Hi Piano Blog readers. I want to sell you on visiting and supporting www.AustinPianoFestival.com If you know me at all, you already know about this organization – Austin Piano Festival – that brings pianists from all over the country to Austin every year. This year we’ve got an awesome lineup […]
Those of us over at Austin Piano Festival are busy working on a really exciting lineup for this season’s piano concerts in late May. (You can read all about it here.) To celebrate, we’re offering a pair of free tickets to hear Katia and Marielle Labèque on April 4, 2014 […]
Hello Pianoblog readers. If you’re wondering where I’ve been these last several weeks I apologize. The truth is that I’ve been hard at work on something REALLY exciting in the Austin area. It’s called The Austin Piano Festival and its going to be a blast! The festival brings several of the […]
Competition, as we are all told, is as old as music itself; found even in the myths of antiquity like that of the competition between Apollo and the satyr Marsyas. Like Pan, Marsyas lost this ancient duel, and was punished in a most brutal way. Luckily, the stakes are not […]
Streaming soon to a browser near you: http://www.tchaikovsky-competition.com/en This is one of the most exciting piano competitions in the world! Watch it online starting June 15th. Want to learn piano but don’t know where to start? I’ve taught hundreds of happy students! Click here for my free beginner lesson course.
Great works of art and great performances are never middle of the road. Some of my favorite performers, like Richter and Argerich, also elicit my most negative reactions. Rudolf Serkin’s concerts were incredible or disastrous, but rarely mediocre. Beethoven has a large collection of worthless compositions. So does Mozart. This is […]
A couple days ago I travelled to Fredricksburg (Fredricksburg? Fredrickburg?) Texas to play a cello recital. F-burg is a Texas town which, by the look of it, must have quite a bit of money. I've been told is has more doctors per capita than any town in the country, but […]
Or, really, just to my living room. I've got several concerts coming up with cellist Karla Hamelin and I desperately need to practice. Other than that today will be filled with teaching and taking care of Noodles (my beta fish). Its a grey day in Austin, so I wish I […]
Last Saturday I performed in a house concert with some musicians from Austin and other areas of the country. My small role involved the Valse and Romance for 6 hands (!) at one piano by Rachmaninoff. Here is some rare Youtube footage of Martha Argerich playing the same part I […]