You’re our kind of people!
We’re speaking in tongues again, but: Du, meine Güte!* Che bello! **
*German: Goodness gracious! ** Italian: How wonderful!
Dear friends of PPI
Goodness, how we appreciate you for your piano-loving loyalty! Yes, just as roughly 135 million Americans were gawking at Bad Bunny’s halftime show, there you were, cheering on our Tamara Stefanovich. There’s no denying that the Puerto Rican rapper’s performance was a show-stopping and brave statement, and it thrills us to see any musician boldly acting as an agent for change, but there is no doubt in our minds that what Tamara Stefanovich does at the piano (and did for us, on Sunday) is no less fierce, smart or defiant. From her refusal to fall into the traps of nostalgia and romanticizing the past to her curiosity about everything new and current – her performance oozed vivacity and conviction. To boldly appropriate a quite from a review of the Superbowl halftime show: “Freedom and joy themselves can be acts of resistance. All of those were present during this performance.”
Photo credit: John Rudoff
If you were lucky enough to hear Tamara chat with us before the recital (instead of the traditional pre-concert lecture, we got the rare opportunity to converse with her before the show, learning, among other things, that she’s also an accomplished visual artist. You can find her on Instagram @aramat.art), you would have sensed that despite her formidable understanding of Baroque and Classical forms, Tamara really comes alive when talking about the present and the thrilling challenges facing artists today. In this sense, her approach to making meaning and resisting superficiality aligns perfectly with our next Timeless artist, Filippo Gorini, about whom you’re going to hear a lot over the next few weeks.
In short: Buoyed by the support of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, Filippo is eschewing the traditional approach to a concert career in pursuit of a project he calls “Sonata for 7 Cities”. Spending a full month in seven cities around the globe (Vienna, Hong Kong, Cape Town, Portland, Medellín, Milan and a last stop, to be announced soon), Filippo’s project is driven by a passionate belief in the transformative power of classical music and his desire to meet communities exactly where they are at. Prisons, schools, churches, care facilities, private studios … If the audience is under-served, Filippo is eager to over-deliver.
As Filippo’s “homebase” in Portland, the PPI team is committed to making his month in the Pacific Northwest as meaningful and impactful as possible, working from our own mission and vision of presenting the finest pianists of today and tomorrow and fostering the growth of musicianship in our region through education and inspiration. From the plains of Pendleton to the haystack rocks of Cannon Beach: Communities big and small can look forward to opportunities to hear transcendental music from an acclaimed musician who lives by the conviction that music should be played to every heart that needs to listen. You can check out his impressive schedule here and buy tickets to his March 22nd recital at Lincoln Hall here.
