Multifaceted pianist Evgeny Kissin intensifies his focus on work as a composer

Pianist Evgeny Kissin “is best known as a soloist who began his career as a child prodigy,” writes Rebecca Schmid in Friday’s (8/13) New York Times. “He also began writing music as a child…. As he approaches his 50th birthday in October, Mr. Kissin maintains an insatiable intellectual curiosity.… The fall brings a busy concert schedule…. At the same time, he is steadily growing his catalog [of compositions], most recently with ‘Thanatopsis,’ a setting of the William Cullen Bryant poem, for female voice and piano…. He and the writer and editor Boris Sandler joined forces for the Yiddish-language musical ‘The Bird Alef From the Old Gramophone’ [and] hope to have it staged in Moscow next summer to mark the 70th anniversary of the Night of the Murdered Poets, when 13 Jewish intellectuals … were executed by firing squads under orders from Stalin. Mr. Kissin is also working on a vocal cycle for baritone and piano based on the work of the Russian poet Alexander Blok…. He would like to explore the solo works of Bach and Shostakovich… He will also return to Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto [and] plans to take on the Piano Concerto of Rimsky-Korsakov.”