Robin Sutherland's ponytail may be getting shorter, but his indefatigable attitude to music is — if anything — even more youthful and fresh than it was 40 years ago when he became the San Francisco Symphony's principal keyboardist.
Amazingly, he was still an undergraduate at the S.F. Conservatory of Music, studying with Paul Hersh, when Seiji Ozawa appointed him to the position. Even before, Sutherland had the singular honor, at 17, while Rosina Lhevinne's student at Juilliard, to be the only American participant at the International Bach Festival, held at Lincoln Center. Later, he was a finalist in the International Bach Competition in Washington, DC, and has performed all of J.S. Bach’s keyboard works.
An avid chamber musician, Sutherland acted as co-director of the Telluride Players, and has been a regular performer at various chamber concerts. Numerous composers have dedicated works to him; among the world premieres he performed was John Adams’s Grand Pianola Music with SFS.
There are two important appearances scheduled for the pianist:
- As soloist in Ingvar Lidholm’s Poesis in Davies Symphony Hall, April 11-14, at concerts conducted by Herbert Blomstedt (the program also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) and Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde). These concerts will be broadcast on 89.9/90.3/104.9 KDFC and kdfc.com at 8 p.m. April 23.
- A special concert at the Conservatory on April 24, called "Forty Years On ...," commemorating both Sutherland's admission to the school and years with SFS. He says of the concert:
Months ago, I decided to make it all collaborative, which (funnily enough) has never been tried around those hallowed halls. It'll begin with the Rachmaninoff Suite #2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17. I will play primo for all of it, and (here's where it gets interesting) I've got four secondo boys, one for each of the movement. They are, in order: Scott Foglesong, Keisuke Nakagoshi, Christopher Basso, and Nicholas Pavkovic. I think it'll almost certainly be the world's first five-man, two-piano suite of Rachmaninov, and maybe I shall even alert the folks at the Guinness Book.Following that will be the West Coast première of a piece I commissioned from Pavkovic, an amazing composer, in addition to his pianism. He won the Conservatory's Highsmith Prize in 2011, which is the school's highest award in composition. It is a duo for clarinet and piano, commissioned as a first anniversary present for myself and the awesome Colombian clarinetist Carlos Julián Ortega — currently in the master's program at Lynn University in Boca Raton, studying with Jon Manasse.
When I asked Nick for a brief description of the work, entitled Volante, he said: "Picture the wedding of Béla Bartók and Herbie Hancock, as performed by a Latino celebrant." It's a work in three movements, and rather substantial at 22 minutes. It's one of CJ's and my proudest possessions.
After intermission comes the 1st Piano Quartet of Gabriel Fauré, Opus 15. My cohorts will be Ian Swensen, Paul Hersh (wearing his viola hat), and Jennifer Culp, late of the Kronos Quartet. Festive reception after the performance. Here's one quadragenarian alumnus asking you to be there.