Piano Prodigies
World's best pianists play music dedicated to San Antonio in free concert
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Some of the world's best pianists are coming to San Antonio to play a special song written for the city. The gold, silver, and bronze medalists of the 2024 Gurwitz International Piano Competition will play a free special concert on February 9.
This concert is part of the 27th season of Musical Bridges Around the World (MBAW), a nonprofit that organizes diverse concerts and teaches children about different cultures through music, among other initiatives. The Gurwitz competition is an MBAW initiative that take place every four years in San Antonio (with past winners from at least 34 different countries), and the concert is part of a series called Russell Hill Rogers Musical Evenings at San Fernando Cathedral.
Tickets are free via Eventbrite.
The three laureates to be featured in February's concert are relatively new to the program, having only won a year prior. All three pianists won multiple awards:
- Yungyung Guo of China, gold medal and Junior Jury Award
- Tatiana Dorokhova of Russia, silver medal and Audience Favorite Award
- Young Sun Choi of South Korea, bronze medal and award for Best Performance of a Work by a Spanish or Latin Composer
They'll be playing several pieces as solos or as a trio. First are four new works by 2024 competition judge Michael Fine. Three are preludes, and the fourth is written for piano with six hands, called "San Antonio Celebration" and commissioned specifically by MBAW to welcome the group of musicians back to San Antonio.
Fine has been nominated for the Classical Producer Of The Year award at the Grammys three times, and won once in 1993. He has national cultural overlaps with at least two of the pianists, since he credits his Russian grandfather with instilling a love of music, and he once served as the artistic manager for the Seoul Philharmonic in South Korea.
"I came back from San Antonio so inspired by the very special and unique talents of the three laureates that I immediately wrote three piano preludes," Fine said in a press release.
Then there are two more trio works by Sergei Rachmaninoff (Russia) and Albert Lavignac (France).
The solos also come from a number of countries:
- Young Sun Choi performs Enrique Granados' "Goyesca No. 4 'Quejas o la Maja y el Ruiseñor'” (Spain) and the traditional piece "Arirang" (Korea)
- Tatiana Dorokhova with Sergei Prokofiev's "Juliet the Young Girl" and "Romeo and Juliet Before Parting" (Russia)
- Yungyung Guo with Maurice Ravel's "Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit" (France) and Zhenbang Lei’s Tajik folk song “Why Are the Flowers So Red?”