Jim-Isaac Chua will give a concert on Saturday, Sept. 30, in Baker City to benefit ArtSpeak, a program of Crossroads Carnegie Art Center.

BAKER CITY — Jim-Isaac Chua hopes people will listen with open hearts and minds when piano music fills the high school auditorium in Baker City on Saturday, Sept. 30, at 6 p.m.

“I think people will really enjoy this concert and discover that the composers’ complex lives, the historical events of their time, and even the nature which surrounded them all played parts in making their music beautiful,” he said.

Chua, a concert pianist, was born in the Philippines, and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 1. He grew up in Richland, Washington.

He’s playing the Sept. 30 concert as a benefit for ArtSpeak, a program at Crossroads Carnegie Art Center that helps make arts accessible to all.

Tickets are $15 and available online at crossroads-arts.org, or at the door. Admission is free for music students from Baker High and Baker Middle schools.

Chua lives in Poland, and is including Baker City on his tour — his first since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down performances around the world.

Background

Chua began playing piano at age 8.

“It was a bit of a tradition on my mother’s side,” he said.

That tradition, he said, dates to World War II, when his great-grandmother played piano to appease soldiers during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

He said all of his siblings and cousins learned piano, but “no one was crazy enough to make it a living except for me.”

He credits his Polish piano teachers, Hania Kyrcz-Dec and Maria Szwajger-Kulakowska, for inspiring his love of classical music, then and now.

“I can’t stress enough how important teachers are,” he said. “Music education is so undervalued — people don’t realize the importance of being in touch with your emotional and creative side. And performing, too.”

And that’s why he’s happy to play a benefit concert for a program that focuses on providing teachers for art students in the community.

His solo debut was at Carnegie Hall in 2009. Since then, he has performed in halls across the United States, Canada, Austria, France, Italy, Poland and Southeast Asia.

The concert

Chua will play pieces by six composers, including Polish composer Frédéric Chopin.

He’ll talk about each piece during the concert so the audience is privy to the story of the composition.

“I will bring pieces people will surely appreciate, and will challenge listeners as well,” he said.

Music, he said, transcends generations.

“The soul of people in many ways is unchanging — we all desire to feel loved, to feel happy and to be fulfilled,” he said. “The composers wrote these pieces for everyone without prejudice, not knowing who would play them, or who would be listening. Music is — and should be — for all people.”