Music grad hits all the right notes

Honisch

Stefan Honisch is already established as a first-rate concert pianist. But if things had gone differently, he may have become a renowned pipe organist instead.

"When I was six I saw a program about pipe organs on televison," he says with a smile. "From that point on I had a fascination for keyboard instruments, but obviously you can't have a pipe organ in your house."

He was surprised one day to come home from school to piano sounds in his parents' home. "My dad was sitting at a new piano playing, and from then on I was hooked."

Honisch was raised in a musical environment - his dad played the clarinet, while his mom played the sitar, a classic instrument from her native India. He grew up listening to western and East Indian classical music.

He auditioned for UVic's music program in 1999 and concentrated on piano performance, while also studying composition. "I've always been fascinated by the relationship between composing and performing. As a performer you need to be aware of how music is put together, while as a composer you need to be familiar with the capabilities and limitations of the instruments for which you write."

A regular performer, Honisch also composes in a modern idiom, and is inspired by the work of the great composers. A favourite is Mozart, whose birthplace he visited when he won a scholarship from the Johann Strauss Foundation and spent a month last summer studying at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

When he's not practising, Honisch says he "lives" at the library, exploring the vast collection of LPs available there. He thanks the music faculty, the disability resource centre, the Ministry of Advanced Education and the Vocational Rehabilitation Service for their help and support.

This fall, he's pursuing a master's in performance and composition at UBC, and looks forward to being a professor one day. "Right now I'm trying to learn as much as I can as a student and immerse myself in music. The wider your range of musical experience, the more you can express yourself."

Over the course of his studies, Honisch received several awards, including the Taylor Scholarship in Music, the Ida Halpern Music Scholarship, and the Evelyn Marchant MacLaurin Memorial Scholarship in Music.