‘Resilience personified’: Pianist Nina Schumann heads to CIM with inspirational messages

If it’s inspiration you seek, search no longer. Simply attend this special event organized by piano department head Antonio Pompa-Baldi.  

On Sunday, Nov. 17, Pompa-Baldi will host friend and colleague Nina Schumann, an accomplished South African pianist advancing a brilliant career while dealing with a trio of serious health conditions.  

At CIM, she’ll present a short documentary about her recent performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and discuss her recovery from breast cancer and ongoing struggles with focal dystonia and Parkinson’s disease. Event details can be found on the CIM website.

“Our students will witness resilience personified,” Pompa-Baldi said. “The fact that Nina has been able to endure and overcome her serious challenges is something we all can take as a model.”  

Pompa-Baldi has known Schumann since 2012, when she invited him to the International Piano Symposium at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, where she has been head of piano since 1999.  

That’s just personally, of course. Pompa-Baldi has known of Schumann far longer, through her many acclaimed recitals, orchestral appearances, competition prizes, and duo performances with pianist Luis Magalhães. 

“I am in awe of her artistry,” said Pompa-Baldi. “She is an all-around great musician, but I believe she is truly in her element when playing romantic music, and especially Rachmaninoff. She is the quintessential romantic pianist.” 

Much of Schumann’s fame of late has centered on her health issues – specifically on her remarkable response to them. Rather than hide or retreat, she has pushed forward and spoken openly about her struggles. 

Cancer – which she attributes in part to the stress inherent in her career – has been the easiest to discuss in public, and the least disruptive. Following a double mastectomy, she has been cancer-free for 12 years.  

“Oddly enough, I didn’t feel it had any impact on my playing,” Schumann said.

Focal dystonia and Parkinson’s disease have proven far more difficult, and more revelatory. In both cases, she said, she felt pressure to hide the condition, until doing so became impossible. Both, too, transformed her relationship with her art, in ways both positive and negative. 

The dystonia in her left hand stabilized, Schumann said, allowing her to contue playing with only minor adjustments. Parkinson’s, by contrast, is a degenerative disease with no cure, and has curtailed her ability to practice. This has obliged her to approach music differently and spend more time practicing mentally.

All of this induced a “period of mourning,” Schumann said, a sensation akin to awareness of one’s mortality. But it also changed her life in a good way, allowing her to “discover” the talent she’s had all along. 

“I never recognized it [before], being conditioned to be overcritical,” Schumann said. “So I consider myself lucky that I am able to recognize it now, even though my regression remains hard to accept.” 

The boldest and most inspiring lesson in store for those who attend Schumann’s visit is one she calls “Musical Feeling.” It’s the sense that what she’s done, what she’s doing now, and what she will do next are all manifestations of something eternal, something beyond the reach of physical disease. 

“I discovered that I have musical feeling that cannot be taken away, ever,” Schumann said. “[No] matter the course Parkinson’s will take, I will always have what makes me unique. This is the true gift of music.”