Interview with Robert. R. Reilly

Robert R. Reilly has pursued a most unusual career. He was the music critic for Crisis magazine for 16 years, and continues to review concerts and operas for Ionarts, an arts blog that covers the Washington DC area and elsewhere. He has also …

Second Interview with Arnold Rosner

Arnold Rosner is one of the most unusual and fascinating American composers of his generation. Born in New York City in 1945, to a culturally unsophisticated family (his father ran a candy store in northern Harlem), he took piano lessons …

Interview with Richard Zimdars

Richard Zimdars is a pianist who has been on the faculty of the University of Georgia for almost thirty years. Although he has maintained an active career as a pianist, he loves teaching and embraces an identity as an “academic” …

Interview with Carlos Kalmar

 Carlos Kalmar is known to Fanfare readers as principal conductor since 2000 of Chicago’s Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, with which he has made a number of fine recordings, perhaps most notably the release devoted to orchestral works by the gifted but short-lived …

Interview with Tatjana Rankovich

I was first introduced to pianist Tatjana Rankovich through a mutual friend, back in the early 1980s. At that point she had just graduated with her Master’s degree from Juilliard. I can still remember the pieces she played that initially …

Interview with Lilia Boyadjieva

The piano artistry of Lilia Boyadjieva was first brought to my attention back in 1997 by a Greek friend, who urged me to hear a newly-released recording of the complete piano music of Samuel Barber featuring a Bulgarian pianist of …

Interview with Arnold Rosner

During the past decade, listeners have been encountering the music of Arnold Rosner with increasing frequency. Although it is direct and accessible, Rosner’s work exhibits a strong personal profile, which may account for the favorable critical response it has engendered. …