|
BAND OF FRIENDS
Brodsky, 54, began by banding with friends like Agnes Youngblood
of Community Concerts and pedagogue Edith Sorin, spearheading
a group of pianophiles with whose support the festival took
flight. The idea was clear: present an annual concentration
of pianists, minus the pressures of a competition.
Today the festival has become an annual $260,000 operation
supported primarily by private donations plus a few community
and government grants.
From the start, Brodsky's seasons were ear-teasing. She introduced
a deeply sensitive young Russian, Konstantin Lifschitz, who
had a few CDs on the Denon label, but was unknown to most
audiences. Then along came the explosive, sometimes quirky,
Kemal Gekic.
Gekic, whose iron-fisted playing of Liszt's Transcendental
Etudes had been internationally acclaimed through recordings,
was a world away -- teaching at Novi Sad University in Serbia.
Brodsky tracked him down for a 1999 appearance, which turned
out to be the day Novi Sad was bombed by NATO. But Gekic nevertheless
played such a searing concert that musicians here took note.
''If it hadn't been for the festival bringing him to our
attention we would never have added Gekic to our faculty,''
says Florida International Music Dean Fredrick Kaufman.
FIU happened to be looking for a master pianist-teacher and
snapped up the war-stranded virtuoso, who has since carved
out a high niche for himself in South Florida's music scene.
''That is also a part of what I wanted to accomplish with
this festival,'' Brodsky says, ``to bring pianists not only
to perform here, but to become part of our musical life.''
The festival has reaped international attention the past
few seasons because Brodsky decided to send audio and videotapes
of festival performances to the adventurous VAI label. Its
founder, Ernie Gilbert, was so impressed he offered to become
the event's official recording partner and now issues a steady
stream of new CDs and videos of Brodsky's stars.
Anderszewski, Russian pianist Ilya Itin and several others
can be found on a recent CD and video dubbed Masters of the
Keyboard, and an audio disc and video of Libetta recently
won raves from former New York Times critic Harold Schonberg.
To Gilbert, the festival provides ''a forum for performers
at a time when it has become increasingly difficult for young
artists to be heard at all,'' a sentiment echoed by critic
Norman Lebrecht of London's Daily Telegraph.
Lebrecht, who attended last year's festival and will return
as a lecturer this week, wrote Brodsky that he considered
the event a boon as ''I am constantly beset by tragedies of
gifted musicians who cannot gain recognition because the traditional
outlets'' (recital series and many classical record labels)
``have been shut down . . . and television shows no interest.''
continued>>
|
