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Veritas pianist to perform with Oregon Symphony

Arts — Junior Nik Top will play a piano concerto on April 10 in Portland

Published: 17 Jan 2012, Newberg Graphic

A junior at Veritas School was one of 10 young Oregonians selected to perform with the Oregon Symphony this spring.

Nikolaas Top, 17, who goes by Nik, will play the first movement of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Piano Concerto Number No. 2” on April 10 at Portland’s Newmark Theatre as part of the 18th annual Young Artists Debut! concerto competition.

“I started playing the piano at age 5,” Top said. The second youngest of four children, he said his three siblings also play the instrument and that the two oldest minored in music in college.

Unusual for the competition, Top said the demo tape he sent for his audition was actually of a Schumann concerto, but another winner (there are nine of them) had also auditioned with that piece and so he was asked to perform the Saint-Saëns concerto.

Unlike in most concertos the first movement is relatively quiet, Top said, and there lays part of the technical difficulty. There is a long running section in particular that requires a fast, yet gentle touch on the keys when those often call for harsher, louder playing.

“It’s a very difficult piece to play,” he said, adding that having worked on it in the past has helped.

Top practices his instrument daily and takes lessons in both classical piano and improvisation. He said he finds the two disciplines complement each other. Jazz and popular songs often are not notated so it is important to understand the chord structure, which in turn informs his classical playing.

When he’s not practicing classical pieces, Top likes to play popular songs by ear and likes to fully memorize pieces. He also likes to write his own music and he composed a piano piece for his sister’s senior performance. He also plays the cello and the pipe organ weekly at a church in Portland.

Besides playing music, Top likes to play soccer (he’s a sweeper on a 3A high school team near Salem and plays indoor during the winter to keep in shape). He’s also the 2011-2012 Chamber Music NorthWest Young Artist Fellow, which enables him to interact with professional musicians.

While he isn’t set on a major, Top said he hopes to attend a college that offers strong programs in both music and the liberal arts.