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Something quite different! Our local community band members in Juneau Alaska joined the local Taku Winds group this weekend to play a concert of all indigenous composers for Native American Heritage Month. Heavy on percussion, I played marimba, vibraphone and bells (no piano though) and we had a local professional percussionists and even a World premier of a song written by a local composer. Pieces included “Raven”, “Wolf song”, a “Gathering of Eagles”, by Robert Buckley and Sinfonia India (a wicked piece mixing 5/4, 2/4, 7/8, 3/8, 6/8, 2/2, etc). Check them out on YouTube.
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At the end of a bicycling tour in France, I returned via Paris and was lucky enough to get great seats to see Martha Argerich and the Rotterdam Philharmonic perform at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the famous theater where Stravinsky's Rite of Spring premiere caused a ruckus back in 1913.
She is a spry 83 years old, and played the Bartok Piano Concerto No. 3 with the same clarity and dynamism as on recordings she made of this piece decades ago.
I first heard her in Carnegie Hall back in the late 1970's, and she has been one of my favorite pianists ever since. Don't miss an opportunity to see her live if you get a chance.
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I attended a local community performance by three local pianists, organized by our local nonprofit that runs 50 or more free classical concerts a year. The theme of this concert was “water music”.
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For me, it was Greg Niemczuk in Vienna September last year. He was playing Chopin only. It was special, not only I have seen my online piano teacher the first time in real, but before each piece he was saying something about the piece and Chopin. That was great.
He will play in September 2025 in Leipzig Gewandhaus. So I will be there. LG Kerstin -
Last night at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, I heard Daniil Trifonov play Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Opus 16 by Prokofiev, with Esa Pekka Salonen. I had read that most pianists avoid this piece like the plague because it is so technically challenging, but Trifonov made it look like child's play. What a stunning performance. Virtuosity was evident throughout, but never at the expense of the music. Quite a triumph!!!
