Benal Tanrısever, Pianist and Educator: Music Starts with the Imagination

Nov 24

Benal Tanrısever is a Turkish pianist and music educator. She completed her musical education at The Juilliard School in New York in 1982, becoming the first student to finish both her undergraduate and graduate studies in just four years. Benal Tanrısever performed in famous concert halls such as Carnegie Hall and the Berlin Philharmonic. She received the “Women of Outstanding Achievement Award” in the U.S.A, and her concert was broadcast live by 130 radio stations. Before moving back to Istanbul, she also spent several years in Berlin. Her personal life as a concert pianist from Turkey was the subject of a German television documentary. She is the Founding Director of BT Music and Performing Arts, a music and performing arts school in Istanbul, Turkey as well as the International Young Music Competition. Tanrısever passionately promotes the idea that music is, and can be for everyone. TWoA talked to Benal about her journey from Istanbul to New York, her experience at Juilliard, and her philosophy of learning and teaching music.

TWoA: Coming from a country that is not one of the global teaching centers for classical music, what steps did you take to prepare yourself to go to Juilliard, one of the most famous music schools in the world?

Benal Tanrısever: Unfortunately I can’t take full credit for that. I have to give the credit to my mother. I was 14 years old or so, just a regular piano student playing at my house. My mother came up to me and said: “You are a great storyteller in music. When you play, I can really understand from your music what you are trying to say . You should go to Juilliard.” At that time I was so naive, I didn’t know what Juilliard was, and even where it was. So, from 9th grade, I jumped to 12th grade and finished high school early. And then my parents bought me a plane ticket to New York for my audition. I went by myself. A friend of my father met me at the airport, and the next day he dropped me off in front of the school and said: “This is the school.”

So I went into the school, fully ignorant of what I was stepping into. I did not have even a tiny bit of nervousness in my system because I had no idea where I was. So I played, no nerves, nothing. There is another school in New York, Manhattan School of Music, which is also a very fine school. But of course Juillard is like the top of Everest. I got accepted to both schools with merit scholarships. And then I met a girl, she said: 'Don't go to Juilliard, come here, we would have a great time together.’ That made sense to me, so I said to my parents, ‘I’m not going to Juillard, I met this girl and we are going to study together.’ My mother then put her fist on the dining table and said: “You have no idea what you are turning your back on.” But of course I ended up going to Juilliard.

TWoA: Going to Juilliard, a renowned school for the performing arts, must have had an impact on your musical journey. How did this environment shape you as a musician?

Benal Tanrısever: During the first week of schoolI started to realise where I was and it hit me like a Tsunami. There are hundreds of these practice rooms. You start listening to who is doing what in the next room, and everybody was so much better than me. I was crushed. So, I had two options, either I was going to quit or I was going to decide to put up a fight, and do anything and everything to catch up. I guess my personality was a warrior and I took the second choice. Of course it is a very tough school, but it is also one of the places where you discover yourself, and find what your capabilities are. Itt becomes like a life journey.

A good school does not necessarily make you a good musician. A good school is one that offers you opportunities, philosophies or inspiration. But it is up to you how much you want to take from that. Juilliard is a brand name, a big name, but don't be mistaken to say: “You graduated from Juilliard, the world is waiting for you.” Not at all. Once you graduate, you are like everyone else. But of course, the school gives you the stamina. It allows you to be unique, have your own story, and your own musical understanding. At the end of the day, we are living at a time where perfection is not mistake free. Perfection is something where you feel inspired, where you feel the Aha moment and when you feel like this is something you’ve never seen or heard before. I think, all and all the school gives you the foundation and the opportunity to discover yourself and be the best of your own version.

TWoA: After staying abroad for a while, you came back to Turkey and opened the BT Music House. What made you want to take that step?

Benal Tanrısever: For me, the first step into anything is to have a dream. As a musician, I had three dreams. One, to go to Juillard, which wasn’t a dream I had initially but became my dream later on. Second one was to play at Carnegie Hall, and the third was to play at the Berlin Philharmonic. I achieved all three before I was thirty-two, a rather young age. But, I also had another passion in life, which was teaching. Teaching for me is sharing my own experience of life, my own experience of music and my vision of music. I started teaching when I was seventeen years old, and my first piano student was twenty five. Even the years I concertised very heavily, for maybe ten years, my second passion of teaching and sharing music always accompanied me, I never gave that up. In Berlin, I played with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. It was a very crucial concert in my life, it went well. I went back to my hotel, flipping television channels. After this grand concert, I said to myself: “Is this all there is to life? How many more years am I going to pursue this?” At the end of the day, this is a personal gratification. You are a soloist, in front of an orchestra, everybody is coming to hear you play. But music to me was more than that. I wanted to share my life experiences, I wanted to share what I have learned through music with as many people as possible. So I decided to come back to Istanbul after twenty-one years. I wanted to bring all that back to my country, where I can make a difference. Today, my school has been open for twenty-six years.

TWoA: What kind of a learning environment do you want to create for your students? What are your strategies and your thoughts when it comes to teaching music?

Benal Tanrısever: First, I have to diagnose a problem in teaching music. Everything in the world pretty much changed, except how we learn music. If you have the talent and if you put in the long hours, then maybe you have a chance to learn it. I am totally against this idea. If you want to become a professional musician of course, you need the talent and the long hours. I used to practice from eleven to twelve hours a day when I was concertising. But, not everybody has to become a professional musician. Music is for everyone. A methodology and systematic way of learning was always absent from teaching and learning music. Just because we know the notes, and we are able to identify the notes is not enough to learn it. Music starts by putting your imagination first. If you are learning a Waltz, a Nocturne, or a Minuet, you have to understand what that means intellectually and then look at the piece of music and devise your own roadmap. You have to understand it before you can implement it. Music is a tool for communication, we communicate emotions, thoughts and our imagination. So this is why music is so important and this is why everybody, regardless of talent should have some kind of music in their lives. It is almost like a breath of fresh air, it is a place which belongs to you, so you take ownership of it. Learning music is once again learning about yourself. This all comes back to my mother’s sentence originally, I was too young to understand what she was talking about. But, as I grew older, I realized this is so important because we don't do music for our own satisfaction. It is non-verbal communication, and it hits you right at the heart.

TWoA: What are the biggest challenges running a school?

Benal Tanrısever: People always associate music with playing it mistake free. To change this mentality and this approach is still very difficult. We do not perform a piece to make it hundred percent correct. We can make mistakes, I always say: “You know how to walk, right? But have you never fallen?” That doesn't mean you don’t know how to walk. The goal is to have a beautiful story that you thought about, that you decided how you are going to tell and play. You are almost like a channel, and the main goal is to communicate to whoever is listening. So you can play a beautiful piece, make mistakes, I would rather have that than to play hundred percent mistake-free but dull. Music is not like a math test, people are often confusing that. Sometimes success is related to numerical values, but that is not the case. People say things like: “Oh, I made a mistake.” “Good, I say, try to make something beautiful, don't focus on not making a mistake.” Focus on creating something special and something that is meaningful for you. What does this piece of information mean to me, how am I going to use it? That is, I think the real learning experience.

TWoA: What advice would you give to your younger self?

Benal Tanrısever: I trained myself to be patient. I was less patient in my younger years and I think I was harsher to myself. It is a good thing to have high expectations of yourself, but it is also healthy to not blame yourself if those expectations are not met that day. There is always an opportunity to try again. I would tell myself: “Be more patient with yourself, there is always a new day.”

Benal Tanrısever, Franz Liszt, Un Sospiro