{"id":9646,"date":"2021-11-17T17:06:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T17:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/12\/09\/a-grand-passion\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:44:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:44:45","slug":"a-grand-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/a-grand-passion\/","title":{"rendered":"A grand passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gavin George \u201925<\/a> is a longtime fan of Dutch violinist and conductor Andre Rieu. Not surprising \u2013 millions of classical music aficionados around the world are. What is<\/em> surprising is that George became a fan at age 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom got an Andre Rieu DVD for Christmas,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI was absolutely infatuated. I would watch two hours of it twice in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another early memory was watching a piano, a gift from an uncle to encourage his early musical interest, being brought into the house. He recalls \u201cjust seeing it there in our front room and touching the keys for the first time and being able to make some music for myself for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

That early fascination with classical music sparked a remarkable career as a concert pianist for the freshman from Greenville, South Carolina. He began formal instruction at age 3 (3 and a half, more precisely) and made his concerto debut at 7, performing Haydn\u2019s Concerto in D Major<\/a>. In 2011, at age 8, he became the youngest player yet to appear on the Emmy-winning PBS show \u201cFrom the Top<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

For two consecutive years, he won gold medals in the American Association for the Development of the Gifted and Talented Piano competition, as well as winning the 2012 SAA Piano Concerto Competition. He\u2019s played at a music festival in Luxembourg, in Carnegie Hall, on the CBS Early Show and on the Queen Latifah Show.<\/p>\n

Call him a \u201cchild prodigy,\u201d however, and George has mixed feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, \u2018prodigy\u2019 has become very watered down,\u201d he said. \u201cBut others have described me that way. I think it\u2019s pretty common. I know that I\u2019ve always had an appreciation and love for music, and that has been my driving force in pursuing it for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he admits that few of his peers were also accomplished concert pianists, George, who was homeschooled through grade 12, says he never saw himself as unusual.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never something that stood out as odd to me,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t have that kind of a juxtaposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, George has come to Furman to study\u2026 science. A high school AP class sparked an interest in chemistry, and he plans to follow a pre-med track with an eye on a career as a radiologist.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s still planning on performing, though. Furman\u2019s strong music department<\/a> was a big factor in his decision to enroll, and he plans on keeping up with it as his studies allow.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic is still a passion of mine,\u201d he says. \u201cI haven\u2019t lost any love for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although his favorite composer is Rachmaninoff<\/a>, he does appreciate some more modern music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like ’80s, jazz, pop, prog,\u201d he says. \u201cIn general, if it’s got a good beat, I’m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gavin George \u201925 is a longtime fan of Dutch violinist and conductor Andre Rieu. Not surprising \u2013 millions of classical music aficionados around the world are. What is surprising is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,53,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-chemistry","category-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}