BEETHOVEN VARIATIONS IN C MINOR

2021 is here, and I am looking forward to returning to live audience concerts and in-person festivals very much. 

For now, it looks as if some of my performances still have to be done online in the earlier part of this year. Events in the second part of the year are being planned for live audiences, and I cannot wait.

I am so impressed by the ingenuity of the arts organizers I get to work with. The pandemic has such a huge impact on the world of performing arts, and it takes a lot of outside-the-box thinking to move through these unprecedented times. 

This past month I was honored to return to the distinguished festival series Piano Week, a London-based organization. 

Participants from all corners of the world got to share their talent with an international group of artist-teachers. 

We had faculty and student concerts, workshops, master classes, studio recitals and cornerstone performances, and all of it happened online. Even social hours and sundowner parties were included, what a brilliant time to talk all things piano!

I got to open Piano Week Winter Online Edition 2020 with a concert from my home studio which gave me the great opportunity to commemorate the 250th birthday of my favorite composer Ludwig van Beethoven. 

The recital included Beethoven’s iconic c-minor variations, his Waldstein Sonata and an especially commissioned work by South African composer James Wilding called Half Imagined.

Here is my live stream performance of the C minor variations:

The variations are new for me, I picked them up when the pandemic lock-down started. It was wonderful to work on such a genius composition, and it made being hunkered down a lot easier.