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Recent Reviews
- Camerata Singers – Considering Matthew Shepard
- Chamber Music Monterey Bay — Escher String Quartet
- Aizuri String Quartet — Fabulous Artistry
- YMMC March Concert – Migration
- Ensemble Monterey’s Tribute to an Early Spring
- Pianist Kevin Lee Sun in Aptos Keyboard Series
- Monterey Symphony presents: Ovation
- The Thoughtful Muse: A Recital by Pianist Daria Rabotkina
- Stravinsky – Music & Dance in Miami
- Ehnes Quartet in Beethoven Quartet Cycle
- Heavy Stuff – A Recital by Vladimir Feltsman
- Santa Cruz Symphony: Catharsis
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Author Archives: Richard Lynde
Pianist Chetan Tierra — Return of a Native Son

If you weren’t at Peace United Church in Santa Cruz on Sunday afternoon, September 8th, you missed a great piano recital, presented by the Distinguished Artists Concert Series’ director John Orlando as a special event, not part of the regular series, by native son Chetan Tierra from Ben Lomond, now in his mid 30’s and living/teaching in San Diego with his lovely wife, also a pianist.
This writer first reviewed him around 20 years ago when he was a student of Hans Boepple and a “Wunderkind” — I often listen in my car to Tierra’s super CD from 2007. For several years, he has focused on a rock band; but, fortunately for musicians everywhere, he has put that behind him and returned to the classical “fold” with added maturity and intensity.
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Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era
British Pianist Danny Driver — A Magical tour of Debussy & Ligeti
Returning here after an absence of 18 years, British super-pianist Danny Driver, now in his early 40’s delivered a commanding performance, seated at the ultra expressive Yamaha CFX concert grand at Peace United Church in Santa Cruz on March 19. This event concluded the 2016-17 Distinguished Artists Series season. In April 1999 he had superbly performed a conventional program of Chopin, Scriabin and Ravel on the seven-foot Steinway at St. Andrew’s Church in Aptos, also for DACLS. What we heard on this occasion was a totally unexpected, but very successful, layering of familiar early 20th century Debussy (1862-1918) impressionistic works with selections from Gyorgy Ligeti’s (1923-2006) amazing and almost overwhelming “Etudes” from the mid-1980’s to early “90”s, even more “transcendental” than all those of Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Debussy put together. No wonder they are “cult” favorites for young, hotshot competition contestants. But Danny Driver was not showing off when, with DACLS Director John Orlando intently watching the scores as page turner, he sat lean and electric, using knowledge gained through his Cambridge degree in physiology as he sometimes reached the very depths of the bass with his left hand and the uppermost keys with his right. Read full story
Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Piano