Virtuoso to perform with symphony

Olga Kern is delighted to be returning to Salt Lake City.

"It has been three years now, and I am looking forward to coming and seeing everybody and seeing Keith (Lockhart) again," she said in a phone interview from her home in New York.

The Russian-born virtuoso will play Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto with the Utah Symphony and Keith Lockhart this weekend. Also on the program is Kodaly's "Dances of Galanta" and the complete ballet score of Bartok's "The Miraculous Mandarin."

While known for her interpretation of Rachmaninoff's concertos — she won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001 with Rachmaninoff's Third — Kern also counts Prokofiev's concertos among her favorites, particularly the Third.

"It's really such a pleasure to perform," she said. "It's a very exciting work."

To anyone unfamiliar with the work, Prokofiev's concerto sounds impossibly difficult. While it does give the soloist a few vituosic hurdles to overcome, it's not as challenging as it sounds, at least according to Kern. "It really sounds quite flashy, but it is very comfortable to play."

That's because Prokofiev wrote his five concertos for his own use. A pianist of great virtuosity, rivaling Rachmaninoff in that regard, Prokofiev naturally knew how to write for the instrument. "And that is a big plus for the soloist," Kern said.

Her favorite part of the concerto is the second movement. "I love that movement. It is so amazingly written, and it shows the best side of Prokofiev — his grotesque humor."

The 34-year-old pianist has been busy since her last appearance in Utah. For one thing, she is now the artistic director of the Cape Town Festival in South Africa. "I just finished my third festival last December," she said.

Her connection to South Africa goes back to 1996 when she won the Unisa International Piano Competiton in Pretoria. "I love South Africa because of the nature," Kern said. "And I have a lot of friends there from the Cape Town Symphony (where her brother is one of the conductors)."

The two actually made local music history in 2005 when Kern performed all of Rachmaninoff's works for piano and orchestra with her brother conducting the Cape Town Symphony. "We performed them over two nights," she said.