As the lights dim, senior Steven Jiang walks onto the stage of the United States Open Music Competition, gently resting his hands on the piano. Then, the lights shine and his hands begin moving seamlessly across the piano, hitting every note with a perfect tempo. After he completes the piece, he walks off stage, and prepares himself for his performance the next day.

“During USOMC last year, I definitely pushed myself,” Steven said. “Instead of playing in one category like I usually do, I played in three. I really pushed myself to learn four pieces in three months, and after it ended, I felt relieved and proud of myself.”

Steven began playing the piano at a young age, when he practiced his pieces often. More recently, however, he has begun to change the way he plays certain pieces in order to keep the pieces fresh and continue learning new piano skills.

“If you play the same passage too often, your hands can start to mess up the movements,” Steven said. “Nowadays, when I practice these parts repetitively, I try to play them really differently from each other. I don’t really play the same thing again; I play it once, and then I decide how I feel about that, and if I don’t like it, I change it.”

Although Steven started piano when he was quite young, he enjoyed playing music much more during the pandemic. During this time when he could not meet with his friends at school, Steven delved deeper into learning the piano, and began learning in different ways which helped blossom his love for the piano.

“I was stuck inside and had nothing else to do but play piano,” Steven said. “I changed teachers during that time as well, and the teacher that I had before was good, but I felt like I was playing his interpretation of the music rather than my own. The new teacher gave me the tools to play piano well while allowing me to interpret the music in my way.”

When playing music in front of many people as well as judges, it is natural for many to feel nervous. Although he occasionally doubts his abilities before the performance, Steven maintains a calm attitude to keep himself concentrated on the performance.

“An hour before the performance, I feel fine,” Steven said. “Then, 10 minutes before I perform, I start to get nervous, I doubt myself about whether I know the piece, if I’ll start on the wrong note or octave. But that anxiety disappears when I actually start playing.”

Close friend senior Neil Krishnan met Steven during middle school, bonding over a shared interest in piano. As another piano player, Neil noticed that Steven conveyed the emotional depth of his pieces very accurately to the original works, while also allowing his own emotion to come through with his performance.

“He shows a lot of emotion when he’s playing,” Neil said. “There’s this piano piece called ‘The Ballade,’ and it has a lot of turmoil, and Steven is able to show this turmoil very well. He’s obviously very gifted technique-wise as well.”

Close friend senior Aarush Vailaya also met Steven during middle school. Then Steven sat next to him during lunch. While Steven initially seemed to be a quiet person, Aarush noted how talkative he became as their friendship blossomed.

“At first, I thought he was quiet, but he’s a pretty talkative person once you get to know him,” Aarush said. “We hung out a lot, and I loved listening to his complaints about his classes, especially because I took many of the classes the year before. Once we both felt more comfortable around each other, we were able to talk more about general stuff as well.”

Math teacher Caren Furtado first taught Steven in AP Calculus AB, where she also found Steven to be initially reserved during class. However, as the year progressed, she realized that Steven was very passionate about certain subjects and knew his direction in life.

“The students that I generally see, there are two kinds: one set of students is unsure of who they are, and the others know their place and the world, but they look down on people who don’t,” Furtado said. “Steven doesn’t follow these categories. He knows who he is, but he’s not overbearing, and I think that’s what makes him nice to be around.”