NORTH VANCOUVER
pianist Michelle Mares hates
to be called a prodigy.

By STEPHEN BARR
News Reporter

“t hate the word,’’ says 15-
year-old Mares. ‘‘It says you're
not a serious musician but some-
thing mystical.’’

But there is nothing mystical
about the girl who at 14 wowed the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
with her talents.

“Contest winner, 14, upstages
the orchestra’? ran the headline in
the Montreal Gazette as classical!
music reviewer Eric McLean laud-
ed Mares.

“We were stunned because this
kind of dazzling technique and ex-
pressive phrasing is something we
associate with a fully mature musi-
cian,’’ he wrote.

BEGAN AT THREE

But Mares remembers that not
everybody was excited about her
performance with one of Canada’s
top orchestras. ‘‘For the first
movement, let’s say 10 minutes, I

felt a little bit of ‘What’s going on
here (from the players),’’’ she says.

“They weren’t thrilled with it at
all.”

As the orchestra moved into the
piece, Mares’s skill began to thaw
even the coolest musician. ‘‘In the
end we were just making music
together,’’ she says. So impressed
were members of the orchestra that
they joined in the applause.

Mares started to play the piano
at the tender age of three, when a
musician friend of the family spot-
ted the young Michelle’s love for
the instrument.

‘“‘Whenever | came to a piano |
would start playing on it,’’ she
laughs.

From there, she was enrolled in
music lessons where an alert teach-
er also noticed her talent. At the
age of 10, Mares gave her first
recital at the University of B.C.
“Just me by myself for a whole
hour,"’ she says.

She practices for three hours a
day, including weekends.

Mares tries to squeeze in an hour
of practice before she leaves for
her Grade 10 classes at Sentinel
Secondary School in West Van-
couver. After school it is more
practice, plus a host of recitals and
concerts — ‘‘these extra things.”’

Her favorite pianist is Yugosla-
vian Ivo Pogorelich. But apart
from his piano skills, Mares also
likes to point out a few of his
other qualities. ‘‘He’s really good-
looking,’’ she giggles. ‘tA real
hunk.’

INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM

By the time she finishes high
school, Mares hopes to be well on
her way to international acclaim.
“*! really want to go for a world-
class career,’’ she says. ‘‘l don’t
want a national career and unfor-
tunately that’s what happens if you
stay at home.”’

So-called career moves are
nothing new to Mares. In 1983, she
packed her bags and, with her
mother and sister, went to Ger-
many for a year to study with one
of the world’s top instructors. ‘‘It
was a hard thing to do but it was
good.”"

Mares’s next recital is scheduled
for Nov, 27 at New Westminster’s
Douglas College. Like all her ef-
forts, Mares will do her best.
“You feel disappointed if you
haven’t given it your best shot,’’
she says. ‘‘That feels really bad.

**You have to believe in yourself
to be able to make it.”

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PAGE 24

NEWS photo Stuart Davis

FIFTEEN-YEAR-old Michelle Mares has her bags packed and is ready to
go wherever her piano-playing career takes her. In September, Mares
travelled to Norway for 10 days to represent Canada at the opening of a
special children’s art centre. She has attended music schools in Europe
and next year the piano whiz plans to travel to West Germany for more
schooling.

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