The 1985 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition gold medalist, José Feghali was a world-renown musician when he came to the TCU School of Music as its Artist-in-Residence in 1990. During the next two decades, he was a passionate and beloved teacher who inspired students to attain their full potential.

Feghali died at his home in December. He was 53.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, he left his homeland in Brazil at the age of 15 to study piano in London with the well-known teacher, Maria Curcio and then continued to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton.

At age 24, Feghali earned gold at the Cliburn, as well as its chamber music prize, which launched a career of more than 1,000 concerts worldwide. He performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony and numerous major American orchestras. He also had extensive credits as a solo recitalist and chamber music performer, including participation in the Mimir Chamber Music Festival. In addition to his regular teaching at TCU, he was on the faculty of the PianoTexas summer course held there.

Aside from performing, Feghali also was adept at using computer technology to enhance music teaching. While at TCU, he served as coordinator of Internet technologies for the School of Music.

“He was an extraordinary musician,” School of Music Director Richard Gipson told The Dallas Morning News. “He could play anything at any time. Not many people understood how phenomenal a teacher he was – very insightful, very good at analyzing student issues, finding creative pathways for them.

“José was an incredibly inquisitive guy,” Gipson said. “If he decided he wanted to learn about something, he learned it, really dug in, whether it had to do with recording technology, Internet technology, a subject of any sort. He was a brilliant mind and a great friend.”

John Owings, chair of TCU’s piano division, remembered Feghali’s intensity. “Being Brazilian, of course, he had a lot of temperament and that made for a lively person, a very engaging person, a warm person,” he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“That came over in his playing, which reflected that fire and temperament and passion that he had. What stands out for me is his integrity as a person,” Owings said. “He stood up for fairness and what’s right. He would put himself on the line to make sure that what was done was right.”

In 2009, Feghali fixed coding issues in a videoconferencing program to improve the audio quality, enabling musicians to give master classes to students who might be thousands of miles away. He was later invited to a Microsoft conference in Seattle to speak on the coding improvements.

Feghali also lent his technical expertise to the Cliburn Foundation as the remastering engineer for the competition’s Retrospective Series of CDs, which digitized recordings of the early competitions.

The School of Music also used Feghali’s musical expertise to help it buy a new Hamburg Steinway piano. TCU sent him to the German factory to select just the right concert grand. Gipson said that Feghali tried about 10 pianos in the showroom but that none was up to his discriminating standards.

“He didn’t find one he was really happy with, so he just took off and headed towards the assembly line and started checking out the entire inventory,” Gipson recalled. The piano Feghali chose now resides in the PepsiCo Recital Hall at TCU.

Feghali loved Fort Worth and his association with and teaching at TCU. He was proud to represent both the Cliburn and TCU nationally and internationally.

Feghali often performed at Cliburn functions and with other Cliburn medalists. He was scheduled to perform at a concert honoring retired Cliburn jury chairman John Giordano in April at Bass Hall.

Earlier this year, Feghali opened an outdoor concert in Fort Worth’s Sundance Square commemorating the first anniversary of the death of Van Cliburn with a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Beyond music, Feghali was an avid storm chaser and amateur radio operator. He also loved astronomy and would drive out into the country to watch meteor showers, his manager Angela Fabry told the Star-Telegram. He held a permanent resident green card but wanted to become a U.S. citizen.

TCU plans to hold a public memorial service for Feghali in January.