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November
7
Thursday
Is the 1st Prize Winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition and an engaging and thrilling performer. Romantic Piano Favorites--Brahms, Chopin, and Schubert--will please all palates.
AUDIENCE ENTHRALLED BY GIFTED PIANIST
by Elaine Guregian
Roberto Plano is a competition winner who doesn't play entirely like one. In an absorbing recital Sunday night, he showed the polished technique and poise of someone who has been through all of the hoops connected with competitions. The satisfying musicality and seriousness of purpose were a bonus.
The recital was part of the new Kent Classic Arts series, presented by Kent State University and WKSU-FM at the KSU Auditorium. The facility reopened this September after six years of renovations, and it's a beauty. The 803-seat hall is shaped like a rotunda, with a balcony wrapping all the way around except for the stage area. The sound for this recital was flatteringly natural and clear, neither dry nor overly live. It will be interesting to see what it sounds like with Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, on Dec. 13.
Sunday's program was a heavy-duty one that not all 24-year-olds could pull off. After opening with delicacy and smooth elegance in three Scarlatti sonatas, Plano moved on to items at the heart of the piano repertoire with the Brahms Intermezzos, Op. 117 and Piano Pieces, Op. 119.
The dusky warmth of Brahms suited Plano well. When needed, he let loose with tremendous power, but never just to flex his muscles. Plano cultivated beauty of tone and made this music sing.
It's hard to fathom how Schubert had enough life experience at age 31 to compose the all-encompassing Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960. It's challenging for a pianist to shape the long first movement which runds about 15 minutes. Plano paced and organized the sonata into a thoughtful, cohesive whole that kept its momentum.
Winning competitions in Cleveland and elsewhere apparently not swayed this pianist from pursuing art. Plano is beyond the point at which he can be called promising. He is making good on his gifts, and I hope he remains true to them as he continues to refine his talent.
He connected closely with Sunday's utterly attentive audience and played two encores: Ernst von Dohnanti's Concert Etude and a pisno transcription of the orchestral "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Gluck's Orfeo and Euridice.
Ya-Hui Wang, music director of the Akron Symphony Orchestra, heard Plano atthe Cleveland International Piano Competition, where he won first prize in 2001 playing, among other things, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3.
The Akron Symphony signed up Plano to perform that same concerto with the orchestra on Feb. 22, 2003. It's the first time that the Akron Symphony has engaged a winner from the Cleveland competition. That February date is worth marking down in the calendar right away."
Roberto Plano Website
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