Concerto decidedly Russian

	If you go WHAT: The Figueroa Music and Arts Project Symphony Orchestra with guest pianist Olga Kern WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16, and 2 p.m. Nov. 18 WHERE: National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 Fourth SW HOW MUCH: $22-$72 at www.figueroaproject.org, at the NHCC box office, by calling 724-4771 or at the door

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 may be the most famous of any piano concerto. Its fame may have something to do with its recognizable melodies and with several historical performances.

Vladimir Horowitz performed it with the NBC Symphony Orchestra as a wartime fundraising concert in 1943. And Van Cliburn won the First International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 with the piece.

Famed Russia-born pianist Olga Kern thinks the work holds a special place in the repertoire for another reason.

“Little by little it became the most favorite piece of every pianist,” Kern said in a phone interview from Denver. “It is in the repertoire of every good pianist.”

But the first version was criticized. In 1888, a later version gained acceptance.

Kern, one of the world’s premier pianists, said the work has a special place in the hearts of Russian listeners.

“This piece is all about Russia. It is so Russian. The melodies are Russian,” she said.

Just consider the second movement.

“The feel of that movement places you in a Russian landscape in wintertime. The sun is shining on the crispy snow. It’s so bright and so beautiful,” Kern said. “And it is endless fields covered by the snow. You go through it and you feel that beautiful fresh air.”

The beginning of the third movement quotes a Ukrainian dance, she said.

Kern said the Tchaikovsky piano concerto is challenging because it has so many octaves, especially in the first and third movements.

“You have to have a lot of strength to play this piece,” she said. “It’s it such a great, grand, incredible piece of music.”

Famed Russia-born pianist Olga Kern performs Tchaikovsky with The Figueroa Music and Arts Project next weekend.

“She was the first pianist who played a lot of Tchaikovsky’s pieces, and he dedicated one of his piano pieces to her,” she said.

Kern will perform the Tchaikovsky piano concerto with the Figueroa Music and Arts Project Symphony Orchestra. Guillermo Figueroa, the project’s artistic director, said Kern stepped in at the last minute to play with the orchestra.

“She is doing it as a favor to us. She postponed her European trip to do it,” Figueroa said.

The Tchaikovsky is on the same program with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the overture to W.A. Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute.”

“What better than Beethoven’s Fifth?” Figueroa said. “It’s the most dramatic and well-known symphony in the entire repertoire. With a master work like that it’s sort of a coming of age of the Figueroa Project.”

This is the first Figueroa Project concert with a full symphony orchestra. The project has given chamber concerts since its formation a year ago.

Kern was recently in Denver to give a concert to benefit a new charitable foundation that she and her brother, Vladimir Kern, created to financially assist young, talented musicians and artists in other disciplines.

“With budget cuts and bankruptcies, I want to do as much as I can to help,” she said.

Kern said the foundation has already targeted a children’s theater in Fort Worth, Texas. The foundation’s website is www.kernfoundation.ru.

After the paired Albuquerque concerts, Kern is heading for the Czech Republic to give another concert for her foundation.