Farouk to join New Philharmonic for epic concerto event
This is not a musical feat to be taken lightly.
Guest pianist Dr. Wael Farouk will join the New Philharmonic orchestra to perform three of Sergei Rachmaninoff ’s piano concertos in one concert — a challenge reportedly never accomplished before by a single pianist.
Presented by the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Rachmaninoff: 3 Piano Concertos will premier at 7:30 p.m. April 17 and stream on demand through June 15.
Wael will tackle “Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor,” “Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor” and “Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor,” all of which require high levels of skill, strength and emotion. And stamina.
“It is of course something that will go down in the music history books as the first time that any pianist has played these concerti all in one night,” said Maestro Kirk Muspratt, who conducts the New Philharmonic.
Describing these works as challenging seems like an understatement.
“My overriding insight about these pieces are that they are three of the most virtuosic, demanding concerti in the piano repertoire,” Muspratt said. “The Rachmaninoff ‘Concerto No. 3’ is considered by almost every pianist to be the most formidable, impossible concerto to tackle, and we are featuring ‘Concerto No. 3’ plus ‘Concertos No. 1 and 2’ all in one night.”
All three concertos were written between 1891 and 1909.
“As you know, Rachmaninoff was considered by many to be the great pianist of all time, and he was a huge guy — 6’6”, with a handspan of a foot — so he wrote his pieces
this way that fit his large hand span,” Muspratt said. “‘Concerto No. 1’ was written while Rachmaninoff was still in school; he was about 16 when he started composing it. The rest of them were composed about 10 years apart, and they got more and more difficult as you can well imagine as each of those decades went by.”
Muspratt said the New Philharmonic decided to do this rare concert after experiencing Farouk’s extraordinary stamina during its 2018 concert “Beethoven:
Five Concertos — One Pianist.” Farouk, of course, was the title pianist.
“Here (Farouk) performed the Herculean feat of performing all five of Beethoven’s piano concerti in a single program,” Muspratt said. “The three-hour-plus program was performed twice, April 7 and April 8, 2018.”
Muspratt thought a similar Rachmaninoff endeavor should be next.
“Several years ago I had heard Wael played all of the Rachmaninoff ’s solo piano music throughout the course of one year, and so we asked him if he would be able to tackle this, and he ate it up,”
Muspratt said. “He shared with me that this is probably the most important concert of his entire career, for pianistic, musical and personal reasons.”
Farouk has performed on five continents, from the White Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, to Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. His repertoire includes more than 70 concertos and 60 solo programs. Farouk also directs the piano program at Carthage College and the Carthage Arts Academy in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and he is on the artist faculty of the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.
“Let me say that my feelings for Wael as an artist and as a human being run deep,” Muspratt said. “He is extraordinary on both counts.”
While this unparalleled concert will be a testament to Farouk’s talent, it will be demanding for the New Philharmonic as well.
“It is extremely difficult for the conductor and for the orchestra as the pieces are tremendously personal to each soloist, and we have to mesh with him, help create his architecture of the work, follow each of his phrasings and rubati,” Muspratt said. “It makes it also much more difficult as now with COVID we are spaced very far apart from Wael, the orchestra is far apart from me and also from each other.”
Of course, it will be the music that brings everything together.
“I hope that everyone in the world will watch this concert of this gorgeous, romantic, moving, heartbreaking music,” Muspratt said. “In my own heart, Rachmaninoff is my favorite composer, and if I had any concert to watch in a season anywhere, this is the concert that I would watch and witness myself.”