A devoted life — Master violinist Wai Mizutani retraces his journey to the Flathead Valley

A child prodigy in his homeland China, renowned violinist Wai Mizutani has performed worldwide with distinguished orchestras, at famed venues and shared the stage with a myriad of luminaries.

He has played with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra and symphony orchestras throughout Europe and Asia.

He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl. He’s shared the stage with Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney and Elton John, and performed in front of Queen Elizabeth and several sitting presidents.

In his lifetime he has garnered numerous prestigious music awards.

But Mizutani’s path in life has been significantly marked by both providence and hardship.

When he was accepted into The Juilliard School in 1986, already an accomplished young musician, Mizutani arranged to meet the famous violin maker Philip Perret in New York City to request that he make a violin for him. Despite the language barrier — Mizutani had just moved to America from Hong Kong and barely spoke English — the two became friends.

“Philip asked me if I liked America so far, and I said if all of America is like New York City, I don’t think I like it,” Mizutani said.

Perret then showed him a calendar with pictures of America. It was the picture for July — of Montana — that struck a chord with Mizutani.

Years later, in 2005, Mizutani would come here from his then home in Vancouver, British Columbia, thanks to two pastors from Alberta who were serving at Valley Victory Church in Kalispell whom he’d contacted to forge a connection to Montana.

“They invited me to play for a pre-Christmas concert and I started returning to Kalispell every year,” Mizutani said. “I started falling in love with this town.”

HIS JOURNEY to Montana and the Flathead Valley that has been his home for the last 14 years was long and at times precarious.

An only child born to a scholarly family in Beijing, Mizutani began his life of music at age 5. His mother, a pianist who was from Hong Kong, and father, who was from Japan, had just separated. His mother was firm in her resolve that he should study classical music, in part so he could avoid the draft (at age 14 in China) and ultimately so he could attend Julliard, so she forced him to practice piano.

“But I was lazy, just like other kids,” he said. “There were thousands of kids who were so driven; they never stopped practicing ... I would look for reasons to stop practicing.”

At age 7, he was given the choice of what instrument he wanted to study.

“I picked the violin, thinking to choose something my mother wouldn’t know if I made mistakes,” he said. “My teacher was our neighbor, but two years later he and my mother got married. So my whole plan backfired.”

GROWING UP in communist China under Chinese Community Party leader Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s was perilous.

Mizutani recalls the “reward” he was given at age 7 after winning a school poetry contest.

“The assignment was to write a poem glorifying the government,” he said. “I copied my uncle’s poetry and the next day I saw it posted on the classroom wall. I had won … it made me feel horrible.”

As a reward, he was allowed to apply to join the Junior Red Guard, a great honor. As part of his reward, he was bussed with other children out to the countryside where they were seated in chairs amid many police. The police then fired.

Mizutani had just witnessed the execution of a political prisoner.

In 1976, the day Mao Zedong died, the police came to Mizutani’s school.

“I heard loud crying, he said. “We were all being told to file into the building where the police hit each student with a baton. We were hit really hard so we would cry over his death, or else be punished.”

In 1983 Mizutani’s mother, who was born in a Catholic hospital in Hong Kong, found her birth certificate and was eventually granted, after a five-year process, a visit to her birthplace and, ultimately, a chance to escape communist China.

“I had been told we would eventually move there. I only saw that my future there would be harsh in Hong Kong so, in the years before immigrating, I began practicing my violin 10 hours a day, thinking I had to so I could make money to support my mother there.”

Mizutani attended Julliard from 1986 to 1991 where he received his bachelor of music degree. At first, language was a huge issue. He studied English full-time the first year. Juilliard may have helped shape the master violinist, but those years were a constant struggle for Mizutani.

“In the five years at Juilliard, I did not find a single joyful moment. There was viciously intense competition,” he said. “We endured constant verbal abuse and the more successful students tried to make the others feel incompetent. I begged my mom to let me change my major three times.”

HE WENT on to earn his master’s in music from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with the three caring teachers he most admires — Glenn Dicterow, Michael Gilbert and Yoko Takebe.

While pursuing his doctorate at Rutgers University in 1995, his mother encouraged him to get his Green Card in Canada because his family, as residents of Hong Kong, which remained under British rule until 1997, all had British passports. Mizutani put his studies on hold so he could move to Vancouver, British Columbia, and help bring his parents over.

“I was given technical immigration status because I told them I was a luthier,” he chuckled. In actuality, while he was indeed an accomplished violinist, he was not a violin maker.

His mother fell ill and died in 2000, three years after immigrating to Canada.

“It took a huge toll on my emotions,” Mizutani said. “I had often argued with her about my musical career. I felt very guilty.”

During the years that followed his mother’s death, he would teach and perform a great deal.

“But I wanted my own life. I was burned out. I missed my mom,” he said. “I thought again about Montana.”

For 27 years of his life Mizutani, who has met the Dalai Lama three times and holds a deep admiration for him, was a student of Buddhism. But he’d become a Christian while living in Vancouver and that connection to the two pastors in Kalispell helped guide his future to Montana.

“The whole process has been such a blessing in my life,” he said. “People here have such a common bond. They trust each other.”

MIZUTANI HAS been an adjunct instructor of music at Flathead Valley Community College since 2014, as well as developing ensembles, giving private lessons and conducting orchestras here. He has also given generously of his time and talent at countless fundraisers, and he explains why.

It was at one performance where he played a favorite song “The Secret Garden” that he was most profoundly affected.

“A young girl, about 11, came up to me afterward and told me she loved and was learning violin,” he said. Then her grandpa confided to him, “I was not planning on coming to this but my granddaughter forced me … I’ll never regret it.”

The man told Mizutani that he was deaf, but during the song, something in his spine electrified and he could hear everything from that point.

“He was so excited. That is a moment I am never going to forget,” Mizutani said. “You see, that moment is so precious. As a musician, if we say no we miss giving somebody, somehow, a chance to benefit from the music.”

BREAKOUT BOX

World-renowned violinist Wai Mizutani will present Opus 4 of The Lord of the Strings concert series with ”Dancing through the Decades” Saturday, April 30, at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish.

The concert will feature special guest accomplished pianist Jordan Neiman and a performance by the Lakeside Dance Studio.

The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and children 11 and older. Tickets are free for children under 10, veterans and active duty military. Tickets may be purchased in advance at impactwsce.com or Eventbrite.com. They may also be purchased the same day or by calling 406-212-9515.