Garrick Ohlsson Returns to President’s Piano Series This Week

A review in The New York Times from a couple days ago noted that in a recent radio interview, pianist Garrick Ohlsson said, “to be a little crass…Chopin sells.”

Well, why shouldn’t he? Chopin’s compositions for piano pushed the art into new territory, and his work is known and beloved by even casual classical music listeners all over the world (to say nothing of Poland, which idolizes Chopin about as much as Pope John Paul II). Whatever the case, that “crass” logic is at work this week at the UW World Series, when Ohlsson returns for his second recital of Chopin’s work, after an earlier appearance in January. (Tues., Feb. 9, 8 p.m.; tickets $20-$37.)

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Ohlsson’s name has been associated with Chopin since 1970, when, at the age of 22, he became the first American to win the International Frédéric Chopin Competition, held every five years in Warsaw. This year being the fortieth anniversary of Ohlsson’s win, in the midst of the Cold War, as well as the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth, Ohlsson has been touring around the country, performing all-Chopin repertoires to ecstatic crowds.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times has a nice Q&A with Ohlsson today, worth the reading.