By CHRIS SMITH
PRESS DEMOCRAT COLUMNIST
Piano lovers filled SRJC’s Newman Auditorium the other day, anticipating a Concerts Grand All-Classical performance by Antonio Iturrioz of Guerneville. Showtime arrived, but not Iturrioz. There’d been an accident…. …fortuitously, in the audience was an extraordinary pianist, Ken Iisaka of Mill Valley, who’s preparing to travel to Fort Worth this coming weekend to compete in the esteemed Van Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition.
Full article:
Piano lovers filled SRJC’s Newman Auditorium the other day, anticipating a Concerts Grand All-Classical performance by Antonio Iturrioz of Guerneville.
Showtime arrived, but not Iturrioz. There’d been an accident.
As he was leaving home for the drive to Santa Rosa, the Cuban-born pianist took a seriously nasty fall down the steps. His right shoulder howled as he eased into his car, determined to make his long- scheduled recital at the JC.
But by Forestville, Iturrioz knew he was badly hurt, and he changed course for a hospital. He regretted having no way to reach concert producer Terry McNeill and tell him what had happened.
So back at the packed Newman hall, McNeill winged it. He took to the stage and announced there would be a change in the program.
McNeill said that, fortuitously, in the audience was an extraordinary pianist, Ken Iisaka of Mill Valley, who’s preparing to travel to Fort Worth this coming weekend to compete in the esteemed Van Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition.
McNeill then invited Iisaka to come up and play.
Iisaka nearly dropped his teeth. He knows McNeill and had long before accepted an invitation to play something at a post-recital reception for Iturrioz, but this was a surprise.
He said by phone Wednesday that earlier that day he’d taken his son, Ansel, 9, fishing at Smith’s Trout Farm near St. Helena. Though he’d changed out of his shorts and T-shirt in the car at the JC, he said, “My hands were still smelling like trout.”
Even so he ascended to the piano, and he played. Breaking to chat with the audience about his coming Van Cliburn performance, Iisaka threw himself into a challenging repertoire that climaxed with the Charles-Valentin Alkan Etude in G minor, “Concerto for Solo Piano.”
The crowd was on its feet.
“It was the best rehearsal for the competition that I could imagine,” the versatile pianist said Wednesday.
If Iturrioz weren’t hospitalized with a fractured shoulder, he’d have shaken Iisaka’s fishy hand.
