When he was growing up in Manheim, pianist Hwaen Ch'uqi, then known as Jeff Tomlinson, was in the news a lot, performing across the county, winning piano competitions and graduating near the top of his class in 1993.

He left Lancaster for the Eastman School of Music and a career that has taken him all over the world.

And he left Jeff Tomlinson behind, too.

Despite a new name and a new attitude about his world, Ch'uqi still maintains his ties to friends and teachers in Lancaster.

On Friday, he will be performing at 7 p.m. at Lancaster Country Day School, 725 Hamilton Road. Among the classical pieces he will play is a piano concerto he wrote himself.

And for those who wonder what the journey from Jeff to Hwaen has been about, he will be interviewed by his very first piano teacher, Cindy Wittenberg, who taught the 5-year-old by the Suzuki method.


       Hwaen Ch'uqi performs


"My whole life has been an adventure, from the very beginning in Peru," says Ch'uqi, who has been blind since he was a baby.

Ch'uqi is Incan and was born in the jungles of Peru. Abandoned by his parents, he was adopted at age 5 by George and Inez Tomlinson, who adopted 12 other children, many with special needs. They changed his name from Hwaen Ch'uqi to Jeff Tomlinson.

But Ch'uqi says he never abandoned who he had been, even if his adopted parents urged him to.

"For the next 20 years, I had quite an internal struggle as related to my identity," he says. "It's safe to say there were all sorts of trials and tribulations that happened within my family during those years, though we put on a different public image.

"I had a lot of self-hatred and I started realizing that a lot of that hatred was of somebody I wasn't. This person Hwaen Ch'uqi was still a small child who never had a chance to grow up. A lot of this self-hatred had to do with the outward trappings that had been forced on Jeff Tomlinson. So I decided to take back my original name."

Ch'uqi channels his emotions and experiences into both his composing and his performing. And he sets high standards for himself.

"My goal in performing is to somehow effect change in the lives of my audience. I don't mean momentary change. I mean a life changing thing. I do believe music can do that."

He began composing when he was going through a rough patch of canceled concerts and sleeping on friend's sofas and floors, part of what he calls his vagabond life.

"I like the amazement of composing, the mystery of it," he says. "I have been doing this for almost 30 years now and I am still amazed at this idea that dots and lines on a page can actually translate into emotions that you can't talk about. As a composer I'm discovering how the process works."

Despite his struggles, Ch'uqi wouldn't change anything in his complicated past.

"I became a Christian when I was 20 and a lot of that perspective fell into place after that," he says. "One of the central ideas of Christianity is that God knows everything that is happening, that it all happens for a reason. In a sense that's why I am more comfortable talking about a lot of those uncomfortable things."

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Tickets for the concert are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. To order tickets, go to silverwoodandivory.com/jefftomlinson or call Signature Entertainment at 330-651-5266.

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Staff writer Jane Holahan can be reached at jholahan@LNPnews.com or 481-6016.