This week was the return from Kauai and there was really no spare time, but we could not resist attending a lecture on Monday night at the Ridgefield Library about Rachmaninoff, presented by Maestro Sidney Rothstein, music director of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra. Sergei Vassilievich Rachmaninoff was born in 1873, one hundred and seventeen years after Mozart was born. Like Mozart, Rachmaninoff was an extraordinary person. There were many great composers, great performers, and great conductors. Rachmaninoff was all of the above. "The Third" composition was completed by Rachmaninoff in September 1909 and was premiered that November in New York with Rachmaninoff himself at the keyboard. In his lecture, Maestro Rothstein described this and other trips that the great pianist had made from Russia to the United States and, using recorded excerpts of the third concerto helped the audience anticipate and better appreciate last night’s concert.
I first saw Rui Shi in 2000 when she was a petite Chinese girl of sixteen years old. She gave a truly outstanding performance of Beethoven‘s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major. Since then we have seen her perform a number of times and gotten to know her. She is a charming, poised and extraordinarily talented young woman. Born in China in 1983, the brilliant young pianist has performed extensively across America and in China since her first recital at the age of five. Rui has taken first-prize in numerous national piano competitions and currently is participating in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition which brings together approximately thirty young musicians from around the world every four years. The Competition is a "rigorous and comprehensive examination of every facet of each contestant’s musicianship and technical proficiency".
It was with great anticipation that the audience heard the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 performed by Rui Shi last night. She delighted us all — the standing ovation continued until people’s hands and arms wore out. It is truly amazing to me that Rui’s arms and hands did not wear out from playing the nearly one-hour long concerto with at least tens of thousands of notes in it. It was an evening of "R"s. We will all remember Rui Shi’s rendition of Rachmaninoff in Ridgefield under the direction of Sidney Rothstein.
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