When I got to know him better I found out that he had the gift of perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is when someone can listen to a musical note, played or sung, either live or recorded and they can tell you exactly what note it is. For wunderkinds like Awadagin it went one step further. He could tell you the chords too and probably could sit down and write the whole piece out on paper just by hearing it. For an 18-year old kid like me who had to work so hard at it I found him irritating and intriguing all at the same time.

We eventually became friends and began playing music together. Awadagin (“Dodge” to his friends) had a tendency to overpower the pianos in Smith Hall, which were all crammed into tiny 10 x 10 spaces with lots of sound-proofing on the ceiling and walls. Where was the fun in that? We made friends with a janitor in the music building and got a key to one of the larger classrooms that had a nice grand piano. Usually by the time rehearsals were done the piano had moved about two feet because he played with so much power.

Dodge’s musical gifts weren’t limited to the piano. He was equally gifted as a violinist and violist. We performed the Beethoven Serenade, Op.25 together on a recital in 1986 and Dodge played the violin part. I remember some very interesting coaching sessions with my flute professor, Alexander Murray, who had been raised in Johannesberg, South Africa in the 1940′s. Apartheid certainly existed during Alex Murray’s days in South Africa and in fact still did in 1986 as Nelson Mandela was still in prison. He really didn’t know quite what to do with this young black man sitting in his studio. The world may not be where it needs to be yet, but when I see Awadagin being introduced by Michelle Obama to perform at the Whitehouse, i realize that we all have traveled a long way from [what used to be] Normal.

A Long Way from Normal was the title of Awadagin’s first solo recording. It’s an apt title considering he was raised in Normal, Illinois. Probably best known for being the home of Illinois State University, it really probably could have been called “Boring” Illinois, but that wouldn’t have sounded quite as good. In 1986 Awadagin’s violin professor Catherine Tait accepted a teaching position at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and Dodge chose to follow her. There he became the first person in Peabody’s history to receive simultaneous performance degrees for three different instrument.

In 1992, while studying at Peabody and with so little money that he didn’t even have a checking account, Awadagin became the first African-American to win the Naumberg International Piano Competition. It was one of those great moments that made everything worth it. All the people who had dismissed him couldn’t any longer. Ever since he has been a tour de force in American chamber music. In September 2004, Pratt was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano and Artist-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.