspiring artists of color.
He was lucky enough to be in the spotlight himself. In 1963, when he was 16, he won an audition and appeared with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic as part of Maestro’s nationally televised series Young People’s Concert.
Mr. Bernstein enthusiastically introduced A young pianist addressed the crowd at the Philharmonic Hall. “He sat at the piano and tore the opening bar of Liszt’s concerto in such a way that we were flipped,” Mr. Bernstein said of the young pianist’s audition.
Mr. Watts was a little-known in Philadelphia at the time, practicing on a battered piano with 26 broken strings. But with his performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, he emerged as a bona fide star.
A few weeks later, Mr. Bernstein invited him to formally make his Philharmonic debut as a replacement for the noted pianist Glenn Gould. He later credited Bernstein for giving him a career “out of nowhere.”
“When I was 16, it was like God Almighty,” he told The Times.
André Watts was born on June 20, 1946 in Nuremberg, Germany, the son of Herman Watts, a U.S. Army Expeditionary Officer, and Maria (Gusmitz) Watts, an amateur pianist from Hungary.
His mother, who loved playing Strauss waltzes on the Blüthner piano at home, encouraged André to study music and took an interest in the violin at the age of six, taking up piano.
“I liked the sound,” he recalled in 1993. TV appearance. “I was pedaling page after page and listening to page after page of music, just giving off this mushroom sound.”
When he was eight years old, his father’s job moved the family to the United States, eventually settling in Philadelphia. However, his parents’ relationship deteriorated and they divorced when he was 13 years old. In the decades that followed, he rarely saw his father.
His mother, who worked as a receptionist at an art gallery to help pay for his piano lessons, was greatly influenced. When he was younger, she was a teacher, coach and manager, imposing a strict practice schedule.
Andre struggled to fit in at school, quarreling with teachers and classmates (he taught himself judo to deter bullying). He recalled in an interview that he felt isolated at times because he identified himself as neither black nor white.
When he went to perform in Florida as a teenager, his manager warned him that he might come across as suspicious, citing the state’s history of discrimination against interracial couples.
But his mother told him he shouldn’t blame racism for his problems. When interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor in 1982, Watts said, “If someone isn’t nice to you, it doesn’t have to be automatically because of the color of your skin.” I remembered what she said.
“These tips have made me realize that when I’m in a personal complication, I don’t have to conclude that it’s a racial issue,” he said. “The more nuanced things in human interaction can never prove to be racist in the first place, so it’s a waste of time.”
He later credited Mr. Bernstein with gaining acceptance in a classical music industry that had long been viewed as the dominance of whites and the wealthy. “I love stories like that,” Bernstein said when introducing Watts at a Young Peoples concert, describing his international heritage.
In 1964, a year after his debut with Mr. Bernstein, Mr. Watts won the Grammy Award for the Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist. Despite his early success, he tried to stay down to earth with the following motto: “Even this will pass” A quote from the 19th century poet and abolitionist Theodore Tilton. (His mother had the words engraved on the gold medallion he wore around his neck.)
He graduated from the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1972, where he studied with educator and performer Leon Fleischer. By the time he graduated, he was already a regular on the global concert circuit, performing to sold-out crowds in Boston and Los Angeles, performing works by Chopin, Franck, Saint-Saëns, as well as the famous Liszt concerto. also played. Angeles, London, etc.
Watts earned mixed reviews early in his career. Critics said that although he was talented and confident, he could get carried away at times. But they agreed that he had a special ability to communicate from a keyboard.
“He had that personal magic that made the event a concert, the electric feeling that Philharmonic Hall only has when important artists are at work,” The New York Times reported. Harold C. Schoenberg of , wrote in 1970. This mystical transmission from the stage to the audience cannot be taught, but Watts understands it very well. “
Watts thrived on stage, but recording was even more difficult. He said he was prone to arguments without an audience. And he faced occasional financial and managerial difficulties, such as in 1992 when he was ordered by the New York State Court of Appeals to pay nearly $300,000 in pending fees to Columbia Artists Management. .
However, he remained popular, playing at the White House state dinner and appearing frequently on television, becoming one of the most profitable stars in classical music. His success brought new luxuries and curiosities. He fell in love with Montecristo cigars, fine wines and caviar, and began studying Zen Buddhism.
In 1987, Watts was featured in an episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” about learning from mistakes.
“When you’re feeling unhappy, you just go to the piano and play gently and listen and everything slowly starts to feel okay,” he said on the show.
His collaborators described him as a supernaturally gifted musician who was always looking to improve. Conductor Robert Spano said Watts was dedicated to finding new meanings each time, and he never performed the same piece twice.
“Every night was a new adventure,” Spano said. “He radiated love for people and music, and that was undeniable. That’s why his generosity in making music is why he was loved as a performer.”
He was also a role model for many black musicians. Conductor Thomas Wilkins, a colleague of Watts’s at Indiana University, where Watts has taught since 2004, was keen to see Watts “transmit this ferocious passion to be better.” I recall being a devoted teacher.
“Every time we were on stage together, there was an implicit recognition that we were in a world that many people think we shouldn’t be in,” Wilkins, who is black, said. “It was affirmative.”
In addition to his wife, Watts has a stepson, William Dalton. Stepdaughter Amanda Reese. and seven step-grandchildren.
As the pandemic began in 2020, Watts, who was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in 2016, had a feat planned. It was a right-hand version of Ravel’s Piano Concerto played for the left hand. Hands (left hand was recovering from nerve damage). He was inspired daily by the one-legged starlings that appeared outside his home in Bloomington while practicing on his two Yamaha pianos.
In the end, Watts was unable to perform the concerto due to health problems and the pandemic. After the concert was cancelled, he mostly stopped playing the piano and instead spent time with his students.
His wife said music supported him throughout his life, from a tough childhood to his struggles with health.
“Music was his way of enduring and surviving,” she said. “He looked happy when he actually played. It just really lifted his soul.”
He described music as a sacred space where he feels he can breathe and thrive.
“Your relationship with your music is the most important thing to you, private and sacred and should be protected,” he said before a concert in Baltimore in 2012. Life is very, very powerful, very strong. Therefore, it is necessary to protect a special relationship with music. “
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
