Ingrid Losnedahl was born in Toledo Ohio, to an upper middle class family, where her father, Frank, worked for Owens Corning and her mother, Nora, was a lecturer in the music department at the University of Toledo. Ingrid was an only child as her mother suffered two miscarriages subsequent to her birth. Refusing to tolerate possible future despair, her mother underwent a tubal ligation operation to forestall further misery associated with the loss of a child during pregnancy. To say her parents doted on her is an understatement. Considering her mother's two miscarriages, her parents considered Ingrid as God's special gift to them. Consequently, they felt that they were honor bound not to squander such a wonderful gift.
Despite being obviously consciously and subconsciously aware of her parents' attitude towards her, it remarkably did not render Ingrid's character into selfishness or self-centralism. Instead, as she loved them instinctively, she took the view that it was imperative on her part to display that she was worthy of her parents' high regard of her. To achieve such ambition, Ingrid even as early as at the tender age of three years formulated the ambition to become a world class pianist. One of the luxuries her parents possessed was a full-size grand Steinway piano which originally was the property of her maternal grandmother. Her mother could play the piano adequately, and as a result, Ingrid was fascinated by witnessing her mother play the instrument. As soon as she was able to effectively communicate with her parents, Ingrid pestered her mother to teach her to play.
By the time Ingrid reached the age of four, her mother had exhausted in imparting all her musical knowledge to her precocious daughter. So, she hired a local professional music teacher to supplement Ingrid's knowledge of playing the piano. By the time Ingrid was six years old, the music teacher could not really add anything more to Ingrid's acquired expertise. The teacher's recommendations were for Ingrid to continue practicing on her own and enter as many piano competitions as feasibly possible. That way by the time she reached her senior year in high school would be as good a time as any to evaluate and assess her possible future in music.
Ingrid was not averse to such recommendation. As she started grade school, she had an alternative agenda. She certainly paid attention to her schoolwork to acquire a worthwhile education to sustain herself in life apart from her piano playing. However, her passion was playing the piano. She continuously practiced and played so that such activity occupied almost her entire time apart from school and sleeping. She seldom watched television and had acquired no friends whatsoever. Given her parents appraisal of her, they seldom interfered with her relentless devotion to her music. They did not discourage her from pursuing such a solitary lifestyle with the belief she would eventually expand her interests.
Ingrid's single-minded dedication to her art paid dividends in the music competitions she entered throughout the United States. With one lone exception, wherein she inadvertently made a minor error, she won every competition that she entered. Once she turned twelve her parents took turns to enter her in some important competitions in Europe for her age group during her summer recess from school. She won every competition she entered there as well.
The apex of her competitive triumphs was winning the quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Competition, a two-week event held in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia. Ingrid's birthday was at the beginning of June, and when Ingrid turned sixteen, this competition was scheduled later that month. Having just turned sixteen she barely met the minimum age requirement for the event. Considering her stellar record in winning piano competitions her entry was enthusiastically accepted.
The only American to date to have won the piano competition of this event was the legendary Van Cliburn way back in 1958, being the inaugural competition for this musical festival. Like Van Cliburn, Ingrid on the finale night performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor plus Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, arguably two of the most famous piano concertos scored by Russian composers. Ingrid's performance of those two pieces of music was absolutely brilliant. In particular, her bombastic entrance to the languid pace set by the orchestra in commencing the second movement of Rachmaninoff's concerto was breathtaking. The audience could sense that not only was Ingrid performing flawlessly but her body and soul was totally engaged to produce the exquisite music. The resultant standing ovation lasted more than ten minutes, a veritable testimonial to Ingrid's outstanding presentation.
Ingrid was not overly conceited, but neither was she unrealistically modest. She entered the competition with the expectation of winning, and thus beforehand she read up about Van Cliburn's triumph of 1958 with the view of emulating him should she indeed win the grand first prize. In that regard, she had her mother get a hold of a Russian speaking professor in the Russian studies department of the University. Ingrid engaged the Russian to teach her to speak in Russian an acknowledgment in appreciation.
Consequently, when the applause eventually died down, Ingrid addressed the audience and said (in Russian with a pleasing American accent), "Thank you so much for your enthusiastic applause. I am delighted to have competed in this wonderful festival of classical music and that my performances have been so favorably received. It was a pleasure to play these concertos by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, which I rank as one of my favorite pieces to perform. Now at this point I would like to play as an encore another one of my favorite pieces of music. It's not by a Russian composer but I hope you don't mind. After all music is the universal language understood by every person on this planet. It's Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5."
This, almost nine minutes in length, piece of music was indeed Ingrid's favorite piece of music. In her teenage mind, she could not articulate precisely why she was attracted to the haunting themes in this music. It is generally understood that Liszt in composing the various rhapsodies incorporated many themes he had heard in his native western Hungary and which he believed to be folk music, though many were in fact tunes written by members of the Hungarian upper middle class, or by composers and often played by Roma (Gypsy) bands. Aware of the prosaic explanation of the creation of this music, did not assist Ingrid in determining the reason for her peculiar enthrallment with this particular piece of music. As she was not yet sexually active, she was at a loss to explain her passion for this music. Later on when she had become a mature adult, she surmised that there had to be an inherent sexual component acting as a factor to her enjoyment. All she could discern at the time was that she found this music compelling.
Given her obsession with practicing and playing the piano Ingrid had no room left to indulge in alternative feelings. It also left her with no inclination to socialize. The typical interests that teenagers normally pursue was not Ingrid's cup of tea. Although recognizing and allured to the physical attractiveness of some of her male classmates in school, she was able to conclude that their immaturity would not float her boat of her standard sophisticated desire for male intimacy. As a result, her desire for sex was virtually nonexistent. For that matter in social intercourse, Ingrid had virtually no girlfriends either, as she could not abide the frivolousness of her female peers either.
Consequently, Ingrid was completely standoffish and discouraged any intimacy. However, Ingrid was considered very physically attractive, and thus, was constantly subject to attention and notice from her male school mates. To ward off such unwanted attention as much as she could, she always dressed as drably as possible. Despite her best efforts to discourage notice she was constantly besieged to go out on a date by various self-professed Lotharios of her school. The relentless pressure to go out on a date intensified in her second year in high school to such an extent that she acquiesced to dates three times, just so she could have some peace of mind. However, each of those dates proved to be disasters as her dates quickly got the hint that she was not interested in them.
Her mother, Nora, was very cognizant of her daughter's pulchritude, and as soon as she realized Ingrid was going to be dating, she marched Ingrid off to her own gynecologist's office to have Ingrid fitted with an IUD. Nora's theory was that Ingrid, being so focused in her music, would be too lackadaisical in remembering to take the pill every day. Thus, with an IUD inserted she would only need to check with her doctor infrequently for maintenance. An unwanted teenage pregnancy was definitely something that needed to be avoided, if Ingrid was going to enjoy an illustrious concert playing career. However, Nora's caution proved to be unnecessary.
