From composition to performance, the season opener at the Riverside County Philharmonic offers an authentically Russian presentation.
No need to travel to Carnegie Hall to hear a prodigious pianist tackle Rachmaninoff's "Concerto No. 2 in C Minor." Seventeen-year-old Natasha Paremski will take the stage Saturday to play the Romantic composer's work.
"I think the best thing about doing this is it's one of the best concertos in all of music," Paremski said by phone. "It evokes so much emotion."
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Conductor Patrick Flynn agreed.
"It's the last of the big Romantic concertos," he said by phone. "From there on, things really changed in music."
Flynn had heard about Paremski through other music directors. So when her agent, Dana Ramos, contacted him a year and a half ago, he arranged to listen to her play in Northern California. He found that her technique fits the music perfectly.
"She's got a remarkable style," he said. "It's an old Russian (style), a particular confidence and way of phrasing, which is distinctly Russian."
"I'm not trying to be 'Russian,' " she said. "I just kind of play the way that I feel," Paremski said.
Although the Russian-born pianist has lived in the United States since 1995, she's already played with some of the world's most prestigious orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Colorado Symphony.
She's recorded two CDs with the Moscow Philharmonic, graduated high school at 14, currently studies at Mannes College of Music in New York and has international performances scheduled through 2006.
"There are some soloists who have the ability to touch your heart immediately when they play," Flynn said. "You should immediately think 'Oh, yes, that's the way it should be played.' Those are the people who become stars."
When Riverside County Philharmonic last presented the same piece 15 years ago, Wendy Chen, another rising star in the orchestral music world, played piano.
The Philharmonic will also play Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 5," which Flynn says is a great complement to fellow Russian composer Rachmaninoff.
"There has to be some sense of unity and contrast in a program," Flynn said. "Shostakovich has a hard edge... There's dissonance. He's very graphic."
As Flynn explains it, "Symphony No. 5" saved Shostakovich's life. Literally. He wrote the piece to please Stalin, who threatened to kill him if his next composition criticized his regime.
"It's brilliant because (it) managed to critique him in a way that could slide under the ear of Stalin and his censors," Flynn said. "Only true musicians would get the slight out of it."
Reach Erin Auerbach at (951) 368-9599 or eauerbach@pe.com