Happy Mother's Day

            On Mother’s Day I woke up to sun streaming through the windows of Sarah’s apartment in Pullman.  We were all still glowing from Johnny’s graduation the day before, but it was time to shift gears. Sarah put her hair up and slipped into a pair of flat shoes.  She gathered up her music while John and I packed our bags. Then we pointed our car north toward Spokane.

                Sarah, a Junior, is majoring in piano performance.  She was competing in Music Fest at Gonzaga University.  Her boyfriend Andy, a Senior who is also a piano performance major, was also playing three pieces. He’s the top piano performance major in WSU’s music department.

Andy Romanick and Sarah Stark

                On the hour and a half car ride over, we talked about how the competition had gone last year, and how the semester had gone for Sarah. We also talked about the advantages and pitfalls of dating another piano performance major. Nobody but another piano performance major could understand the stress, or the nuances in different pieces. But, people would naturally compare them, so they’d have to guard against becoming overly competitive with each other.

                When we arrived at Gonzaga, Sarah signed in. She had a horrible cold so we came armed with cough drops, tissues, hand sanitizer, and water bottles. There were several other musicians from WSU there and if they had any jitters, they hid them well.

                Sarah was the first to play in her class, and her performance of Prokofiev’s Suggestion Diabolique was solid. The judge, who had an impressive musical pedigree, gave her some advice after she finished playing. She painted a background for the piece. Sarah already knew that the piece was about the devil being diabolical. The judge told Sarah that she was a beautiful, young lady, and she didn’t think that Sarah had the devil in her, but she thought the audience should be terrified when they heard this piece.

Sarah got a glimmer in her eyes. The judge asked her to play a few measures, and see if she could make it sound more terrifying, more devilish. Sarah nodded that she’d try. Then, she aggressively dug into the piano. The judge looked startled, but pleased. 

                We listened to a few more pianists in Sarah’s class. Then we had to go downstairs into another room for her to play her Bach. That judge also offered some good advice. Again we had to leave for Sarah to warm up for the next class.

On the way, Sarah checked back with her first group. She was excited that she’d been called back. The judge had chosen her to play Suggestion Diabolique again. She had to have chosen at least one other person to play again in the “play-off.”

In the practice room, Sarah asked me to see if she had a fever. Her head felt a little warm, but I’ve always tested for a fever by feeling my kids’ hands. Hers were cooler than her head, but her hands are always cold before a piano performance.

                We rushed back upstairs for the play-off. Sarah popped a cough drop in her mouth and we entered the room. That’s when we saw who she’d be playing against---Andy!

                Two sets of parents acknowledged each other across a quiet room.  The judge and several others sat behind the grand piano, poised to listen. Andy adjusted the bench, and settled in. He played the opening notes of Scriabin’s Etude in C Sharp minor, op. 42, no. 5, and continued playing flawlessly. His piece is extremely complex, but he made it sound effortless. We all applauded, Sarah smiled at him as he picked up his music, and scrambled out of the room to get to his next performance.

                Now it was Sarah’s turn. She was all business. She adjusted the bench, and looked for the judge to nod signaling her to begin. That’s when she attacked the piano. The difference between this performance and her first one was staggering! This time, it truly was terrifying! The audience was stunned, yet couldn’t look away. It seemed like all of our hair should have been blowing straight back from the sound of the piano. The judge had a huge smile on her face. Her body rocked in time with Sarah’s playing. When she finished, there was a slight pause of silence, then loud applause. We were glad that we weren’t the judge because she had a tough decision to make.

                The attendant sitting outside the room had an amazed look on her face as we headed down the hallway to a practice room. Once she got inside the room, our elegant, slender daughter with her eggplant colored lace top, and black slacks, jumped up high in the air and clicked her heels. It had been one of her top performances (the piano playing, not the heel clicking, although that was pretty good too).

                When she entered the class to play her Schumann piece, the attendant  made Sarah sit right behind the judge, in the front row with the rest of the piano players. John and I were relegated to desks across the room.

                A Chinese girl played Chopin. Then the door opened and a lady asked if Sarah Stark was in the room. Sarah raised her hand. The woman handed her the Prokofiev music. John and I could see that there was a certificate on top of the book, but couldn’t tell what it said.

                Sarah looked over at us with even bigger eyes than her usual huge eyes. She tried to mouth something to us, but we’re horrible lip readers. The only sound in the room was the judge writing excruciatingly long notes about the Chinese girl’s performance. Sarah sneaked her cell phone out of her pocket and gave John a pointed look. (Cell phones are supposed to be off when you enter the performance rooms.)

                John slid his cell phone out of his pocket. I was sitting behind him leaning over his shoulder. Sarah’s hands were texting almost as fast as she can play piano. She stopped and looked at us. It was today’s version of passing notes in class. We waited and waited for her text to beam up to a satellite and back down to us four rows across the room.  The judge kept scratching away at the comments page. Finally, her text lit up the screen on John’s phone. ALL CAPS, “I WON!!!!!!”

                I’m surprised that we weren’t kicked out of the room for thunderous heart beats and silly grins. Once we broke out of that room, we were free to celebrate. Almost instantly, Sarah thought of Andy. Before she could say anything, I told her that I was sure Andy would be happy for her and that if he had to win silver, I was sure he’d rather she was the one who got the gold, than someone else. When both of them made it into the play-off, it was a win-win situation.

                To celebrate, we went to Red Robin. While she was playing, Johnny and his girlfriend Sarah were driving over to Spokane from Pullman to give our Sarah a ride back to campus because John and I were leaving for Puyallup directly from Spokane. They called when they were close, and we ordered for them.

                When they arrived, Sarah announced that she’d won gold and Johnny high fived her across the table. Sarah had been calling Andy to see if he and his family could meet us at Red Robin, but he wasn’t answering. She guessed that he’d been called back for his Beethoven piece. Mid-way through our burgers, he called. He’d won gold on the Beethoven, and in an unprecedented move, the judge at their play-off had gotten an exception and awarded both Andy and Sarah gold!

                Sitting at that table with two freshly graduated college kids, and my daughter holding her gold medal made my Mother’s Day the best ever!

                Follow up: On the following Tuesday, Sarah and Andy were invited to play piano and be interviewed on Spokane’s public radio station. Her grandparents in New York and Hawaii got to hear the broadcast along with many family friends and their piano teachers.

Laura Keolanui Stark is still enjoying her irreplaceable Mother’s Day gifts: Johnny and Sarah. If you want to hear the broadcast, you may be able to access in on KCPQ’s website as a podcast under Music Fest 2011. You can also hear both of the pieces Sarah and Andy played on YouTube. My apologies that this blog  was posted late. I am posting it from Milan, Italy—a blog about that is coming. Laura can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.