Making music despite progressive hearing loss in both ears

By BRITTANY McCANDLESS
Monday, March 05, 2007

Working toward his doctorate in musical arts at West Virginia University, Yew Choong Cheong has a few things in common with Ludwig van Beethoven.

For starters, they're both talented pianists.

Recently awarded the 2007 International Young Soloists Award by VSA arts, Cheong, 28, won a $5,000 scholarship to continue music education and an invitation to play the piano at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. VSA arts is an international, nonprofit society for people with disabilities to participate in and enjoy the arts.

Then there's the disability. Like Beethoven, Cheong makes music despite progressive hearing loss affecting both ears.

Cheong wears a hearing aid, but he cannot use the telephone, and face-to-face conversations are sometimes difficult. On the piano bench, the 88 keys become a form of communication.

"It somehow speaks to me emotionally," he said. "I can respond to what I play. When I communicate with people, it's hard for me to express words. But playing piano, I can express myself better."

As one of four recipients of the international award, Cheong will use his music on March 21 to speak to the Kennedy Center crowd. He will perform Aaron Copland's "Piano Variations" and Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6."

"It's a big honor for him," said Peter Amstutz, a piano professor at WVU's College of Creative Arts and Cheong's piano teacher since 2001. "It's a way for affirming to others with disabilities that they don't have to be held back."

Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Cheong began piano lessons around age 7 at his mother's urging. Then a viral infection damaged the hearing in his left ear, but he could still hear with a hearing aid.

Cheong continued to study the piano, but he disliked practicing and taking lessons, and he quit before he reached high school.

Around age 14, Cheong heard a recording of Beethoven's "Bagatelle in E-flat" and fell in love. A bagatelle, which means "something of little importance," is a short composition for the piano. Unlike its name, the piece proved to be quite significant; its simple sounds hooked Cheong on classical music.

"I used to play it over and over," he said. "I couldn't stop. I don't know why _ it just came to me."

He resumed piano lessons in high school and continued to practice after he enrolled in college for computer science. But Cheong, who owns almost 2,800 CDs of classical music, soon realized he didn't have the same passion for coding as he did for chording.

Cheong studied piano for two years with P'ng Tean Hwa, a former student of Amstutz, at University College Sedaya International. He was then awarded a full scholarship, followed by graduate assistantships, to continue his studies at WVU in 2001.

Under the tutelage of Amstutz, Cheong has flourished. He won the Music Teachers National Association Collegiate Artist Piano Competition in West Virginia in 2002, and the next year he was one of the selected soloists in WVU's annual Young Artists Auditions.

But while his musical aptitude improved, his hearing worsened. Cheong has had major hearing loss in both ears, and in college, doctors found major nerve damage to his ears.

Now Cheong reads lips in conversations, because people's various intonations make understanding speech difficult _ just as they did for Beethoven, one of Cheong's favorite composers.

"I can understand him quite well," Cheong said. "People say he was trying to avoid social situations, but he just didn't want to face trying to communicate with people. That's similar to me."

(Brittany McCandless can be reached at bmccandless@post-gazette.com.)