It is difficult to adequately commemorate a spectacular life of creative genius such that of pianist André Watts, who died on July 12 at age 77. Shopworn clichés and musty platitudes embarrass the conscience; his extraordinary accomplishments, his magnificent artistry, his humanity are not in need of any encomium from me. Yet as his good life has come to an end, I find myself reflecting on what that life represents.
André Watts represented people who have been too long under-represented. It bears repeating that he stands in the illustrious company of the likes of Marian Anderson, Florence Price or William Grant Still, great artists whose perseverance and achievements were a defiant, revivifying Yes! against the life-denying No of the cruel stupidity that is racism. In her moving tribute for NPR Music, pianist Lara Downes remembers “how much I owe my career as a pianist to hearing his concerts when I was a little girl, and to seeing him ahead of me in the lineage that is our musical family.” Today, the ongoing work of widening the spheres of inclusion in classical music is carried on by artists inspired by Watts like Downes, and by vibrant institutions like the Sphinx Organization and the Chineke! Foundation.
André Watts represented love: a passionate, devoted love to the art. Leonard Bernstein — inimitably recognizable himself as an embodiment of an irrepressible, almost superhuman joie de vivre — picked up on this in recognizing the teenage Watts’s extraordinary qualities, and it was surely as much for that quality as it was for the young pianist’s stunning technical prowess and sure-footed musicality that Bernstein made such enthusiastic efforts to encourage, elevate and promote Watts.
André Watts represented self-respect, dignity, a conviction of self-worth that remained unbowed by personal challenges physical and emotional, the idiotic obstacles thrown in his path by American racism, or the unrelenting demands of upon a performer so assiduously sought after the world over. Elegant, poised, and almost absurdly good-looking, even as a teenager he astounded audiences with his command of the stage as much as with his virtuosity, sensitivity and depth of interpretation. The love he represented was grounded in self-love: not only a firm belief in himself, but a dedication to always challenge himself, to always grow and improve and explore.
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