San Francisco Classical Voice
by Janos Gereben
May 22, 2007
From the Santa Rosa Concerts Grand series comes a report that Sunday’s season-closing concert was a nail-biter turned big-rush. The soloist scheduled for the recital in Santa Rosa Junior College’s Newman Auditorium was Cuban pianist Antonio Iturrioz. He failed to show because he had a bad fall outside his Guerneville home on his way to the concert – an accident unknown to the concert organizers. They waited for the pianist, in vain. The report continues:
Producer Terry McNeill decided that instead of having a sprinkling of professional pianists in the audience each play a work, he would do the impossible – have an amateur play the entire concert. But not just any amateur: Ken Iisaka, sitting in the fifth row, leaves May 26 for Ft. Worth and the Van Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition. Iisaka, a Mill Valley investment analyst, was as surprised as anyone about the turn of events. To loud applause he accepted the invitation and walked down to the Steinway. He played sensationally, and it was all recorded by cameras and microphones originally in place for Iturrioz. He performed a Haydn sonata, works by Chopin, and the rare and difficult Charles-Valentin Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano. The nearly hour-long work comprised the entire second half, and generated a standing ovation.
Iisaka stole the show, and with the Van Cliburn coming, he has been “launched” in North Bay musical circles. He appears Friday on KRCB-FM’s “Curtain Call” to relate the Cinderella story.
(Janos Gereben is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)
