Pierre van der Westhuizen, the executive director of the Gilmore Keyboard Festival and a concert pianist himself, joins Cara Lieurance to preview the final concerts of the spring season. On April 28 at 4 pm, American pianist Kate Liu, a finalist of the 2015 Chopin Competition, will perform works by Beethoven, Mozart and Prokofiev in the Wellspring Theatre. Westhuizen recalls the day he watched the livestream of the famous competition, and how Ms. Liu's performance stood out among all the others. Liu had to withdraw from performing in recent seasons to allow an injury to resolve - something Westhuizen says athletes and musicians share in common.
On May 7 at 8 pm in Chenery Auditorium, the 2010 Gilmore Artist Kirill Gerstein will replace an ailing Murray Perahia on the Piano Masters Series. Gerstein, who has returned to Kalamazoo more times than any other Gilmore Artist, will play a wide-ranging program of immense variety and difficulty, Westhuizen says. Westhuizen and Cara Lieurance get into the details of the great Liszt Sonata in B minor and other works on the program.
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