STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
They say that all good things must come to an end. And, so it is with the Sun Valley Music Festival.
The Festival Orchestra has but three performances left in its 2025 summer season.
It will conclude the season with pianist Olga Kern in a season that has displayed the talents of three virtuoso pianists and the season finale featuring an evening of Richard Strauss.
Olga Vladimirovna Kern Pushechnikova is a Russian-American classical pianist who became a U.S. citizen in 2016. Both of her parents are pianists and her great grandmother was the mezzo-soprano Vera Pushechnikova.
She began studying piano at 5 at the Central Music School of Moscow and gave her first concert at 7.
She won first prize at the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition at 17, continued her post studies at the Moscow Conservatory and received international prominence when she became the first woman in more than 30 years to receive the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal in the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001.
TONIGHT, SUNDAY, Aug. 17
Olga Kern will perform with the Festival Orchestra as they journey through Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. The piece was composed in 1900 and 1901 and became one of Rachmaninoff’s most popular pieces. It followed the restoration of Rachmaninoff’s health and confidence after a psychological breakdown and depression that kept him from composing for three years.
The Rachmaninoff piece will be preceded by Reena Esmail’s Testament from Vishwas, inspired by a celebrated saint-poet from 15th century India. Testament revolves around a woman who stages a hunger strike outside the temple of Lord Krishna, who uses the forces of nature to honor her faithfulness.
MONDAY, Aug. 18
Kern will join Dylan Noroff and Si-Yan Darren Li in performing Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Trio in D Major for Violin, Cello and Piano, It was dubbed the Ghost Trio because of its eerie-sounding slow movement.
Kern will also join the Festival Orchestra in performing pieces by Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Prokofiev and others.
THURSDAY, Aug. 21
The season will include with Richard Strauss’ Tod and Verktorung (Death and Transfiguration) and Suite from Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose).
The first, a tone poem, depicts the death of a man who considers his childhood innocence, his struggles as a man, his success in attaining his goals and—at last—his transfiguration. Filled with pagentry, French critic Romain Rolland called it one of Strauss’ most moving works.
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts in which a couple devise a plan to extricate one from her unwanted engagement.
The free performances take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Sun Valley Pavilion and out on the lawn where picnics are welcome. Pre-concert talks start at 5:45 p.m. at the Pavilion Lawn Bar.