A 15-year-old piano player who was encouraged by his father to perform wowed crowds at an airport in Switzerland three years ago. Now he’s studying to become a composer.
Christian Blandford, now 19, lives in the town of Sevenoaks, in Kent, South East England, and studies film music composition at Leeds Conservatoire.
He remembers feeling tired and nervous when sitting at Geneva airport in Switzerland in early 2019. However, his dad, Peter, started nudging him to play the piano for the crowds.
“We heard that there was a piano in the airport somewhere,” Christian told The Epoch Times. “He’s such a funny dad, he was just going around, like, ‘Is there a piano here?’ and I was like, ‘Dad!’ But we found this café and he got his phone out.”
Christian, who loves the music of composers such as Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Scriabin, was initially worried that his playing the piano would disturb the public. But his father had already begun recording.
“He said, ‘Please, everyone wants to hear,’ and I just said ‘Okay,’” Christian said. “I started playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata ... then I played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor. I only started learning them the year before.”
Christian, who was really nervous at the beginning, was very focused on what he was playing. Soon, he noticed people gathering around in the background but still wasn’t aware of the magnitude until he finished his first piece.
“I turned around to so many people with their phones out,” Christian recalled. “That was a really magical moment for me, because I don’t think I had much confidence at the time. That’s one of the things that helped me try to love myself more as a musician.”
Christian does video game programming on the side and has had a lot of online support for his work before. But nothing compared to being appreciated for his music.
“This was about me, my performance, and my emotions. It was very powerful and lovely ... I was reading all these messages, all these comments about something that was so personal to me,” he said.
Peter has been Christian’s “adamant supporter.”
“We do lots of things together ... he’s not a musician, but that doesn’t matter to me at all. He’s still interested in what I’m doing, and he always wants to hear me play,” Christian said.
The pair share an incredible bond.
“I think any father whose son is close to not surviving when they’re younger, they’re always going to have a special bond,” Christian said. “They’re always going to be happy that they’re alive.”
Before the age of 4, Christian battled cancer twice. He received treatment for clear cell sarcoma of the kidney and underwent radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He now has scars, an imbalance in his left leg, and only one kidney.
Christian took to the piano at school around the age of 6. He said he “probably wasn’t a very good student,” but after several years of tutoring, he started learning compositions by himself and found his passion.
“My first composition was probably when I was 7 or 8,” he told The Epoch Times. “It was very much a case of improvising on the piano, harmonies, and chords ... it was just something that I always had going on to relax myself and have fun.
“One of the first performances I did was at school. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that was terrible,’ but then I remember the entire room standing up. They hadn’t stood up for any of the other performances, and everyone was clapping. I think something sparked in my head.”
At age 15, Christian released some of his own music on the internet. Today, he’s writing an album of original music, to be released soon.
Christian has been on a health journey since beating cancer. A food-lover who enjoys cooking, he battled with his weight as a child.
“I didn’t like how I looked,” he said. “I was quite big and it wasn’t good, medically, especially with my history with cancer ... I just started to watch what I was eating, exercise ... it was really difficult, but I kept going and I did it.”
Christian completed his A-level exams a few years ago. He earned a spot at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama to study piano performance. But for the sake of his career, he opted to study at Leeds Conservatoire, with a bursary for additional piano lessons.
He said: “If there was a Netflix show that I was the composer of, that would just be outstanding. But I think you’ve got to look at the bigger picture and say, ‘What makes me different from everyone else?’ That’s what I’ve got to work hard on in the next few years, my musical identity.”
Christian also has a piece of advice for others.
“As humans, we have a lot of self-doubt,” he said. “If you haven’t any ambitions, just try everything ... even if you’re a terrible painter, but then you just start painting for fun, it’s a great thing to do. Just keep trying stuff!”
