A 'new man' at the piano - Philip Newman speaks about the long journey to his first recital

Michael Reckord, Sunday Gleaner Writer

Philip Newman may now be able to add 'concert pianist' to the long and varied list of occupations he has had over the years. The list includes bicycle courier, truck driver, farmer, piano dealer, piano rebuilder and tuner, and construction project manager. Also on the list might have been commercial-airplane pilot, had he not, after completing the course in Canada, failed a colour-vision test and been disqualified from night flying.

Newman told The Gleaner after his first piano recital, held last Sunday at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts (PSCCA), that though the performance fulfilled a long-held dream, he was not sure "where it was going to lead".

He said, "all things considered", he thought he "did well" and enjoyed the experience. Judging by the enthusiastic applause, the fair-sized audience was pleased by the earlier of the two Sunday performances.

Some trained musicians in the audience were, however, more reserved and pointed out memory lapses - at least four - and various mistakes Newman made. One music teacher thought Newman's programme was too ambitious for an initial effort.

It certainly was ambitious, as the very title, 'An Intimate Evening with the Gentle Giants of the Classical Piano', indicated. The 'giants' Newman tackled were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Chopin - composers chosen, he said, because they were among his favourites.

The final few metres the slim, tail-suited Newman took to the Steinway grand piano on the stage of the PSCCA marked the end of a long and tortuous journey he began some 40 years before with his first piano lessons.

The last of five children in the family, Newman, at age 11, started taking piano lessons, as all his siblings had done before him.

Among his early piano teachers was Paulette Bellamy, the patron of Sunday's recital. "I was a reluctant learner," Newman told The Sunday Gleaner, and his teacher "despaired".

He found the formal ABRSM (Associated Boards of the Royal School of Music) exams demoralising, but he did exams up to grade five and eventually asked Mrs Bellamy if he could play just the tunes he liked. By the time he reached fifth form, he was studying the clarinet and trumpet with Carlton Willacy, Alpha Boys' Band director, as well as piano.

In Toronto, Canada, where he went to finish high school, he continued his music studies and did "quite well" with the clarinet in a provincial competition. By this time, he was passionate about music and asked his parents to allow him to return home to study piano for a year, instead of going to university.

They agreed and, in 1988, he came back to Jamaica and began studying for the grade-eight exam. Unfortunately, he overdid his practice, often going for 14 hours a day. "I didn't socialise," he said. "I didn't even stop to eat. I would hold a sandwich in one hand and practise with the other."

Pay his own way

This regimen almost led to a nervous breakdown and his alarmed parents sent Newman back to Canada in 1989. There, wanting to pay his own way, he got a job as a bicycle courier in Toronto. He also took a truck-driving course and got certified but, because he was only 18, he was not able to get insurance to drive the vehicles.

A bicycle accident led to "an epiphany," and he telephoned his parents to inform them he was ready to go to university. On a scholarship, he studied agriculture at the University of Guelph, with the intention of returning to Jamaica to work on the family farm in Bog Walk.

So traumatic had been his experience in Jamaica, he had put aside music while in Toronto, and though the woman he was boarding with in Guelph had a piano, and was impressed when she heard him play, he further resisted her encouragement to resume regular practice.

Eventually, however, he was drawn back to music and started classes with Valerie Candelaria, a specialist in the Romantic style. Newman's three years under her tutelage was "formative", he said, adding, "She brought such emotional intensity to her music, it was like seeing into one's intimate being. She gave me the courage to start playing again".

On graduating from university, Newman returned to Jamaica and, from 1994 to 1999, he worked on the family farm. He got married in 1995.

Finding little challenge in farming, he started flight training at Wings Jamaica and, with borrowed money, bought a two-seater light aircraft in Mississippi, and flew it to Jamaica.

Unfortunately, a few months later it crashed, killing the two persons onboard and "financially ruined", and depressed, Newman returned to Canada.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, he took a commercial-pilot course. However, at the end of the course, he discovered that, because he failed the colour-vision test, he would not be able to be licensed. The failure meant he would only have been able to fly during the day.

With "no job and no money", Newman started long-distance truck driving and drove "all over Canada and the USA (United States)". He found just driving "weird", and was happy to get a weekend job in a piano store as an assistant to James Musselwhite, a rebuilder and tuner of pianos.

By the year 2000, Newman and wife, Marian, had had their second child, and Newman was able to get nine months' paternity leave with pay. Over the period, he worked full time with Musselwhite and took and passed an exam in piano rebuilding and tuning.

Though he got a scholarship to study music at Brandon University, he decided he should put family first and he bought a store from which he would rebuild, tune and sell pianos. Financing an expensive video to promote the store resulted, unfortunately, in bankruptcy in 2006.

A suggestion from Newman's mother led to his return with his family to Jamaica and to Newman getting a job as a project manager in a construction business with a childhood friend. The job, Newman told The Sunday Gleaner, enabled him to finance Sunday's recital.

"I have a love for performing and communicating through music," he said. "I hope there will be other recitals in the future."