# From Cleaner to Concert Pianist



## opus67 (Jan 30, 2007)

This is amazing!



> When university cleaner Aleksander Kudajczyk put down his mop to have a tinkle on a grand piano he thought no one would hear him.
> 
> Had he known of the camera in the corner of the room he would never have touched the instrument - and his virtuoso talent would have remained undiscovered.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...in_article_id=462888&in_page_id=1770&ito=1490


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## Kurkikohtaus (Oct 22, 2006)

Taking nothing away from the fact that Kudajczyk is undoubtedly a good pianist, I honestly don't see what the big deal is about. Can you imagine how many hundreds if not _thousands_ of pianists like him there are in the world?

If anything, I find his story...

_Talented young musician goes to music school...
Masters solo instrument...
Can not find playing opportunities...
Takes a jo-job in a foreign country, making more money than he would playing his instrument in his home country..._

... very ordinary and mundane.

Again, nothing against Kudajczyk, this is more of a rant against the media who tend to _make_ news instead of _reporting_ it.


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## robert newman (Oct 4, 2006)

Ask any professional musician what he thinks about this and they will say it's another example of the masses being willing to adore anything new for its own sake that is carried by the mass media. The more publicised the case the better. Provided that it's as ready for consumption as instant coffee it'll be well received. But go to St Petersburg in Russia or to Moscow and you can find literally dozens of truly brilliant pianists (all of them equal to and often better than this undoubtedly talented Polish cleaner) who would give you piano lessons at an hourly rate that will hardly damage your bank balance, though they do not have concert careers or press articles in support of their musical hopes. Such pianists practice long hours every day. They absorb themselves in finger exercises and in technical study. But the chance of any one of them becoming famous in Russia or anywhere else is tiny. The same can be found over and over again in many countries. But such is the superficiality of our age, and so persistent the myth of tapping in to 'genius' without the most devout study that if a Polish cleaner plays some Chopin to high standars of performance to a highly improbable linked camera and if somebody is impressed by it, wow ! Such things remind us of the 'wunderkind' reputations of the 18th century that were more showmanship than substance and which are not, even now. good for music or for appreciation of musicality. The man/woman who studies assiduously, who devotes his life to the study of composition, or study, or performance receives little attention. That is just the way it is. Here, in this case, is proof positive of the shallow, sensationalist age in which we live. 

Consider just one case. That of Dinu Lipatti, the Romanian virtuoso pianist and genius who died early. He was teaching piano at Paris Conservatoire during WW2 for a few francs an hour. He devoted his entire existence to his art. He was not simply a great pianist. He was a consumate musician. 

I wish this Polish man every success. In one sense his success is assured. There is a vast pool of gullible people who could not tell the difference between a Chopin waltz and a Bach fugue. Whose musical senses are as shallow as corporate advertising.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Daily Mail article said:


> When University cleaner Aleksander Kudajczyk put down his mop to have a tinkle on a grand piano...


To state that he _[had] a tinkle_ seems to me a rather unserendipitous turn of phrase --

Presumably, he plays better than our erstwhile stringer writes

Sometimes (but only sometimes) "thar _is_ gold in them thar hills." I guess, not quite this time, though.


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