Remember me? Some ugly vagaries of life (and a heavy paying gig) got in the way of blogging over the holidays – but they’re over, and great music is again busting out all over around Chucktown, so I’m BAAACK!

Ukrainian pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky first showed up in Charleston around two years ago, about the same time mega-cellist Natalia Khoma took up her teaching gig at the College of Charleston. No wonder, as he is her pianist-of-choice for chamber music – and, until now, that’s just about all we’ve heard from him hereabouts. Having admired his chamber artistry on several occasions, I was overjoyed to hear that he would be offering his first local solo recital under the auspices of the College’s vaunted International Piano Series. In fact, that’s where I was last Tuesday, at the Sottile Theatre, with bells on – and I wasn’t disappointed.

Vynnytsky got things going with the metaphysical musings of Beethoven’s Op. 101 piano sonata – one of Ludwig’s mystical late works that musicologists have been trying to figure out for nearly two centuries. Our artist made as good a case for it as I’ve heard lately, taking a fresh and spontaneous approach – and making very difficult music sound almost easy.

Then it was on to the Russian music that’s in his very bones. Lev Revutsky’s Prelude in D flat – a mournful little gem in the heart-on-sleeve mold of Rachmaninoff – was a delightful discovery. Also new to me was Myroslav Skoryk’s (more about him later) Burlesque: a much more modern-sounding number – yet it was quite charming, with deft touches of folksy humor and whimsy. Vynnytsky wrapped up his trio of Russian items with a brilliant traversal of Rachmaninoff’s knuckle-busting Etude Tableaux in D that brought the well-filled house down.

After halftime, Volodymyr moved on to more familiar (and beloved) territory: two of Frederic Chopin’s most poetic pieces. He gave the beloved Fantasy in F Minor a sensitive and luminous reading, with potent emotion and sparkling passagework. In the Op. 58 Sonata in B Minor, he gave us everything from airy delicacy to raw power. His rubato-laced traversal of the haunting slow movement was the most exquisite I can recall hearing, avoiding the syrupy sentiment many pianists indulge in.

Yet again, the IPS’s lofty standards have been upheld. And more’s the luck, because we get to enjoy this keyboard whiz several times a year around here. Watch for him in the College’s upcoming Music Fest chamber series, and I expect him to appear again during Piccolo Spoleto, as we have for the past two festivals.

As a matter of fact, we’ll get to hear him next week (8:00 p.m., on Friday the 25th, at the Simons Center for the Arts – free admission), in a special tribute to Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk (see above), one of his nation’s most distinguished and influential musicians. The composer himself will appear as a performer, along with Vynnytsky, Khoma, and several other top C of C professors and their best student musicians. If his above-mentioned Burlesque was any indication, you’re in for an appealing evening.