For the love of piano

For three hours each day, the living room in Scot King’s Costa Mesa home transforms into a magnificent concert hall when the mortgage broker sits down at his almost 9-foot-long Steinway & Sons concert grand piano and concentrates on nothing but music.

These days, much of King’s attention is devoted to Franz Liszt’s “Piano Sonata in B minor,” the 26-minute piece he will play if he makes it to the final round of the Van Cliburn Foundation’s fifth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, running May 28 to June 3 in Fort Worth, Texas.

“With Van Cliburn, there’s a lot of pressure there, but I try not to let my nerves take the upper hand,” he said. “Everybody is there to make music, so you go out on stage and do your best and try to have fun.”

Modeled after an amateur piano competition in Paris, the Van Cliburn competition was the first of its kind in the United States, and has since been replicated in cities like New York and Boston. It is open to any piano player 35 and older whose principal income does not come from teaching or playing the instrument.

“The spirit of the competition is to bring together people from all over that share a love of the piano and a love of music,” said Maria Guralnik, general manager for the foundation. “The point is largely celebrating the fact that there are a lot of decent musicians out there who don’t do it as a living.”

King, a Corona del Mar High School grad who went on to get his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at California Institute of the Arts, has been playing the piano since age 6 and will be participating in the Van Cliburn competition for the third time, this year against 74 competitors from six countries. Though King formerly played bassoon with the Pacific Symphony, he turned his focus to the piano 15 years ago, prizing the instrument for the variety of sound it offers. He has since competed in numerous amateur competitions and was once a finalist in the International Competition for Outstanding Piano Amateurs in Paris.

“The piano is very expansive because it’s not just one note at a time,” said King, who refinanced his apartment to buy his piano two years ago. “I can play 10 notes at a time on the piano and there’s just such a great sound palette.”

With a repertoire of 125 classical, romantic and contemporary pieces, King hopes to one day play in renowned venues like the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, though he recognizes it’s difficult to break into the industry at 44 years old.

“I play much better now than I ever did in the past, which is unfortunate timing,” he said. “Music is a part of my personality, and it’s what I’ve always wanted to be doing. Everything else I’ve done just because you’ve got to pay your bills and deal with life’s daily necessities.”

To find out more about the Van Cliburn Foundation’s fifth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, go to www.cliburn.org.