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Setting the Stage
"The concert scene for pianists is entirely different than
then I was performing in the 1940s," says Grant Johannesen,
79, noted American pianist and chairman of the Chopin Competition
jury here. "Community Concerts {the famed New York central
booking agency}, which is now deteriorated, used to send young
pianists to play recitals all over the country. But now they
have to network privately and play all sorts of odd venues;
it has become a social sort of thing."
Brodsky says she founded her festival not only to help young
pianists, but to introduce South Floridians to "really individual
talents who are neglected or unknown" and because "we always
hear so many of the same few names playing concerts everywhere
and it's boring."
Her pianists receive a $3,000 fee plus $1,000 extra if they
play for a fund-raising event, and often accept their engagements
here as a kind of vacation. Many also tell her about other
pianists they admire who need help getting concerts.
"I think there is still an audience for recitals," she says,
"if you bring the right artists and do it in the right way,"
"which is why in addition to concerts, Brodsky's festival
also boasts movies of Glenn Gould and other artists by filmmaker
Bruno Monsaingeon, and lectures. The big magnet for diehard
piano buffs, though, is the unusual repertory some artists
are playing - everything from Medtner miniatures to Janacek
Sonatas to Knuckle-breaking Chopin-Godowsky etudes.
Some presenters are even going further and becoming part-time
managers. Dranoff, for example, now books a total of about
30 to 40 concerts a year for her duo competition winners.
And Saxon, too, tries hard to find concerts dates for deserving
pianists, sometimes apart from the competition.
But, she laments, "It's terrible, pianists going through
all these years of training - virtually the same as for a
doctor - and then not being able to make ends meet. I don't
know what the solution is yet. But I do know that we've got
to keep trying to help them."
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