As an 8-year-old growing up in the Bronx, Terrence Wilson had his fate altered by the spin of a radio dial. One day, as he was searching for something to listen to, he happened to light upon WNCN (a major New York City classical radio station until its demise in 1993). The youngster was captivated by the sound of piano music. "I think it was Artur Rubinstein playing one of the Chopin scherzi," he recalls. "I fell in love with classical music right away, and I kept tuning in more and more to hear this beautiful music." The incident set in motion the course that will lead him to Alice Tully Hall on April 4, where he performs as winner of this year’s William Petschek Piano Debut Recital Award.

Petschek Piano Debut Recital Award winner Terrence Wilson. (Photo by J. Henry Fair)

Terrence Wilson’s career was well underway before he ever got to Juilliard in 1994—but it was hardly a forgone conclusion stemming from his fateful radio discovery. His parents purchased a piano around that time, "more as a piece of furniture than a musical instrument," he laughs. (Wilson’s parents had been touring rock musicians in their younger days, but had settled down to "regular" jobs when they decided to raise a family. His father worked for a polling firm, his mother for the telephone company.) With an older brother and sister already out of the house, Wilson had the piano to himself. For the next two years—before he had any formal training—he would listen to the radio and, "to a limited extent, attempt to reproduce what I heard on the piano. I was daydreaming about music half the time," he laughs, "walking around with Tchaikovsky symphonies in my head, singing to myself and playing on imaginary pianos, all through school."

Piano lessons seemed in order, and Wilson began studying with a local teacher in the Bronx by the name of Marty Franklin (who also gave dance lessons). With the ABCs of the keyboard under his belt, Wilson moved on to work with Sayuri Iida, a Juilliard graduate, before finding his way to Yoheved Kaplin sky (with whom he studied privately before spending a year in Pre-College and then earning his bachelor’s degree from Juilliard).

At 14, Wilson was diagnosed with scoliosis. Though he was treated by a chiropractor every other day for six months, it became apparent that surgery was inevitable. An operation was performed at Children’s Hospital in Boston—"by the same doctor who performed the same surgery for the same condition on Yo-Yo Ma, so I was in good hands," he notes with pride.

As he was recovering from surgery, Kaplinsky suggested that Wilson enter the Philadelphia Orchestra’s student concerto competition. "Nobody—including my teacher—really expected me to win," says Wilson. "But she knew that it would be an incentive to get me to work hard and learn the repertoire, that I would push myself." Much to everyone’s surprise, Wilson won, and as part of his prize, got to perform a movement of the Khacha turian Piano Concerto in one of the orchestra’s youth concerts. "That was the one experience of my life that I knew I wanted to repeat over and over again!" For the first time, he became aware of the possibility of pursuing a career in music.

But first, there was more work to be done. In the process of recovering from surgery, Wilson and his teacher began to focus on changing his way of playing. "I really had a lot of bad habits," he recalled. "My posture was bad at the keyboard; I could barely get through any piece in its entirety without getting tight and cramping up. So I had to relearn everything—even how to practice and how to sit at the piano. Veda forbade me to play certain pieces that I had played prior to having studied with her, so that those bad habits didn’t come back. It was slow and methodical work; it took a while before I could really start playing in public."

The work paid off, and Wilson was able to make the most of the concert dates that began to accumulate as the result of his Philadelphia Orchestra appearance (including another concert with the orchestra in 1992, performing the Liszt Concerto No. 1). By the time he entered Juilliard’s undergraduate degree program in 1994, Wilson was already a pro at balancing concert dates and schoolwork, having become accustomed to faxing homework assignments to his teachers at the Professional Children’s School.

Wilson’s touring schedule meant that it took seven years to complete his degree (including, at one point, a yearlong leave of absence). But he knew he was lucky, and regarded the performances as an invaluable part of his education. "Being an artist is not result-oriented; it’s a process. What excites me is that you’re constantly growing and re-evaluating things; all of your experiences shape your music. One of the quirks of performing with orchestras is that you get to sit in on rehearsals, and you get to see how these conductors rehearse the orchestras. Then you hear the all performances. And to me, that’s a real learning experience." Juilliard offered a sense of balance, an opportunity to concentrate on music without professional pressures and "the glamor of being the soloist," he says. "The level of playing is so exceptional here at Juilliard that it makes you really investigate yourself and what you’re doing. My incentive has very often been preparing for a concert that’s hanging over my head. It’s humbling to see people who don’t have those opportunities work just as hard, simply in order to better themselves as musicians."

His Petschek program will represent some of his many interests: "I’m going to do the Schumann Humoresque, Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, and three pieces from Godowsky’s Java Suite. Then I’m closing with the Piano Sonata of Samuel Barber. You should have seen my first draft for a program—it had absolutely everything on it, and it was three hours long!" Though he has a strong affinity for Russian and French Romantic repertory, Wilson’s enthusiasm for everything musical soon becomes apparent. "I’m premiering a piece written for me by a young Taiwanese composer, Ying Ho, in Stamford, Conn., and I’m learning the Ligeti Etudes. I’m putting in a pitch for Samuel Zyman’s Piano Concerto, and I just played a work by Robert Starer in a piano series up in Woodstock."

Wilson cites Leonard Bernstein as one of his role models ("such an exciting, exuberant, all-around musician!"). And pianists? He says that Krystian Zimerman and Radu Lupu are among his favorites. He accepts his own status as a role model as both "an incredible honor and a huge responsibility"—knowing, on his visits to schools, that his youth gives him an advantage in convincing children that classical music is "cool." His only words of advice to young people drawn to a career in music: "You must love it—and that’s it."

Tickets for the William Petschek Piano Debut Recital are $20 and $15 and are available beginning March 4 at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office.