Win tickets to "Merry Wives of Windsor" by Santa Cruz Shakespeare. Playing July 13-August 10. A $88 value.
Available for purchase only since early 2010, the new Yamaha CFX 9-foot grand piano has already won wide acclaim as “the Rolls Royce of concert grands.” So agrees John Orlando, who runs Cabrillo College’s Distinguished Artists series. The piano has a “beautiful singing quality,” he says, “like the human voice.”
Nineteen years of proprietary research and development lay behind this “crowning glory of the Yamaha line,” as the company’s webpage describes it. With only four of them in the United States to date, how one should come to Cabrillo tells a tale. It began with the death last summer, at age 98, of Orlando’s mother. In December, he received a call about an exceptional concert grand in San Jose. “After playing the instrument,” he says, “I got the idea to memorialize my mother with a fine instrument named for her and to make Yevgeny Sudbin’s performance a fundraising event for that purpose.”
He had already placed a deposit on the instrument when he caught wind of the new Yamaha CFX. Through a Yamaha contact in San Jose, he flew to the company warehouse in Orange County in March. Within 15 minutes, Orlando was hooked. “The CFX truly is a magnificent instrument. It is the most responsive piano I have ever played in my life,” he crows. “It can quiet down to a whisper and carry through the room. Its tremendous power can cut through any orchestra.” And, he adds, “It is effortless to play, so easy to get the desired result. This piano seems to understand what you want.”
The Juanita Orlando Memorial Concert Grand Piano is now owned by the Aptos Community Foundation. The Foundation’s intention is that the piano be considered the centerpiece for performances and supporting music education.
Introducing the piano to local audiences is a rising star. Yevgeny Sudbin, a 30-year-old St Petersburg native, displays prodigious talents. Now a resident of London, he has already set the piano world abuzz with solo recitals and concerto performances in Britain, on the continent, and in appearances in North America. These include concertos with the San Francisco and Seattle symphony orchestras, a complete Beethoven concerto-recording project with the Minnesota Orchestra, performances at the Aspen Festival and collaborations with violinist Hilary Hahn and violinist/pianist Julia Fischer, among many others. Sudbin has won critical acclaim, not least for his challenging repertoire. At Cabrillo, that will include one of the most technically difficult half-dozen works in the repertory, Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit. Works by Haydn, Liszt, Chopin and Shostakovich complete the program.
YEVGENY SUDBIN inaugurates the new Juanita Orlando Memorial concert grand piano on Saturday, April 23 at 8pm at the Crocker Theater, 6500 Soquel Dr., Aptos. Tickets $18–$100 at www.distinguishedartists.org or 831.479.6331.
