BYLINE: Wendell Brock, STAFF
DATE: 06-05-2000
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
EDITION: Home
SECTION: Features
PAGE: C1

Joey Freeman, an Athens massage therapist who sometimes works with University of Georgia athletes, sure has his hands full today. He's trying to coax a personal best from the curvaceously buffed giant in front of him.

But Freeman's 9-foot wonder isn't some bulked-up Bulldog jock. It's a shiny black Steinway concert grand piano. And it's Freeman --- who holds two master's degrees in music from the university --- who's playing to win. Just a year after earning a certificate from the Atlanta School of Massage and performing his first public recital in 15 years (both in the same month), this spritely 49-year-old has earned a slot in the Van Cliburn International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, running today through Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.

Talk about a feel-good story.

A few years ago, it was Australian pianist David Helfgott making a comeback after the film "Shine." Now it's Freeman, who's found that his piano playing is a natural lubricant for his job as a moonlighting masseur. It seems that the more he tickles the ivories, the better he gets at turning his clients' muscles into butter. Don't laugh: This guy not only has two 10-digit careers, but he's also found what may be the ultimate niche market.

Even at his 9-to-5 job, as a clerk at the university's school of music, he's been known to give a neck rub to a stressed-out player in a pinch. "You have to be somewhat discerning about raking in money on the side while you are supposedly working," jokes the virtuoso about his newfound vocation. "I don't abuse my position here in any way whatsoever."

An effervescent and excitable man who seemingly can do anything he sets his mind to, Freeman has been a familiar campus figure on and off since 1968, when he arrived as an eager freshman from Toomsboro. But after getting master's degrees in both piano performance and musicology, he burned out on concertizing and became equally turned off with searching for teaching positions in the highly competitive university world. After getting an MBA in human resources, he became a nationally published author and expert in career planning and college placement. Thus he's taught piano in Valdosta, career strategy to a Tibetan community in Dharmsala, India, and been an internal auditor with the University System of Georgia.

But it wasn't until a series of strokes left his mother unable to move or feed herself that he began to value physical wellness.

"I think maybe psychologically that's why I'm into massage therapy," Freeman says over lunch at the Grit, a popular Athens vegetarian restaurant, between practicing for the Cliburn competition and dashing off to give a massage to a friend. "It made me really focus on the importance of the body in your life --- just seeing her paralyzed every day for eight years was pretty tough." His mother died in 1996. Three years later, he got his credentials from the Atlanta school and became a nationally certified massage therapist.

"His bio probably took the longest to boil down into four or five sentences," says Maria Guralnik, general manager of the Van Cliburn Foundation. "At first glance, you think, 'Oh, the guy can't hold a job.' But what's really true is that he has a profound mission in life of figuring out how to free people of inhibition. He doesn't go through life saying, 'Well, now I'm going to be a massage therapist' and 'Now I'm going to be a great pianist.' He has the deeper quest of figuring out how to help people achieve what they really want to be."

Among this year's competitors are Gainesville homemaker Judy Thomas, a British astrologer, a Montreal dentist, a Fox news anchor and a midwife, the last two from New York.

"I am always looking for ways to integrate all this stuff I have done," Freeman says. "I have worked in career planning. I have worked in educational administration. I have worked in teaching piano and performing piano."

As a seasoned performer, he knows very well the stress and anxiety that go hand in glove with the art. "As I began to read about massage therapy, I began to see how some of the stuff my piano teacher told me over the years really made a whole lot of sense. Tight muscles do constitute blockages to creativity."

It is such insight that makes him particularly well-equipped to work with actors, musicians and athletes. Last year, he traveled with the UGA Gym Dogs to their national championship meet with the University of Michigan.

While many a massage therapist will make house calls, Freeman brings Schubert impromptus and Chopin nocturnes to the table along with the rubbing, rolling and stroking of the conventional masseur's repertoire. Invite him by for one of his two-part performances and he'll pack sheet music along with clean sheets for his massage table. Because much of his music is committed to memory, he is never Liszt- less --- though his clients generally are when he leaves.

Perhaps the only thing he won't do is take requests. No "My Funny Valentine" or "The Girl From Ipanema" for him. "I'm not a cocktail lounge pianist," he says, laughing. "I'm not knocking that. But that's not me. That's not what I do the best."

Freeman declines to disclose his fees for either service but says they are competitive. He keeps his massage chair in the back of his car and was planning to ship his massage table to Fort Worth, though he didn't expect that any of his fellow competitors would let him work on their hands. When he found out it would cost $95 to send the table, he took that as an omen to concentrate on his playing.

On Wednesday morning, Freeman will play Chopin's Scherzo in B- Flat Minor in the first round of competition. If he makes it to this weekend's finals, he'll play Liszt's Concert Etude in D-Flat Major ("Un Sospiro") and "Vallee d'Obermann" in the second round and Liszt's "Sonata in B Minor," one of the most difficult pieces in the literature, for the finish. The winner gets $2,000 and two tickets to next year's Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the foundation's signature event for professionals, which has been held in Fort Worth every four years since 1962.

"He's a very good pianist, and I think he's going to impress a lot of people down there," says Richard M. Graham, director of the UGA school of music. "He's a natural. He learns things quickly that many people take years to learn. He has that sort of muscular coordination that I think transfers very well into his massage work."

The other day, Freeman says, a reporter from the Fort Worth newspaper called to ask him what his strategy is for the competition. He didn't know quite how to respond. "I consider myself a winner already, just being selected. My strategy is just to do the best I can possibly do. If I do that, I'll be a winner one way or another."

JOEY FREEMAN FILE
Personal: Age 49. Born in Milledgeville. Single. No siblings or children.
Education: Three master's degrees from the University of Georgia, in piano performance, musicology and business administration. Has completed course and exam work for a doctorate in educational leadership. "I think I may enjoy being around education more than being in it."
Professions: Clerk at the UGA school of music. Certified massage therapist. Concert pianist. Author of "A Vision for the College Placement Center: Systems, Paradigms, Processes, People" (Praeger Publications).
About the Cliburn competition: Now in its second year, it runs today through Saturday at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. The 75 contestants, all of whom must be at least 35, are neither musical dabblers nor professionals; they are amateurs. Last year, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote, "The repertoire they played -- including two Fort Worth premieres -- was at times almost as interesting as the list of occupations."
Tickets: 817-335-9000.

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