Ukrainian-born pianist Anna Fedorova appears tonight in concert with the Santa Rosa Symphony, playing a Prokofiev concerto, and this Saturday night, she presents a solo recital through the Steinway Society. Her career had an additional boost after one of her performances in 2013 was uploaded to YouTube, and has had millions of views.
There’s more information about the concerts at the Santa Rosa Symphony and Steinway Society websites.
“For me it’s still a little bit of a mystery how this video got so super popular, because it’s now near 16 million, I guess, and this is very unusual for classical music,” she says. “All I did, I played a concert… I guess it’s a combination, because it was in a very beautiful hall, in Concertgebouw, with very good conductor, and nice orchestra, and it’s second Rachmaninoff, which is one of the most popular concertos, I guess. Somehow this one got really quickly to the one million, and then once it was one million, I guess even more people started watching it, because then it would come as a suggested popular video, and I guess this is like a snowball.” She’ll be playing the Prokofiev Third tonight at Weill Hall at the Green Music Center, with conductor Michael Christie and the Santa Rosa Symphony. Her Steinway Society recital on Saturday focuses on Fantasies. “All different composers from different times, all were writing fantasies, and approaching it in completely different ways, and at the same time there are a lot of similarity you can find.” In the first half there’s Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Chopin’s Fantasy in F minor, and Scriabin’s Sonata-Fantasy; in the second half, Mozart’s Fantasia in D minor, and to end another work by Chopin, his Sonata number 3. “I was especially requested, actually to put it in the program by the Steinway Society. But I’m very happy actually to have a chance to play again Chopin Sonata, and to come back to this masterpiece.”
