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| Sunday, 18 April 2004 |
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If you've been wondering why you do not see the familiar figure of Beverley Rodrigo nor hear his piano stylings at the Colombo Hilton or the Ceylon Continental these past few months, then let us cue in.
How long have you been in Dubai? Almost eleven months. I came visiting and then was looking around for work and found the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club. How does it compare to performing in Sri Lanka? The audiences are about the same but there's more appreciation from the managers in Dubai. As an entertainer that makes me feel better. Here, right from the manager to the waiting staff, they come and tell me I've done a good job and it makes me feel happy. And when I get appreciation from the audience also, it makes a big difference. How interactive are your performances? It depends on whether or not the place is full. Sometimes no-one displays appreciation and other times people will come over when they're leaving and say 'We really enjoyed that.' You look tickle pink when you're tickling the ivories... It's when I hear the music and feel it. I have not had a classical music education at all, I don't even read music. It's all about listening. I know people who put in hours of practising and theory and I just sit down and play. I feel that it's a gift and my heart and soul is in it. How did you get into piano playing? I think I've been very musical from when I was a baby. I didn't play the piano until I was nine but I come from a musical background my mother was at Trinity College in London. I started to study music and I did not like it, the theory part of it, so I just stopped. And then when I was about 12, I opened the piano one day and just started playing and took it from there. You're also a Doctor of Music at the Open International University for Complimentary Medicine, Colombo? I used to go to the clinic where there were some people who basically didn't want to live - they had given up, heart and spirit, and we used music to revive them. Other people had had accidents and the music helped them. It's music therapy. What music do you listen to/play to lift your mood? If I'm in a bad mood, I have no music at all. But I like a mixed bag of music. If I feel down I like to go to the piano and play something and sing. I don't compose my own because I don't write music but I think there is a lot of good music around. Can music be taught or is it something you're born with an ear for? I think it's both, if you're born with it, it makes learning so much easier. It could be acquired from learning but that's slower. And then some people are tone-deaf and cannot hear so play it blindly without feeling. I could never really teach it to someone who had no experience because I don't know what I'm doing. When I talk to musicians and they talk about this chord and that chord, I don't know what they are talking about. And they say 'But you're playing it,' I say that's what I feel shoudl go there, and I'm just playing those notes. Well I can't even play the recorder. The piano is difficult but if you're interested you should practice each hand separately, keep on practising until they are working almost without thinking about it and one day they come together. And elation! What's the most requested song? Strangers In The Night. I sing it too. Have you ever said 'No way I'm not doing that'? Only if I don't know it. I'll try and do something close to it and sometimes they'll say it's very good it depends if I can meet their expectations. I can play all the songs I love but when it comes to ones I dislike, I can't play it. I have a mental block. Where do you go out in Dubai? I don't very much like the sun so I don't like going out much during the day. The malls are fine because they're air-conditioned and nice. My very good friends call me Dracula because my day doesn't start until about five o'clock in the evening and ends at seven in the morning when I go to sleep. (laughs) (Courtesy What's On - UAE) |
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| Produced by Lake House |
He is enjoying himself and the popularity he is earning playing to an
extremely appreciative audience at the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club. It
might be quite some time before Beverley decides to make an appearance
back home. Lucy White of the mag 'What's On' met up with this 'naturally
gifted pianist' to find out what makes the burly Beverley tick.
