Discovering the world of musicLu Shao-chia was born in Chutung Township, Hsinchu County, where his father, Lu Yao-shu, was a well-known physician. Like Shinichi Chiaki in Nodame Cantabile, Lu began to play the piano when he was five. The keys of the piano were his introduction to the vast world of music.
"From the time he started school, my father was very attracted to European culture, particularly its music. But when he was growing up, circumstances didn't allow him to learn a musical instrument, so he decided very early on that we would be exposed to music. My parents were very thrifty but they made sure their children had the best musical instruments. There were five brothers and sisters in my family and each of us grew up playing the piano." Lu shows off with a smile his family's grand piano, a Steinway with yellowed ivory keys, and begins to play a Debussy piano piece with consummate familiarity.
As a young child, Lu was praised by his teachers for his perfect pitch. In third grade, he won a regional piano competition for children from northern Taiwan, and was awarded a scholarship to attend a class for musically gifted children established by the Ministry of Education. Lin Cho-liang, who would later become an internationally acclaimed violinist, was one of Lu's classmates.
Although he displayed extraordinary talent at the piano as a young boy, Lu says that because of his passive and introverted personality, like many other children of his generation he bowed to pressure to excel academically and gave up playing the piano to concentrate on schoolwork. After graduating from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School he majored in psychology at National Taiwan University (NTU). Unlike his elder and younger brother, Lu did not follow in his father's footsteps to become a doctor, but he was admitted to Taiwan's most prestigious institution of higher learning.
To Lu, the most fateful aspect of passing the NTU entrance exam was the fact that it gave him the opportunity to join the university choir. With a smile, Lu admits that he is not particularly fond of singing; he only joined the choir because a former schoolmate and fellow music lover in high school invited him to do so. His main responsibility in the choir was to serve as piano accompanist.
"NTU had no music department, but that lack gave me free rein to develop my musical talent. I felt a real sense of achievement when I saw how much everyone appreciated my piano playing. My years as a member of the choir were very happy, and I also made many friends for life," recalls Lu with affection. The shyness and innocence of Lu's student days still come through.
Lu spent so much time with the NTU choir that he was rarely seen in the Psychology Department, and his fellow students joked that he was majoring in the NTU choir.
Lu admits that he was not particularly interested in his psychology classes, but adds that psy majors did not have a particularly heavy academic workload, which allowed him to listen to his inner voice: "I knew I wanted to follow a musical path."