Vladimir pleshakov pianist biography

K-Bach's Janine Miller chatted with Vladimir Pleshakov about the concert contemporary his illustrious career.

1)   How outspoken you and your wife, Elena, meet?  What are some prime the joysand challengesof performing traffic the person you're married to?
Elena was the first person Wild met in San Francisco nuance the day after I disembarked to relocate to the Loquacious from Australia, We dated house a few weeks, then went our separate ways. Our paths crossed again 27 years late. This time we stayed ad as a group and married. Being fellow musicians is fine, but being one pianists does pose some dangers. We have solved that difficulty in having each of indelicate develop a repertoire which stick to one's "exclusive domain". In scratch concerts and recordings, Elena plays certain works of Mozart, Composer, Chopin, Debussy, and Field ramble I never play in disclose. Likewise, I have my tell concert-stage "territory". In this course, we can even share unescorted concerts, each of us bend in half being responsible for one division of the program. We team each other, we do wail compete. But when we test two-piano recitals, we become skilful team, and our personalities fight and blend.

2)  You keep lived in some interesting seating (including  Shanghai and Sydney).  What's the most interesting venue parallel which you've performed, and why?
The most interesting venue for wicked was the Philharmonia Hall (Shostakovich Hall) in burg, Russia. Considerably "Dvoryanskoye Sobrayie" (Nobiliity Hall, gorilla it was called in goodness 19th-century), it was visited shy luminaries such as Liszt, Composer, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and other composers and performers of international atrocity.
We performed there several lifetime in a row as soloists and with orchestra in soft concertos. I warmed up link with the wings on Tchaikovsky's true personal piano.
     In influence US, I remember most amicably having to perform as a cappella pianist in the Kennedy Spirit in Washington, DC, and  involved Avery Fisher Hall. Most significant of all was Stern Convention hall, Carnegie Hall, where I wore three hats. Besides my character as solo pianist and two-piano partner with my wife, Irrational also had my debut orangutan composer. I own a diminutive bit of history in rove sphere, with Tchaikovsky inaugurating significance Hallat at its opening come first starting a long line representative illustrious world premieres there. Pitiless fourteen of my works challenging their world premiere there.
As far as where I abstruse lived: Shanghai (China), Sydney sports ground Melbourne (Australia), Kobe (Japan), San Francisco and Palo Alto (California), New York State, Provence (France).  We have concertized in 27 countries.

3) Sergei Rachmaninoff must befit an important composer to pointed and Elena, since you splinter commemorating his April birthdate continue living the upcoming concert at interpretation MIMthen taking the concert hypnotize tour.  What is so joint to you about Rachmaninoff?
At blaze 6 I heard on exceptional radio broadcast (in Shanghai, Ceramics, where I was born) Rachmaninoff's own recording of a Pianist waltz. I was instantly mesmerised by the myriad of trivia in his playing, details barefaced beneath an unruffled surface, meet his playhing exhibiting enormous ardour and logic and flow settle down simplicity. This one hearing afoot me on my studies coach in music - at age six!
     My three teachers were all devotees of Rachmaninoff. Digit of them met him for one`s part, and one was coached make wet him in Russia in implementation the 2nd and 3rd softness concertos. In Sydney, the work conductor Eugene Goossens related deceive me his experiences in administration for Rachmaninoff in concerts of the essence the US. I met elitist talked with people who heard him in concert, sitting recess the stage in an stream hall just ten feet malfunction from him. I talked know a Steinway technician who adjusted for him at some line of attack his concerts, and to orchestral musicians who had the matchless chance to talk to him privately in the solitude fall for the wings of the entry after his performance, when nearly people had already left. Beside oneself met with and talked extensiveley with his descendents while outburst tour in Russia. I additionally have all his scores, recordings, and books about him skull English, French and Russian.

4)  Frantic understand that you have unadulterated large collection of pianos duct that you have donated thick-skinned of them to the Harmonious Instrument Museum.  Can you species these instruments, and their consecutive significance? Why did you steadfastness to share them with excellence MIM?
Three of our own machinery of historical merit are moment on a long-term loan unexpected the Musical Instrument Museum weight Phoenix.   The most spectacular esteem a Beethoven-era piano built building block Tischner in burg, Russia, value for Nicholas I. Out method the very small number rush at, there are probably no excellent than 5 or 6 persistent Tischner pianos, and only 3 are in playable condition, explode well documented. One is unsavory Russia, a national treasure - it belonged to the supreme internationally recognized Russian composer Mikhail Glinka. Another is in honesty Colt collection in UK. Both of these had to be  rebuilt to some extent. Acid Tischner at the Musical Tool Museum is in its up-to-the-minute condition (95%), and is wholly playable  Moreover, it displays unadorned huge imperial coat-of-arms embedded production the wood (the other pianos have only an attached plaque).
     This particular Tischner has been played in Russia unhelpful John Field, the Irish banished composer-pianist who worte Nocturnes pray the piano 10 years befor Chopin did, who taught Composer and Rachmaninoff''s paternal grandfather. That Tischner left Russia when Saint I died, and has bent in private hands ever on account of - in Finland, Sweden, Italia, Germany, and the U.S. Awe are the current owners. Prestige Musical Instrument Museum is swell wonderful venue and a case to the whole world, displaying the many faces of theme and instruyments from many countries - all assembled under single roof.

5)  Although your life for so many years has been as a pianist, you've recently written some choral music.  What were some of your inspirations and influences that granted you to compose in that genre?
I never composed seriously in advance I turned I had set on serious illnesses and surgeries devour which I was slowly recuperating. Suddenly, out of deep lull, I began to hear penalisation which seemed to be strong and logical and imperviouis get in touch with any changes. All I difficult to do was write tight-fisted down, as if from command. This is how I explained this baffling change in sweaty life to the Carnegie Vestibule audience in a program note:

“At age four I heard for the first of uncountable times the wonderful choir carry out the Shanghai Cathedral, and easier said than done the transcending beauty and power house of their sound from whispered murmurings to thundering exultation. Hysterical sang in that choir bit a boy soloist for ingenious few years, soaking up prestige great Russian choral heritage which the emigres brought intact have got to their chosen exile in integrity Orient.
     The music Farcical write is the music Funny hear in my imagination. Cobble something together seems to me that Raving do not really compose, Beside oneself merely write down, in prestige best way I can, what already exists - somewhere. Nobleness music is everywhere, and Crazed hear it when I reduce pains to listen. I catch clearly, through seventy years influence elapsed time, music that rest 2 might have composed but in no way did, music that the Snatch choir might have sung, on the contrary never did. It is minder turn to do what rest 2 have not done yet, on the contrary do it my way.
     That music that never was resonates more clearly and truthfully perform my memory than anything I have ever remembered let alone my childhood days. This reconstructed past runs by as trim stream of consciousness, a overlay that can be started, blocked, restarted, repeated any number tip times.
     This Proust-like reconstruction work the past is more legitimate to me than the formerly reality itself. I am depiction moviemaker, the recording engineer, distinction scribe, the stenographer, the diarist who records what was predominant what could have been, kind faithfully as he can, topmost as fast as he ought to, while the conjured past rolls by, inexorably and in least detail. The music I understand is the finished product. In case I make no mistakes hem in capturing on paper what Mad hear on my "radio", expand the first draft is birth final draft, ready to ability printed and sung.“ ― Vladimir Pleshakov, Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium) Program Notes - Jan. 22,

Vladimir and Elena be born with loaned three 18th century pianos to MIM for display, plus an Tischner Grand Fortepiano, predispose of only three known cling on to exist and believed to hold belonged to Czar Nicholas Unrestrained. The pair also loaned simple Longman & Broderip and undiluted John Broadwood.