Boris Giltburg – You gotta get to know this guy!
On a cloudy day way back in March this year, I nervously approached the Eliot Tower, like a rooky journalist setting out to interview presidential candidates. The mission? Snagging a behind-the-scenes interview with a VIP within a very limited available timeslot. The subject? PPI guest artistic curator, Boris Giltburg – whom I’ve met on previous occasions, but certainly not in a one-on-one context, and definitely not tasked with such an all-encompassing assignment. What I was prepared for, was to be dazzled by his intelligence and his vast knowledge of the repertoire. What I was not expecting in the least, because of the astonishing depth of his intellect and, frankly, his soul, was to feel like I had entered a different universe through some Harry Potter-esque portal and taken to a distant planet. I had to walk back into reality two hours later in a trance of received wisdom, literally colliding with the mundane on the street. You gotta get to know this guy!
If you follow PPI on Instagram and/or Facebook, you’d have seen some snippets over the past few weeks, taken from this extraordinary interview. From what is visible on the social media reels (click here to see them on Instagram and here to see them on Facebook), it’s hard to tell how surreal and detached it felt, sitting there, 15 floors above the gritty bustle of downtown, discussing the ethereal and the intangible. With a 360-degree view over the city and a gorgeous Steinway right behind Boris, it was easy to imagine that only this place existed. Being in the moment had never felt more achievable or more real. And forget the long list of carefully prepared questions. Once the conversation took off, it spontaneously bubbled in all directions – from the habits of multilingual reading and writing to learning daunting pieces and demystifying the “magic” of music.
“A good performance is not a stroke of luck,” Boris explained early on, immediately comparing his diligent and strenuous practice regime to that of a sportsman. “It’s not divine inspiration, but rather how you prepared for the day.”
We discussed technique and how one needs a variety of different mentors and heroes for different purposes: “If I’m stuck with a Beethoven sonata, I listen to Barenboim, because listening to him is like getting a master class from him. His thought process is so clear and so generously shared through his playing. But if I just need a bit of inspiration, without necessarily wanting to learn something from it, I listen to Wilhelm Kempff playing the same sonata. Wilhelm Kempff, for me, is pure poetry, but I don’t know how he does what he does; I don’t understand it and therefore I cannot really learn from it!”
We spoke about how a live concert is the most vulnerable, most raw kind of sharing – and how this can never be emulated by recording or live streaming. We spoke about social media (he’s cautiously for it), language, and love – and about how deconstructing Bach through Artificial Intelligence still doesn’t regenerate the spirit of Bach (“I don’t see anything talented coming from AI just yet.”)
And as far as PPI and our 2025/2026 season is concerned, Boris has only one vision: Poetry. If the music doesn’t speak to the soul, it’s lifeless. “I want this piano series to be the best piano series possible. I want it to be colorful and diverse and exciting. I want people, when they look on the program, to feel like they want to go see these concerts.”
This is why, dear friends of PPI, we think you really should 1) follow us on social media and 2) subscribe to our 2025/2026 season. Not only will you receive frequent injections of warmth, wit and wisdom, but also get the opportunity to be lifted temporarily out of the mundane, into some other, marvelous state. We want to meet you there!
PS: If you’re really not a social media person, we’ve got your back, too. We are currently working on a “Get to know your curator”-section on our website, where you’ll be able to see all the Boris-videos at a glance. We’ll keep you posted!