We were in Kalamazoo tonight to hear the pianist Murray Perahia play a monster recital that included Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and concluded with Brahms’ “Variations on a Theme by Handel.”  As it happens, the Journal ran an interview with him in this morning’s paper; quotes like the following should have set me up for how good the Brahms would be, but I still was unprepared…..

“I love how with the fewest notes, Brahms has the greatest effect,” Mr. Perahia said. “Every note speaks to him like a world.”

via Pianist’s Passions: Constant, Recent and Renewed – WSJ.com.

Equally rewarding were our conversations with the people of Kalamazoo … not just those associated with the Gilmore Keyboard Festival (executive director Daniel Gustin, Facebook friend and development director Alice Kemerling), which staged the event, but – as they overheard we were from Chicago – people in the crowd we’d never met. We even were greeted by Bill Richardson, former president and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation, whose major gift to the Gilmore endowed this concert. 

They struck up  conversations about a wide variety of topics, including the fates of newspapers like the Ann Arbor News and their own Grand Rapids Press; the theoretical boundaries of “Chicagoland”; and, of course, music.

The next full Gilmore International Keyboard Festival is scheduled for April 23 to May 9, 2010, with the lineup to be announced on Sept. 13.  I imagine we’ll be there, one way or another.  Oh, and don’t just sit there; become a fan of the Gilmore on Facebook yourself!