18-year olds should not play the piano the way Evan Brezicki does. It’s one thing for a classic pianist, who has spent a lifetime mastering the feel and flow of the keys, to play at a high level, it’s quite another thing entirely for a high school senior to play at a level that not only stops airport travelers in their tracks, gains thousands of social media subscribers and millions of views, and even causes high school students to put down their phones, stop and listen.
Really listen.
If you haven’t guessed by now, Evan Brezicki is not your average high school senior.
Evan’s journey of playing the piano started when he was 4 years old. He and his two years older brother, David, both received keyboards as gifts one day. His brother started playing and whenever he stopped Evan would try to imitate what he heard.
At first his notes were not perfect but a year later Evan was keeping pace and being taught by the same piano teacher.
In Pre-K Evan would finish his classwork and begin ghost playing at his desk. Teachers had to tell him to stop drumming his fingers on the table because of the noise and disruption.
Could you blame him? Evan was simply eager to continue playing and could not wait to leave school and head home to his keyboard.
“When I got home I would run to the piano and play for an hour or so. My parents didn’t have to tell me to play,” Evan Brezicki said.
His love of playing the instrument is one thing, but improvement does not come without practice. Evan works incredibly hard on all his pieces and challenges himself, as well.
“Working hours and hours to perfect a piece and then being able to perform it and know that I got it perfect and get to play for others (are what motivate me),” Brezicki said.
Speaking of motivation, Evan wouldn’t be the pianist he is today without support from friends and family. His biggest motivators throughout his life have been his parents and his piano teacher, Mr. Uibel.
With the best intentions, Evan’s dad always pushed him the hardest, suggesting that he plays an hour a day.
His mom was less strict about playing for that full hour every day but still has been very supportive in his playing throughout the years. She helps him (and brother, David) run a YouTube channel with over 65,000 subscribers where Evan’s most viewed video (“Believer,” by Imagine Dragons) boasts 9.6 million views. And she shares performance and event information, updates and even short videos through social media.
His other biggest supporter has been his piano teacher, Mr Uibel, who has been teaching Evan for 12 years. His lessons are very important and Evan is glad that he has a strong relationship where they can talk not only about piano but also their personal lives.
In April 2017, looking for opportunities to play more in public, and at the suggestion of Mr. Uibel, Evan started playing weekly on the piano in the main concourse of the busy Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. He has enjoyed playing there for 5 years (shut down for a year due to the pandemic) and is easily recognized by the thousands of travelers who hear him and often plan time to stop and listen during their transfers and trips.
Evan believes the best parts of playing at the airport are “the conversations and meeting people from around the world” whether it is a musician or dancer or even a professional violin player.
And when he plays at school, either in a music class or performance or even just quickly during class changes on the piano in the commons area, students stop to listen.
When Evan graduates from the Community School of Davidson (CSD) this May, playing the piano in college will share his time with his other love, engineering. His dream school is Cornell where students cannot double major so he is planning on majoring in engineering and minoring in piano/music.
While his time playing piano in Davidson, at the airport and for friends and classmates at CSD high school, may be coming to an end, his future is bright. Regardless of where he enrolls, playing piano in college and in the future is a guarantee “no matter what.”
And that’s a good thing. With his talent and love of the piano, bigger audiences will soon experience what his friends, family and the Davidson community have grown to love these last 14 years.
