Brendan, you studied at Cincinnati Conservatory, didn't you? Did you get to work with Awagadin Pratt? Your impressions of him as teacher/performer?

He performed at Bates College a few months ago.

I currently study at the Cincinnati Conservatory, and while I'm not one of Pratt's students, I know a lot of them.

I know that he teaches only in group lessons, which apparently are quite lengthy. I hear different things from different people (and sometimes the same people on different days) about the content and quality of his comments, so I haven't yet been able to form a real opinion on that yet. However, they all say that he expects his students to learn a LOT of new music each quarter--for some students this seems to work well, making them work harder and build confidence. Others complain, though, that they are simply incapbable of meeting these expectations, in which case he reportedly gets very impatient and temperamental, which some students find frustrating. Despite this, he seems to be well-liked on at least a personal level by everyone I know.

I'm actually going to his concert tomorrow night (Mozart 23 with Cincinnati Symphony), which I'm sure will be phenomenal.

Cool. I hope you report back. Here's a blurb I posted at Pianoforum about his concert at Bates. I was impressed. Pratt thread

A review of yesterday's concert. I wasn't there (I live in San Diego), but I'm always interested in the Cincinnati Symphony because I grew up listening to the orchestra. Paavo Jarvi's new disc of Debussy with the orchestra is stunning (on Telarc 80617).


Piano soloist returns with resonant Mozart

By Janelle Gelfand
Enquirer staff writer


Awadagin Pratt is the pianist for a reprise concert by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra tonight. He is making his first public appearances as the new College-Conservatory of Music piano professor.
The Enquirer / Meggan Booker
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Mozart resonates with all of us because his music has a human, deeply personal quality about it.

On Friday morning, pianist Awadagin Pratt beautifully captured that quality in a radiant performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Although Pratt last performed with the symphony a decade ago, it was a stunning re-introduction of the pianist, making his first public appearance as newly appointed professor of piano at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Pratt's Mozart, which earned bravos, was just one of the joys of this concert. Guest conductor Roberto Minczuk, a Brazilian-born rising star, led a program of crowd-pleasers that included Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony, Liszt's "Les Preludes" and music by his countryman, Edino Krieger.

Pratt's career was launched when he won the famous Naumburg Competition in 1992. He is noted for his somewhat unconventional dreadlocks and probing performances. With his athletic build (he plays tennis and basketball), it may have seemed incongruous to see him hunched over the keyboard, playing with the utmost delicacy and musicality.

But from the first note of Mozart's A Major Concerto, K. 488, his playing was warmly communicative, and he projected a beautiful tone and smooth legato touch. His most individual spark surfaced in the first movement's cadenza (of his own invention), a minidrama of arpeggios, trills and even a small fugue in the style of Beethoven. (Thanks to a cell phone owner who picked up on the first ring.)

The slow movement, in the dark key of F-sharp minor, was profoundly personal, and Pratt's playing had a moving, smiling-through-tears quality.

The pianist seemed to enjoy the exuberant finale, throwing back his head, smiling and tossing off glittering runs with ease. This was a genial collaboration, and the orchestra supported him wonderfully.

Minczuk is a former associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic and a protégé of Kurt Masur. Not a flamboyant leader, he has clearly picked up some of Masur's Germanic precision, and led his entire program (except the concerto) without a score.

His reading of Schubert's Symphony No. 8 positively glowed. The sound he got from the strings was refined and light. He found a balance between Schubert's romantic melodies - one great tune after another - and the symphony's classical proportions.

The morning's conclusion was Liszt's tone poem, "Les Preludes," named for the Lamartine poem about love, destiny and war. Every moment was vividly portrayed, and the orchestra performed well, from smoothly articulated horn themes to the finale's thrilling brass-and-timpani buildup.

The program opened with Krieger's "Passacaglia for the New Millennium" (1999), an inventive piece. Minczuk swayed with a fleeting Brazilian rhythm, an inkling that he once won a Latin Grammy.

Pratt's Brahms Handel Variations is fantastic!

Awadagin was a classmate and friend of mine at Peabody. It was clear to everyone that he was and is a real artist. He has more stage presence than just about any other concert pianist, and he has his own voice, and an amazing commitment to his very compelling ideas.

In a world of cookie cutter concert pianists, Awadagin is really worth hearing.

This sentence so nicely sums up how I felt through much of his performance. I think pack it away to pull out and borrow for future use.

Keith, he does indeed have a wonderful stage presence. He really connected imtimately with the audience.