Steppin' Out
Story
Arts groups' collaboration is key for a special concert
By Heather Zimmerman
The Steinway Society the Bay Area doesn't open its regular season until later this month, but the organization, in a collaboration with the Mexican Heritage Corporation, is starting September off on quite the high note anyway. The two groups, with sponsorship from the Castellano Family Foundation, present a concert with top pianist Jorge Federico Osorio.
The concert takes place Sept. 8 at the theater at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1700 Alum Rock Road, San Jose.
"We wanted to do a collaboration with another nonprofit, and so we decided that we'd like to do one with the Mexican Heritage Corporation," Steinway Society the Bay Area vice president Henry Schiro says, noting that it will be the first classical piano performance at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.
"He's originally from Mexico City and he has played all the big halls in the world," Schiro says of Osorio. "And so the concert was an exciting idea."
Osorio is an internationally renowned soloist who has performed with top orchestras around the globe and is a respected teacher, currently on the faculty at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts. Osorio has recorded extensively, including, among many others, works by Brahms, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Schumann and Tchaikovksy, an album of solo piano music by Mexican composer Manuel Maria Ponce and a collection of pieces by Spanish composers. He has been hailed as one of the world's best interpreters of Spanish piano music.
Audiences at the concert will get a chance to hear that for themselves, as three works by Spanish composer Enrique Granados will be on the program. Concertgoers can also enjoy Osorio's expertise with Ponce's works, which open the program and comprise the entire second half. A sonata by Chopin closes out the first half.
A unique element in the concert will be an onstage interview with Osorio that takes place during the performance. "It isn't a pre-concert or after-concert interview, it's right when it's going on," Schiro says. "[Osorio] might play a little, he might play something, and then stop and we'll do this interview for 10 or 12 minutes."
Interviews or lectures before a concert or following a performance are a more traditional format, but Schiro says an onstage talk with the performer during the concert, right next to the piano, makes for a more spontaneous event.
Osorio's concert on Sept. 8 is actually the culminating event in a series of several presentations he will make for area schools, something that Schiro says was a draw for Osorio in coming to the South Bay. "He's going to be in town from Wednesday," Schiro says of Osorio, "and he likes the idea of the educational piece, which is being in the schools and performing in the schools." In the days before the concert at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, Osorio will perform at two low-income San Jose area schools.
Such an emphasis on learning ties into a larger part of the Steinway Society's mission, Schiro points out. "In the long run, the key to the front door is education," he says. "We want to go further than this; we want to teach as many kids as we can to read music."
The Steinway Society opens its regular season later this month with a concert by 2005 Van Cliburn silver medallist Joyce Yang on Sept. 23.
Tickets to the Osorio concert are $15 indviduals/$35 family of four/$50 VIP tickets that include a post-concert reception with Osorio. For more information, call 800.MHC.VIVA, or visit www.mhcviva.org or www.stein
waythebayarea.com.
