HOW THE BOTTAZZI MUSICAL FAMILY CAME TO BE
By Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 8:40pm
HOW THE BOTTAZZI MUSICAL FAMILY CAME TO BE (First Part)
In 1963 Ana Maria Trenchi was on top of the world. She had worked very hard to be there and was now enjoying the fruits of her labor. The Young Argentine pianist had been a child prodigy, trained by her mother, further honed by five years of grueling study in Paris, with 35 hours of lessons a week; with the noted pianist Germaine Pinault who has studied with a disciple of Franz Liszt; while at the same time studying at the Paris Conservatory of Music.
At 23 years of age Ana Maria Trenchi was considered one of the top ten pianists of her generation. She had just completed an eight country concert tour throughout Europe and was on her way back to Paris to rest and visit friends. Unfortunately her life took a very sharp detour. Driving her Fiat as she always had, fast, while listening to the Fourth Ballade by Chopin, and thinking that she would include it in her debut in New York, the following year, Ana Maria slammed into a truck on an icy road outside the city of Mons, Belgium. The tragic result, (according to the doctors of Mon's hospital), was a severe head trauma, and numerous internal injuries which required hospitalization.
After being released from the hospital, she went to Paris, where she began to feel headaches, weakness in her muscles, she was becoming blind of her right eye, paralyzed of the right side, and losing four of the five languages she knew; at the same time that she was developing meningitis.
After two months in the best Paris Hospital to cure the meningitis, she finally underwent a ten hours brain surgery, which helped - by removing fifteen clots from her brain among other things - with the many complications left from the accident. By the time that she was released from the hospital, after five months being there, she had lost besides her sense of smell and taste, her musical memory, and her coordination was severely impaired. The doctor's prognosis was "It would be for the rest of her life."
Her doctor advised her to give up the dream of continuing a professional concert career. "Avoid the frustrations," he said; "You come from a family with money; get married, have children and teach music like your mother"
Neither Ana Maria nor her mother could accept such a verdict, and Ana Maria's epic and inspirational struggle back to the concert began; Her entire life of thinking and believing in "YES, I CAN," did not allow her to believe in the doctor's words; however, she never either dreamed that it would take her thirteen years of constant struggle, to be able to play the piano again.
While she recuperates in Argentina, trying every day to learn to play the piano again, and to be able to do regular things that now she could not, she meets Bruno Bottazzi, a musical conductor with whom she attended in their first date, a concert in Buenos Aires. They fell in love on the very first night they went out at that concert, while listening to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2, one of the most romantic written concertos. Shortly thereafter, they decided to marry, but to make their life in New York. Since Ana Maria Trenchi has come to New York for the first time, some few years before, she fell in love with the city, the country, and the people, and promised to herself that she would make her life in this city. They both came, to live in this wonderful country and city, to become real Americans to try to pursue their musical careers, against the will, and without the help, of their wealthy families.
HOW THE BOTTAZZI MUSICAL FAMILY CAME TO BE (SECOND PART)
When the young and just married couple arrived to New York, Ana Maria had by this time, managed to regain some of her former technique, while finding new methods of compensating her lost of memory and coordination. But a new struggle was waiting for the young couple. They were now, just two immigrants, with unsupported wealthy families, having almost no financial resources, speaking very limited English, not knowing anyone in the country, and looking in every single job agency for work. They started out trying to find a job in music, for what they were educated, but soon started going down and tried anything, even picking up boxes in Macy's.
Practically penniless and living in an illegal basement in Queens, they would go to Manhattan every day, for what would become nearly a year of fruitless job-hunting. They will meet every day at lunch time and had each one for lunch, half of a big chocolate bar; they could not afford any more than that. At home, for all the other meals, all that time, they would only eat potatoes; which at that time was selling the big bag for $0.39.Their strong love for each other and for the music, kept them together and stronger, since the only thing they had was each other.
Then there was a Promise. At one particular point, Ana Maria and Bruno arranged to meet after an arduous job-hunting session, outside Carnegie Hall. With no money to go in, they could imagine in their minds strains of music coming out of the building and they made a vow to each other. One day the Hall will be theirs and the applause too, when she at the piano, and he conducting the orchestra, would perform "their Rachmaninoff concerto.
Thirteen years of constant effort to regain her mental and physical abilities were put to test in a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, in which Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi presented a 100 piece's program, and the audience did choose what she was going to perform, forty five minutes before the curtain. Reviews herald the triumphant arrival of a "wondrous and powerful musician"
With great love, faith in God and themselves and tremendous perseverance, this amazing couple somehow founded their way.
Five years after being immigrants in this country, they became American citizens and celebrated the occasion with a huge party. The big cake had 100 small American flags all around the cake.
HOW THE BOTTAZZI MUSICAL FAMILY CAME TO BE (THIRD PART)
In 1981, Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi, received her second Doctoral Degree, in a record time of exactly two years, from The Juilliard School of Music. By the same token, she became the first person from Latin American to obtain that degree from that school. Meanwhile, in 1984, Bruno Bottazzi received his Ph.D. in music from the New York University. Since then, Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi performed in many countries again, and also presented more than 20 concerts at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, as well as the White House and the Vatican.
But the most important milestone was yet to be accomplished. The fulfilling of their promise, "that promise" made in the midst of a struggle for surviving and against all the odds that immigrants can possible encounter.
When Ana Maria was diagnosed with breast cancer, plus the following surgery, radiation, etc. they both realized that the concert HAD to be done very soon. They needed to perform together in Carnegie Hall as pianist and conductor.
It was also another very important reason; their two children had always heard about the promise; all their lives, and both Bruno and Ana Maria had always believed that when you promise something you do it. They had to do that concert and had their children witnessing "that promise made reality."
Of course, it was a big task that would need a lot of faith in God and themselves; a tremendous preparation and incredible amounts of money to rent Carnegie Hall, and the entire American Symphony Orchestra. All of this evolved more than all the money they saved since they arrived to this country, and practice every second they had free from teaching.
HOW THE BOTTAZZI MUSICAL FAMILY CAME TO BE (LAST PART)
On October 18, 1998, thirty-four years after they met, and thirty-three years after they made "the promise;" despite major medical problems, trials and issues, Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi and Bruno Bottazzi finally saw their promise fulfilled, when at 3:00 p.m. on that Sunday afternoon, they walked on the stage of Carnegie Hall, and after performing other works and also another piano concerto, they finished the concerts performing "their Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto," to a pack house, several standing ovations and the record of flowers ever received by an artist in Carnegie Hall.
Ana Maria Trenchi Bottazzi and Bruno Bottazzi attribute their success, to her mother's persistent invective "Never say I can't, because YES, YOU CAN" as well as her motto "What we are is God's gift to us, what we become is our gift to God"
