Pierre’s Piano News: May 2023

May 2, 2023

Greetings from Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, where The Gilmore and my family call home.

In April, Director of Development Alisa Carrel coordinated a trip to Cleveland with some Gilmore fans to hear 1998 Gilmore Artist Leif Ove Andsnes. We enjoyed great conversation and music, and met Leif Ove for champagne after his performance with The Cleveland Orchestra. To hear about future trips, click to email Alisa. 

I am excited to share that 2002 Gilmore Artist Piotr Anderszewski – who just finished dates in Baltimore and St. Louis before heading to Europe – will be a resident artist for our Gilmore Festival Fellowships program. Joining him will be Mūza Rubackytė, founder and artistic director of the Vilnius International Piano Festival, and pianist/composer Gabriela Montero. We will be commissioning Gabriela to write a piano quintet to premiere at the Festival, and you can click to hear Gabriela play her own Piano Concerto #1.

Please do not miss your chance to hear Renée Fleming and Evgeny Kissin on Saturday, May 27 at 8 PM at Chenery Auditorium. The Sunday prior, Maria João Pires will play Stetson Chapel at 4 PM.

I am so proud of our family of Gilmore Artists and Young Artists. Several are performing in Michigan and the Midwest this spring, including 2022 Gilmore Young Artist Janice Carissa playing this Saturday, May 6 with the Battle Creek Symphony. On June 2, 2022 Gilmore Young Artist Clayton Stephenson will solo in the premiere of a new piano concerto, The Fourth Pedal, with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra by Composer in Residence Patrick Harlin. That same weekend, he will play at the Cheboygan Opera House on Sunday, June 4.  

On June 9, 2016 Gilmore Young Artist Micah McLaurin will perform Edvard Grieg’s piano concerto, backed by the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra in Charleston, SC. If you happen to be in Italy on May 31, you can catch him at Conservatorio Sala Verdi in Milan. Lowell Lieberman has finished a work commissioned by The Gilmore for 2020 Gilmore Young Artist Maxim Lando, who will premiere the piece, titled Frankenstein, later this year.   

2010 Gilmore Artist Kirill Gerstein was featured the The New York Times about an upcoming recording release, Rachmaninoff 150, on which he plays the second piano concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic. Listen as he plays his arrangement of In the Silence of the Secret Night, Op. 4 No. 3. 2014 Gilmore Artist Rafał Blechacz has released a new CD on Deutsche Grammophon, playing Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35; Nocturnes, Op. 48; Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58; and Barcarolle in F-Sharp Major, Op. 60.

Hope to see you soon,
Pierre van der Westhuizen
Gilmore Executive and Artistic Director

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