Maestro Kyung-Wha Chung
ONE evening in May 1970, a 22-year-old Korean girl played the violin, with the accompaniment of the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the world famous conductor, Andre Previn, to a packed Royal Festival Hall.
Pianist's 'music poetic'
On Saturday, the Israeli pianist will join the newly restructured Shanghai
Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra to play Glinka's "Overture to Ruslan and
Ludmilla," Mozart's "Piano Concerto No 20, K466, in D Minor" and Sibelius'
"Symphony No 2." Mozart's "Piano Concerto No 20" is the most difficult piano piece by
Mozart, said Yong-yan Hu, the new Chinese-American music director of the
orchestra who will conduct the Saturday concert. Gortler has appeared as a soloist with many major orchestras, including
the Israel Philharmonic, the Berlin and the Bavarian Radio Symphonies,
Atlanta Symphony and Houston Symphony. He has performed with conductors Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Michael
Tilson Thomas, Yoel Levi, Leonid Grin and Justus Franz. He has been asked recently to replace Murray Perahia on short notice
and successfully made his debut of the Schumann Piano Concerto with the
San Francisco Symphony under the baton of Valery Gergiev. The Saturday concert will be the second performance by the restructured
Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, which made headlines recently
by hiring 10 high-calibre Chinese and overseas musicians, including the
well-known Beijing-based violinist Liang Da'nan as the concert master
of the orchestra. The first concert on April 1 was applauded as a great success, attracting
many musicians and journalists from other parts of China. Time: 7:15 pm Address: 300 People's Boulevard Admission: 80-220 yuan Tel: 6372-8701, 6372-8702
DANIEL Gortler
has been described by the Jerusalem Post newspaper as a "poetic pianist"
and as "playing Rachmaninov concerto No 2 in a style resembling the late
Arthur Rubenstein."
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