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It took a mere five years for a fledgling South Florida piano
festival to establish itself as a premier showcase for gifted
young keyboard artists.
"It's unique in that it's a festival that really follows
its ears," says noted author and critic Norman Lebrecht, who
is returning this week to the Miami International Piano Festival
of Discovery to present two lectures. "It's going for real
artists in a discerning way. If you want to hear good piano
playing in the United States in a concentrated, intensive
fashion, I don't know of any other place where you can really
do this."
Thursday night, the Master Series of the fifth annual festival
will kick at the Broward Center off with a duo-piano recital
by the talented Francesco Libetta and Pietro De Maria. Singly
and together, they will play music of Mozart, Schumann, Brahms
and Copland.
A key supporter of the festival has been Ernie Gilbert, president
of VAI Video & Audio, who got an excited midnight phone tip
about Libetta and De Maria from a critic who attended a previous
edition. "When I came down to the festival and heard these
guys in person, I was really knocked off my feet," says Gilbert
-- so much so that he became the manager of both artists.
Now, with several CDs and a video of past festival performances
released on his VAI label, word of the Miami International
Piano Festival is spreading, well, internationally.
Observers credit the festival's meteoric rise in prestige
to the dedication and tenacity of founder Giselle Brodsky.
"She's the type of person who will not take `no' for an answer,'
says her husband, Jack. "Once she sets her mind on something,
she will find a way to make it successful. Her passion and
her willingness and desire are such that she knows no boundaries."
The Bolivian-born former pianist and teacher was sparked
to action after witnessing a local piano competition in which
the favorite, Gabriela Montero, failed to place. "She won
fourth prize. I was really shocked when that happened," Brodsky
remembers.
She set about organizing some 25 people to provide the young
Venezuelan musician with financial assistance. "There was
a real vacuum," says Brodsky, "and a need for an organization
that would help those who were extraordinary artists, but
that were not all famous names. They needed a support system."
The Brodskys therefore in 1997 formed Patrons of Exceptional
Artists, a foundation that provides financial assistance and
career guidance to promising young pianists.
Brodsky says she soon realized that something more was needed
to supplement good intentions and a letterhead.
"If you ask people for money to support artists they want
to see something for it," she says. The result was the Miami
International Piano Festival of Discovery. "This way we could
bring in the artists, showcase them, get people to come and
then things would grow and we'd have even more supporters."
Joining forces with Agnes Youngblood of Miami's Community
Concert Association, Brodsky presented the first festival
in 1998 at the Lincoln Theatre in Miami Beach with Montero,
Konstantin Lifschitz and Boris Beresovsky, all of whom earned
accolades from critics and audiences. "We had no money, no
grants, nothing. But it was a first necessity for getting
started," Brodsky says. "We generated a lot of enthusiasm."
The second year featured Berezovsky, Piotr Anderszewski,
Freddy Kempff and Kemal Gekic, who made the event memorable
with a stunning musical display. The Croatian pianist, exiled
by his homeland's ethnic tensions and the ongoing NATO war,
found a more secure life in the United States as a piano professor
at FIU after his jaw-dropping performances.
Gilbert attributes the festival's success to Brodsky's single-minded
devotion to engaging only the highest-quality young artists.
"Giselle really has an ear for selecting pianists that are
on the brink of a major career," he says. "You don't know
exactly where they're all going to end up. But there's certainly
enough material to divine that these are major talents in
the making, if not already there."
This year, the fast-rising Anderszewski will perform Friday
at the Broward Center in a program of violin sonatas with
his sister Dorota. Saturday will see an all-Mozart program
with Anderszewski, Libetta and De Maria each performing a
piano concerto. Igor Gruppman will conduct a chamber orchestra
composed of Florida Philharmonic musicians, and will perform
Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola with his
wife Vesna.
The Master Series concludes next Sunday with individual performances
by violinist Eugene Ugorski, cellist Eugene Lifschitz and
pianist Derric Tay, followed by a panel discussion on pitfalls
and survival strategies for musical prodigies. The festival
then shifts to the Lincoln Theatre for its Discovery Series,
April 9-12, with solo recitals by De Maria, Mihaela Ursuleasa,
Steven Osborne and Emanuele Arciuli.
In addition, Libetta will perform Carl Czerny's complete
Op. 740 Etudes at the University of Miami's Clarke Recital
Hall on March 8. "It's wild, completely crazy," Brodsky says
of the acrobatic composition. "But it's a masterpiece! You
have to come!"
She admits keeping the festival going has been a struggle
at times, and ticket sales have yet to reach an optimum level.
But it seems likely that with her boundless enthusiasm, the
Miami International Piano Festival has a better shot at surviving,
indeed thriving than most recent music initiatives. Along
with continuing CD and video releases on VAI, Brodsky is planning
to take the festival to New York and Italy to spread the word
about South Florida's upstart keyboard celebration.
Lebrecht was not a fan of all the pianists he heard at last
year's concerts, but even the caustic Englishman finds the
event singular, especially in the United States.
"If you go to the Van Cliburn [competition], you'll hear
one banger after another playing up to the judges," says Lebrecht.
"How can you call that music? Here, there's no element of
competition. There's just an element of rather discreet presentation,
and that very profoundly affects the music-making.
"The thrust of the festival is so idealistic, it's almost
utopian," adds Lebrecht. "It was a revelation because this
was music-making as it really should be."
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