Derek Zhi Guang Chiu, owner, Cantabile Wedding Music
by Lindsey Norris
PIANO MAN: Derek Chiu walks brides down the aisle to his original wedding music.
The wedding industry is not for the faint of heart. In addition to demanding clients and strict timelines, there is the often intense pressure to turn an experience with the same basic elements – white dress, vanilla cake, floral bouquet – into something unique. Entire businesses are built on this skill, in fact. But while the elusive quest for uniqueness has rendered the goldfish centrepiece passé and the black and red colour scheme fashionable, the ceremonial music that accompanies these twists on tradition has remained stubbornly old-fashioned.
Derek Zhi Guang Chiu, a classical pianist who was trained in New York and has returned to his hometown of Calgary, saw an opportunity in this sameness. In 2007 he founded Cantabile, and now, along with his other interests in teaching and performing, he creates original wedding music for couples across Canada. Well, mostly original.
AV: How did you get started in this business?
DC: About five years ago a good friend had asked me to attend her wedding. I was living in New York at the time and my work visa wouldn’t allow me to leave the country, so I said I would write the music for the wedding. It was a little bit ambitious.
What can people learn about customer service from the wedding business?
Part of working with clients in a unique business is making sure their needs are satisfied. If they’re not happy, they won’t enjoy their special day. They may not like your first three ideas, but when I started I knew that would happen. You can come up with a million ideas and none of them will work. It’s about being patient and understanding.
Why do you play live at the wedding instead of using a recording?
Because the music sets the mood, it isn’t background. You want it to enhance every emotional moment of the ceremony. Sometimes the flower girl runs down the aisle rather than walking, and a recording can’t adjust. Or, I’ll tell the bride, “Take your time, you don’t have to rush, I have lots of music for you.” You can’t create that kind of environment with a CD player.
Why would a concert pianist want to write music for weddings?
In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was part of the job of great composers to write music for church services: weddings, Easter mass, funerals. And for some reason, around the 1800s, composers stopped writing music for major services. By the 1900s, with the advent of the music press and recorded music, the whole idea of writing original music for services pretty much died off. So, I thought, why are we not doing this?
Is there a stigma attached to writing music for weddings?
I think there is, in that people will say you sound like someone else, or the music has a similar feel. But at the end of the day I serve the client, so it is really their ideas I’m trying to transform into music. It’s their love story, so I’m trying to take their story and put it into little dots and sticks on the page. Sometimes that is hard to do because you want to be so original, but really I want it to sound like my client. I’m just a transcriber.
Do you get weird requests, for, say, Elvis?
You know, that’s funny, because I did have a wedding in Toronto where they wanted everything to be very classical and traditional until the recessional at the end. They said, “We don’t want you to write anything because we have this Elvis song we love.” It was in a church, very classical, and at the end it was a surprise to everyone. You expect a celebratory sound, and out comes this 1960s rock ’n’ roll tune.
Where do you see the business of customized music in 10 years?
Hopefully composing wedding music will be one of the more popular ideas out there. There is no one in the market doing what I’m doing, and we could possibly move on to other avenues; people may want music for their 50th anniversary, for example. Really, the range of opportunities that are available in the realm of customized music is infinite.
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