Technique Musicality and Interpretation

On a nine-concert national tour of South Africa, the American pianist Awadagin Pratt is already proving what critics overseas are saying: he has something special when it comes to technique, musicality and interpretation. Pratt will be in Cape Town to play Beethoven with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra in its season opener - and his last concert - at the Cape Town City Hall on Thursday, June 4, at 8 pm.

Technique Musicality and Interpretation

Pratt is not new to Cape Town. He performed with The Cape Town Concert Series in 1996 and since then, apart from being a judge at the UNISA International Piano Competition a couple of years ago, the stars have not been aligned to have him back. "I enjoyed being in Cape Town - it was my first time in South Africa and I was happy to meet Archbishop Tutu. That specific concert was recorded for my third CD, Live from South Africa, so the concert remains fixed in my memory.

A winner of the prestigious Naumburg Prize in 1992, Pratt began studying piano at the age of six, followed by the violin three years later and, at the age of 16, conducting.

"The piano repertoire is just that much bigger than the violin repertoire," he says, "especially in the repertoire that I love. I play chamber music on my violin with my students from time to time and I also still conduct."

Pratt studied at both the University of Illinois and then the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he became the first student in the school's history to receive diplomas in three performance areas. He was born into a family of academics, though his father did play the organ. He gravitated naturally to teaching, and as he says, "I love teaching so the fact that my parents were professors helps, but one has to be good at what you are teaching so I am always working on being better myself."

Pratt leaves Cape Town the day after the concert and arrives In Cincinnati the next day, the day of the opening of the Cincinnati World Piano Competition of which he is artistic director.

Immediately after that, he has his own festival of master classes in Cincinnati with seven guest faculty members, then spends July at a festival in North Carolina where he will not only play, but conduct the same Beethoven he is performing with the CPO.