PREVIEW
What: Pavel Kolesnikov with the Victoria Symphony
When: Sunday, 2:30 p.m.; Monday 8 p.m.
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
Tickets: $32 to $82 (250 385-6815)
This weekend marks the triumphant return of the Russian hero. Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov will play Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Victoria Symphony for concerts Sunday and Monday. The orchestra’s music director, Tania Miller, fondly remembers Kolesnikov as the young man who flew to Victoria from Moscow in 2014 with a few hours’ notice to fill in for an ailing soloist.
“We’re so happy that he’s coming. Really, he’s a hero in Victoria,” she said.
Two years ago, a hand injury forced pianist Anna Fedorova to drop out of the opening concert of the Victoria Symphony’s season. The orchestra was alerted two days before rehearsals were slated to begin. Seeking a replacement, staff phoned agents all over North America.
Complicating the situation was the fact Fedorova was set to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto in D Minor. It’s a difficult work that takes months to prepare. At first, said Miller, it seemed like no one was available to play it on short notice.
Then Kolesnikov’s name came up. Then 24, he’d recently won Calgary’s Honens International Piano Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious piano contests. His agent phoned the pianist in Moscow at 2 a.m.
Six hours later, Kolesnikov was on a plane to Victoria. Door to door, the 8,000-kilometre journey took 24 hours.
Miller, who conducted the concert, recalled that Kolesnikov seemed absolutely at ease when he showed up for the rehearsal.
“He was very sweet and very shy. And very calm. When he came, he behaved a little bit like an angel. Very sweet. There was no ego emanating from him, no fear emanating from him,” she said.
Today, 27-year-old Kolesnikov lives in London, England, where he just completed music studies at the Royal College of Music. He shrugs off the “hero” appellation. “It was really crazy. But I’m very happy it happened,” he said over the phone.
Kolesnikov said that at the time, he already had the “very difficult” Rachmaninoff concerto prepared because he was practising it for another concert. He remembers the marathon journey to Victoria from Moscow as being a slog. Yet the whole experience wasn’t as traumatic as one might imagine.
“It’s really nice when this kind of [fill-in] thing happens. It’s actually less stressful than preparing for some important concert for a long time,” he said.
Since winning the Honens prize, an in-demand Kolesnikov has performed at the BBC Proms, London’s Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall. Last February, he did another last-minute fill-in, replacing Chinese pianist Yun Di at Sacile, Italy’s Fazioli Concert Hall. In September, he released a critically acclaimed disc, Chopin Mazurkas, on Hyperion Records.
Kolesnikov was born in Novosibirsk in Siberia to a biologist and a computer-science specialist, and moved to study at the Moscow Conservatory in 2007. His hobbies include writing fiction, photography and collecting perfume. Kolesnikov said he has “about 130 bottles” of both vintage and contemporary perfumes. He once told an interviewer he’d like to become a perfumer — an ambition he hasn’t quite given up on.
Another of his unrealized ambitions is to play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 at Piazza San Marco in Venice.
“I would still like to do that, you know, before Venice goes underwater,” Kolesnikov said with a laugh. “It’s just a romantic and poignant image to me, the combination of the music and this incredible architecture and place.”
