For Prodigy, Music Is No Mere Child’s Play

“Majestica” is a nine-minute piece of classical music so rich and powerful you easily can visualize it as the score for a blockbuster movie, or as the centerpiece of an Orange County Performing Arts Center oratorio.

I looked at Ruben Sanchez, an architect, sitting next to me the day I heard it played on an electric organ at the Yamaha Music School in Irvine. Eyes shut tight, Sanchez swayed and tapped hard with a foot. He’s heard the piece many times but is always deeply moved by it. I looked at Takako Sanchez. She was beaming--the kind of beam that could light a room.

We were listening to their son, Koichi Sanchez, play the piece with gusto. He had celebrated his 14th birthday just two days before. Koichi was 13 years old when he wrote “Majestica.” Just 13, going on stardom.

Here’s how he talked after writing it: “In the past, themes of all my compositions have been energetic and uplifting. I wanted this music to reflect darker, more mysterious themes.” Your typical 13-year-old.

Actually, he’s a very normal teen, say his parents. Koichi is an eighth-grader at Rancho San Joaquin Middle School in Irvine. He likes basketball, baseball, action movies, video games and hanging with friends. He fits in being a musical giant when he can find the time.

How good is he? He was chosen as the lone U.S. representative at Yamaha Corp.’s international youth music festival in Tokyo last December. He recently premiered “Majestica” to enthusiastic applause at a concert in New York. He’s now composing a big-band piece for an upcoming concert.

Koichi started piano lessons when he was 4. His mother had learned to love music in her native Japan, his father in his native Peru. They weren’t pushing their son. But they’d noticed that at movies he seemed to care about the music much more than the plot.

Koichi smiles when describing his early days: “At first, I was a scrawny kid at the bottom, not any good at all. [He might be underestimating his talents a tad, since he was composing at age 6.] But when I was 10 I switched to the Electone [the brand name for an electric organ] and really loved it. That’s when I started serious composing.”

Koichi praises highly his first teacher, Su-Shing Chiu. But it was his advanced instructor, Carlton Liu, who took Koichi to heights the Sanchezes never imagined.

Liu has another standout student, Katherine Chiu, 13, the daughter of Koichi’s first teacher, also from Irvine. And Liu is diplomatic enough not to compare their abilities.

“Clearly, both have tremendous futures in music,” Liu says. But Katherine was brilliant from an early age. Koichi’s development has only been in recent years.

“He works so hard,” Liu says. “And he listens. When I hear the finished product, it is so immensely satisfying because I know how hard he worked to get there.”

Liu says the day will come when the student will surpass the teacher. Koichi, in awe of his mentor, says no: “My dream is just to be as good as him someday.”

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Keeping Young: Chapman University music director John Koshak has long said that one of the joys of his career has been the chance to work with new young talent. This is the 25th year he has directed the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra.

When it ends its season Saturday night at Chapman Auditorium in Orange, a lot of the orchestra’s alumni will be on hand, for a special reason: After the concert they will honor Koshak at the nearby Argyros Forum on the Orange campus. Says Koshak: “These young people are so energizing; they’re terrific to work with. And we’ve had some tremendous talent come through here over the years.”

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Name Dropping: Molly Lynch’s Ballet Pacifica closes out its season with a Friday night performance and two more on Saturday at Irvine Barclay Theatre’s Cheng Hall. Lynch will lead an informal discussion about the work with some of the artists and choreographers before each of the two evening performances. . . .

Lesbian activist Candace Gingrich--Newt is her brother--speaks at the Human Rights Campaign’s Rising Curtain Awards on Saturday night at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach. Special award for the night: to American Savings Bank, for its outreach to the gay and lesbian community. . . .

For those who like Greek food and entertainment, St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Anaheim (near the Buena Park Mall) has its annual Greek Festival this weekend. Lots of singing and folk dancing, plus jewelry and imported-artifact booths. . . .

Don’t expect to do any business today at Johnson & Higgins, the global risk management company branch in Costa Mesa. It’s closed so that all its 65 employees can take their paint and scrub brushes to Orangewood Children’s Home to spruce up a couple of the cottages there.

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Wrap-Up: Most parents are chest-beating proud of their children. But I wondered what it must be like for the Sanchezes, who have no other children, to know that their son can create music they never dreamed possible.

Says Takako Sanchez: “We are very proud of him. But when people talk to us about Koichi, they say, ‘He is such a nice boy.’ We are very proud of that too.”

Koichi has studied Japanese on Saturdays for eight years and readily acknowledges that it was his mother’s influence that led him to music. But when he composed a piece for the Tokyo concert, it wasn’t classical; it was Latin, as a tribute to his father.

Koichi played that one for me too. I listened in awe. When it was over, his father walked over to the organ and hugged him and kissed him. No need to ask Ruben Sanchez what that piece means to him.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.