An internationally known musician slipped quietly into life in the northern suburbs recently. When not practicing at his Steinway concert grand or Yamaha baby grand, Jorge Federico Osorio is exploring the area with wife Sylvana and their sons, 7-year-old Santiago and 14-year-old Dario.
At least for the moment, he can do so without most people recognizing that the balding head, pleasant smile and hazel eyes belong to a person considered a monumental talent in Europe and Asia.
Osorio, whom the late Sir Georg Solti called an “outstanding pianist and musician,” performs regularly with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, fills concert halls from Poland to Israel and records extensively with the BBC, Japan NHK and Belgian Radio.
But anonymity in the United States may soon end.
Osorio drew rave reviews from The New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune during his North American tour last year. He received a spirited ovation from the Ravinia Pavilion crowd with the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in his debut at Highland Park’s renowned music festival park on Labor Day.
And when not out of town on concert dates, Osorio probably will be seen with some regularity at the Chicago area’s numerous arts institutions. That is because when he moved to Highland Park in July after living in England for more than a decade, the Mexican-born, European- and Mexican-trained pianist traded London’s international bustle for Chicago’s cultural scene and convenient central U.S. location.
“I always liked Chicago. We thought someday we would come back to the States to live. Chicago is a very exciting city culturally,” Osorio said.
“Also it’s closer to Mexico. That is very important to us. We would like to see our family more often, and we would like the kids to see them more often. That was difficult when we were in London,” he said.
Having just moved in, Osorio sat in a yet-to-be-organized living room talking about how his love of music, Sylvana and family has taken him from Mexico City to Paris, Moscow, New York, back to Mexico, then London and now the Chicago area.
Before living in New York in the 1970s, he was back and forth between Mexico City and Europe, where he studied at conservatories, first in Paris, then Moscow.
“Paris was very controlled. Students were not allowed to go to other classes or do other things. In Moscow, classes were open to anyone who wanted to listen, and you could get together with other musicians to do chamber music. There was always someone looking for someone else to play with in Moscow. The challenge was that I would have two, sometimes three lessons a week, but I had better come well-prepared. The lesson was open door, and there might be 15 to 20 students and visitors there wanting to hear the lesson. It made you focus on what you were working on,” Osorio said.
Not that he minds an audience.
At an early age, Osorio discovered that he enjoyed performing for people. “I liked playing even when friends would come to the house,” he said. “I would play pieces for them, then go play.”
He started violin lessons at age 3 with his father, the late Juan Jose Osorio, an accomplished violinist with the Sinonica de Mexico. Osorio began studying piano with his mother, concert pianist and music teacher Luz Marie Puente, at age 5. He was the only one of four children to make music a career.
“There was a passion for music in the family. But I never felt that we were pushed. My mother advocates taking music lessons just for yourself. You take it to enjoy and appreciate,” Osorio said.
The defining moment, when he knew music would be his life, came around age 11 or 12 while watching Van Cliburn in a televised concert.
“Sometimes people are inspired by something. I remember when Van Cliburn came to Mexico to play several concerti. I was so struck by him, by his playing. I was watching it on television with my grandmother and said, `This is what I want to be,’ ” Osorio said.
Osorio realized he could succeed as a concert pianist at age 13, when he won the Juventudes Musicales, a competition in Mexico for young musicians. The prize included the opportunity to play recitals in different venues.
“That decided me. I was absolutely over the moon. It was exciting to win and to have the opportunity of performing in a proper concert hall,” he said. “When the concerts came, I was nervous and all that, but I loved performing and being on stage. That is when you find out if you like it or not. I found out I really liked performing.”
Excitement, not jitters, is what he feels on stage.
“Everybody has different feelings. I feel excited with the anticipation that something special is going to happen. You need that feeling of excitement,” Osorio said. “People want to receive something special. And you want to bring enjoyment to them. That is very important. Coming to a concert is a very personal thing. Whether they’ve heard a piece a lot or you’ve played it a lot or just a few times, you want it to be a unique experience for each one of the public.”
The youth competition was just the beginning of a successful career that continues to receive accolades. Osorio went on to win several international prizes, including the Rhode Island International Master Piano competition and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Gina Bachauer Award. He studied with such illustrious teachers as Wilhelm Kempff, Nadia Reisenberg and Jacob Milstein. And he has performed with such leading orchestras as the Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de France, Warsaw Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
He has a Boston debut at Jordan Hall in October before flying to Spain for a European tour.
“The schedule is tight,” he said. “In this business, you have to like traveling.”
Osorio first played in Chicago with the Grant Park Symphony in 1994, performing Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto under the baton of San Antonio Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins. He returned to the city in 1995 to play a varied menu of Mozart, Brahms, Debussy and Manuel Ponce at an Orchestra Hall recital.
Henry Fogle, the Chicago Symphony Orchestral Association’s executive director, brought Osorio to Orchestra Hall after hearing him play in San Antonio during a symphony fundraiser that was broadcast on the radio.
“When I heard him play Rachmaninov’s “Theme on Paganini” in San Antonio, I thought, `Oh my, I just heard a wonderful pianist.’ He had everything. He was exciting, dramatic and had wonderful musicality,” Fogle said.
Fogle will get no argument from Wilkins. After a successful recital, Fogle asked Osorio to return last year to reprise the Rachmaninov with the CSO under the direction of Wilkins.
On the phone from San Antonio, Wilkins remarked that when Osorio played, the pianist and instrument became one entity.
“I think he is a very special artist with a very personal way with the piano. Jorge has a personal, almost family relationship with the instrument. The sound is very intimate,” he said. “Jorge is exquisitely trained. He is as great as any classicist today.”
When Osorio made his CSO debut last November with Rachmaninov’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Tribune music critic John von Rhein wrote, “The recent release of several fine recordings by this artist had not prepared one for the fearless virtuosity, deep lyrical feeling and tonal splendor he brought to Rachmaninov’s showpiece. . . . Let’s have Osorio back in recital and soon.”
If proximity matters, Chicago audiences should see more of Osorio. “We’re fortunate to have such a talent living here in the Chicago area,” Fogle said.
But given the pianist’s history of moving where love of music, Sylvana and family have taken him in his 47 years, Chicagoans should not count Osorio among its longtime celebrity residents yet.
“We’ve always been adventuresome. When we lived in New York a number of years ago, we thought we would stay there,” Osorio said, explaining that he moved to New York in the 1970s after winning the Rhode Island competition to play the prize’s recitals there and to be close to his childhood sweetheart, Sylvana Lopez.
The daughter of Mexican music critic Marina Lopez, Sylvana had studied piano in Mexico, then earned a degree in music from Brooklyn College in New York, followed by a degree in music library science from Columbia University in New York. Osorio and Sylvana married in 1976.
They then lived in Mexico City for about eight years before his demanding European tours and London recording engagements made London a more convenient base.
“With communication as it is, now you can be anywhere, but I was doing a lot of recording there and had become quite involved with the Royal Philharmonic and the BBC, doing recitals and chamber music,” he said.
Sylvana commented on how being on the road came with marriage to a concert pianist but that she has not traveled with him much since their children were born.
“I don’t go unless it is easy to travel as a family. But we’ve seen some incredible places, like Israel. That was wonderful,” she said. (With both children in school, once they have unpacked and settled into their house, Sylvana hopes to find a job as a music librarian.)
As did their own parents, the Osorios are encouraging but not pushing their boys to play musical instruments. Santiago plays the violin and Dario the drums.
Osorio walked over to the concert grand to practice the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto. The opening chords reverberated through the small house. “As you can imagine, it can get very noisy around here,” he said.
Santiago, who had been hovering nearby, piped up: “I usually listen to him practice, and I love that. You know why? I get live music free.”
