Two Worlds, One Instrument – Your 2025-26 PPI Season Awaits
Dear Friends of PPI,
You have been on our minds so often these past several months as we have sought out still more great artists and programs for the 2025-26 season of PPI. Thank you so much for your many expressions of gratitude for recent recitalists and encouragement for the season to come. You really lift our spirits.
Putting together a vivid mix of thrilling artists and their compelling programs, and coordinating available dates with our long-time presenting venue, Lincoln Hall at Portland State University, not to mention staying in budget, has resembled a high level of three-dimensional chess, but it has been a lot of fun, too. We are so excited to partake in the coming season in your company.
We have new ideas and two new names: Timeless describes what we’ve always called our main series. You will find within those things that have always been exciting in the traditional world of the solo piano. Boundless is our new endeavor in the realm of the not-so-classical. Of course, we had to start it with a bang: how about Anderson & Roe (October) and Charlie Albright (May) to start off with two big bangs!
By the time this email reaches you, for Timeless, Evren Ozel is a competitor in the Cliburn Competition, having won myriad other prizes in his young life. We can’t wait to hear his September program opening this series, particularly his suavité in a wonderful range of pieces. In October, I (Boris) will be so happy to share a very personal set of Chopin and Rachmaninoff with you. In November, we finally get to welcome Eric Lu to Portland after he was delayed season before last with an injury. Oh, what he will do with Schumann, Schubert, and Chopin!
You will share our great enthusiasm, we think, for the exceptional London-based Russian duo, Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, in January. They are masters of this most intimate, yet public-facing, form of chamber music.
The magical Tamara Stefanovich returns to Portland in February to enchant us once again, this time with much Bach and Scarlatti, plus the unfortunately too rarely heard third sonata of Hindemith! Also returning to Portland, in March, is the young Italian Filippo Gorini. He has selected our town along with Tokyo, Vienna, and Cape Town, among others, to be part of his “Seven Cities” project that will take him for month-long residencies around the world. In addition to his solo program for us, he will be engaged in myriad performances and teaching opportunities all around our community and around Oregon. More on that soon.
We just can’t wait for the very special excitement that will come from our two Boundless recitals. If you are a traditionalist, come spread your wings a bit with us. If your tastes in the piano are wide, come revel in the adventure that these beloved artists have brought to Portland several times before.
Portland Piano International is an incomparable amalgam of artists and lovers of music, but also of enthusiasm, reflection, affection, encouragement, intellect, heart, generosity, and quite a dose of boldness. Thank you so much for being a part of this noble endeavor.
Fond best wishes,
Boris Giltburg
Guest Artistic Curator
Bill Crane
Executive Director
Timeless Recital Series
Evren Ozel
SEP 7, 2025 | 4PM
“An extra spark of spontaneity and inspiration that distinguishes an exceptionally gifted artist” (South Florida Classical Review). Fresh from the 2025 Van Cliburn Competition, Ozel weaves fleet Scarlatti sonatas, Beethoven’s intimate Sonata No. 30, Bartók’s night-lit Out of Doors, Fauré’s velvet Nocturne No. 4, and Schumann’s kaleidoscopic Carnaval into a season-opening program where his famed “refined restraint” (Third Coast Review) meets fearless inventiveness.
Boris Giltburg
Guest Artistic Curator
OCT 5, 2025 | 4PM
Giltburg embodies what Gramophone hails as “originality [that] stems from a convergence of heart and mind, served by immaculate technique.” Bachtrack hears in his Chopin “an appreciation for the individual quirks and nuances of each piece,” while The Observer calls him “a natural Rachmaninoff interpreter”—pedigree underlined by an Opus Klassik award for his recording of Rachmaninoff’s concertos and Études-tableaux. In Portland he pairs Chopin’s storm-lit Second Sonata, Fourth Ballade, and Fourth Scherzo with Rachmaninoff’s molten Second Sonata, a collision of Romantic titans steered by a pianist who knows every swell, undertow, and hidden current.
Eric Lu
NOV 16, 2025 | 4PM
The Chicago Tribune hails Lu’s playing as a “pliant, gossamer touch, favoring watercolor strokes over geometric blueprints…” Hear that brushwork in Schumann’s Arabeske, Schubert’s four late Impromptus, and Chopin’s monumental Third Sonata —music that breathes in whispers before erupting in song.
Pavel Kolesnikov & Samson Tsoy
JAN 4, 2026 | 4PM
The Guardian calls Kolesnikov and Tsoy’s two-piano artistry “electrifying intimacy.” Long-time partners on and off stage, they treat 176 keys as a single organism, giving Schubert’s Lebensstürme and Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances the sweep of a symphony and the hush of chamber song.
Tamara Stefanovich
FEB 8, 2026 | 4PM
“Total command and authority in every bar” (The Guardian). Few pianists dare a program that vaults from Bach’s Sonata after Reincken to Bartók’s explosive Sonata BB 88, then lands on Hindemith’s rarely heard Sonata No. 3—Stefanovich thrives on such cliff-edges. Her singular genius? Turning a sonata marathon into kinetic theatre, where razor-sharp intellect and fearless physicality fuse into one irresistible surge.
Filippo Gorini
MAR 22, 2026 | 4PM
BBC Music Magazine hears “lovely poise…sometimes as though with bated breath...” Portland is one of only seven cities worldwide chosen for Gorini’s year-long “Sonata for 7 Cities” residency. His visit culminates in a world premiere by Michelle Agnès Magalhães, Beethoven’s visionary op. 110, and Schumann’s mercurial Davidsbündlertänze.
Boundless Recital Series
Anderson & Roe
OCT 14, 2025 | 7:30PM
“The most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice) unleashes a cinematic playlist—familiar melodies twisted, wild detours embraced, elegance never sacrificed. If you think you know the piano, wait until you hear two.
Charlie Albright
MAY 8, 2026 | 7:30PM
“Jaw-dropping technique” (The New York Times) meets improv comic timing: Albright invites themes from the audience, then hurtles through virtuosic flights “zany, beguiling, smart, and hot.” No two performances—or punchlines—are alike.
Subscribe Today / Reserve Your Seat
Choose the full-season subscription for the best seats and savings, or craft your own experience with single tickets to the recitals that speak to you. Secure everything now at portlandpiano.org/season, or call 503-228-1388 and we’ll happily handle the details. However you join us—every Sunday journey, a boundary-pushing weeknight, or both—we can’t wait to welcome you.
Choose Your Adventure
Secure your seats exactly the way you prefer:
Timeless Series – All six Sunday recitals, your own reserved seat every time: $330 keyboard view or $258 non-keyboard.
Boundless Series – Both weeknight concerts for $114, or pick a single evening for $57.
Subscribers save up to 26% and enjoy priority seating plus easy ticket exchanges—but single tickets are on sale now as well.