Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 2 (1st movement)

Two years ago Professor Carol was lecturing on a ship sailing from Singapore to Dubai. We struck up a friendship with one of the entertainers, concert pianist Panos Karan. Outside of being an agreeable companion on the ship with whom we could share ideas on music and other topics, Panos did two things that impressed us. First, he played a very ambitious recital in a difficult venue. Let’s face it, the theaters on cruise ships are designed for glitzy shows and electronic amplification, not as an acoustical space for unamplified piano recitals. (More on that topic next week.)

But the next day, he gave a presentation about the work of his foundation: Keys of Change. You can see him give a similar account as a Ted Talk. To give you the quick version, after aspiring to be a concert pianist and playing Carnegie Hall, he found himself, still in his 20s, having accomplished that and wondering what it was all for. So he packed up an electronic keyboard and a generator and went to play for the most isolated tribes along the Amazon River. Carol wrote about Panos and his journey a while back.

Panos then went to Africa to do the same thing. As if that were not ambitious enough, he then went to Fukushima, Japan, to work with kids who had suffered terrible losses in the tsunami. He created the Fukushima Youth Sinfonietta, performed with them, and took the whole orchestra to play in the premiere concert halls of Tokyo, London, and Boston. When we met Panos, he had just completed the Boston performance seen here.

For someone who was recently questioning his life in music, Panos has found an eloquent answer.

The Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 was composed and premiered in 1901.