There are truly so very many wonderful, deserving artists playing Piccolo Spoleto year after year — I wish I could tell you about (and hear) more of them than I’m able to manage. But the people I’m talking about here are extra-special.
I speak here of a terrific trio of artists who now call the Holy City home. Violinist Lee Chin Siow and cellist Natalia Khoma are absolutely superb musicians with glowing international reputations — they now teach their instruments at the College of Charleston. Pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky, Khoma’s long-time chamber pianist of choice, regularly appears with them both. They are the core of the College’s new “Music Fest” Chamber series that runs through the regular season here. And, during Spoleto, they are among the Piccolo festival’s confident answers to the big festival’s stellar chamber excellence from Dock Street. One of last year’s most memorable Piccolo events was their emotionally wrenching Rachmaninoff concert at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park.
So, I’m telling you, DO NOT MISS them when they appear again at the same venue at 6:00 PM, tomorrow (Wed., 06/06). They’ll be capping off a fabulous program of Handel/Halvorsen, Bartok, Wienawski and Liszt with Bedrich Smetana’s smoldering, ultra-romantic Piano Trio in G Minor — a work that I heard them play here last winter. Trust me, folks — this is the good stuff.
