If you decide to be a professional pianist when you grow up, there are several different ways you can go.
You can be a soloist, playing all by yourself on a concert stage.
You can be a chamber musician, playing piano with a small group of other musicians like a string quartet.
You can be a concert pianist, playing all the dazzling solo parts in a piano concerto with an orchestra.
There’s also the collaborative pianist.
That’s the person who performs with choirs, or with solo musicians of pretty much every instrument and voice type you could think of.
Ya-Ju Chuang is a collaborative pianist on staff at Interlochen.
She grew up in Taiwan, studying piano performance, and she earned a doctorate in piano performance at Michigan State University. That's when she started playing collaboratively with other musicians frequently.
"I fell in love with it," Chuang said.
At any moment, Chuang has 50 or more pieces of music ready to play for at least 30 different musicians.
Last month, during the concerto competition at Interlochen Arts Academy, she played 20 different pieces for 20 different student musicians in less than a week.
"I get inspired by other people," she said. "Sharing the stage with people and exchanging musical ideas is very exciting."
This month, Chuang is stepping out of the collaborative pianist role and into the concert pianist role.
She’ll be the piano soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 1 with the Dorothy Gerber Youth Orchestra - an orchestra of high school students based in Petoskey.
For these high school musicians in the Dorothy Gerber Youth Orchestra, this will be the very first time many of them ever get to play during a concerto.
Chuang is excited to be part of that experience for them.
"I always love playing with students," she said. "I feel like I'm a part of their musical growth and journey."
Even though she’s the soloist, she’s still viewing this performance as another kind of collaboration.
"As a collaborative pianist, I share the stage as a co-partner," she said. "For the concerto format, I also share the stage with the orchestra members and the conductor."
Except for this concert with the Dorothy Gerber Youth Orchestra, she’ll only have to play one piece - not 50.
Ya-Ju Chuang joins the Dorothy Gerber Youth Orchestra on Monday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. for their fall concert, called "A Night of Virtuosity." The concert is at Great Lakes Center for the Arts in Bay Harbor, and admission is free.
