Katya Grineva

It was a stormy night; the rain was about to fall hard on the streets of New York City, I was late to Carnegie Hall and the electricity was in the air. I was drawn uptown by the live performance of Katya Grineva on NPR. She was playing the compositions of the Viennese composer Marcel Tyberg, whose music was safe kept after he died at the hands of Nazi Germany. Touched but the story and the depth of the piano, I called up Carnegie Hall the next day to inquire about covering Grineva’s upcoming performance. They gave me her people’s contact number, or so I thought. To my surprise, Katya picked up the other end of the receiver (tsk tsk Carnegie Hall) and we had a nice conversation about Tyberg and her piano playing. She agreed to leave me tickets and that puts me back in the cab, the rain pouring down. It was a fitting mood to start the evening. With the humidity high, the air conditioning pouring out into the backseat, the cab had enough and sputtered to a stop. Luckily, another cab pulled up right up beside and I switched instant chariots and continued my journey. My friend Laura was waiting under the marquee and we slipped into the Hall right before Grineva started a piece of Rachmaninoff’s. Sitting in the back row, we slowly played musical chairs from the turmoil of Rachmaninoff to the depths of Tchaikovsky, from the floating of Liszt to the mourning of Tyberg. Grineva was intense in her performance; at one point the white rose in her hair flying onto the floor, as she pressed hard against the white and black keys. As an encore she played some Chopin, to give the people what they want. A wonderful journey through the Romantics, Katya Grineva will be back next year to again grace Carnegie Hall. I know I’ll be there, will you?

Tags:   None

© All rights reserved.

Posted on 6/6/2006 ( Permanent Link )
 Send to Friend