Tamara Stevanovich is all about open windows and open doors!

If the Austro-German Romantics don’t really float your boat, you’ll be happy to hear that we hear you! There may be the perception that, to love classical piano, you have to go weak-kneed for Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, but not all pianists are cut from Sturm-und-Drang cloth, and the mighty fortress of piano repertoire has many, many rooms. What a delight, then, to have Tamara Stefanovich’s PPI recital to look forward to on February 8th, 2026!

She’s not a newcomer to the PPI stage. Back in 2016, she curated an ambitious project called “The Clearing”, in which contemporary repertoire was strikingly paired with more “backward-looking” works. This clear-eyed, yet visionary approach has since gained Stefanovich many followers and has lead to numerous even more ambitious pursuits, such as The Art of the Étude (2019) and, in 2022, 20 Sonatas, which the Guardian called “a remarkable feat of sustained pianism.”

Here is a woman who, with incredible tenacity, single-minded belief in her art and a deep, palpable, authenticity strives to convey not just empty sounds, but worlds of meaning. For Stefanovich, building a recital program is not just a compilation of crowd-pleasers or indulging in personal favorites. It’s about thinking deeply about the place of music in society; about provoking conversation; about our current-day being in the world. As she explains her process in a 2024 interview, it’s always more about the questions than the anwers: “What does it mean to be a musician? How often do we really ask ourselves why we play? What is my role as an instrumentalist in the 21st century? Did we simply inherit a role from previous centuries, and if so, why? Why do we think the Lisztian role of a traveling virtuoso had such an appeal in previous and this century? Are interpreters more important than creators?”

Brace yourself, then, for a program that pairs Bach (father and son, CPE) with Bartók; Scarlatti with Hindemith. “Without discovering the art of our time, we are not artists!” Stefanovich proclaims. She is fascinated and energized by the new, and if she could live in any era, she would choose right now! “I have no romantic bone in my body. I can’t play Schubert!” she once joked in a BBC interview. She wants to throw open the metaphorical fortress’ windows and doors and let the old and the new freely intermingle.

So, given that February is considered the windiest month of the year in Portland (we trust the Internet), let wind blow you towards Lincoln Hall – and Tamara Stefanovich blow your mind! Buy tickets to her performance here.

(And, for an wonderfully engaging discussion of her approach to sonata form, we highly recommend this video as a teaser to what you can expect from her Portland appearance.)nted and praised.