Sunday, October 24, 2010

Peoria JournalStar on Terrence Wilson: 'Symphony crowd wowed by pianist's approach'

[Terrence Wilson]

AfriClassical has frequently written about the pianist Terrence Wilson, whose website is: http://www.terrencewilsonpiano.com/. On September 25, 2009 we posted: “AfriClassical Interviews Terrence Wilson on Naxos CD of 'Deus ex Machina' by Michael Daugherty.”

By Gary Panetta
Posted Oct 24, 2010
PEORIA — “There's a strange unpredictability about Terrence Wilson, the pianist who appeared Saturday night with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra. Strange because, after all, what Wilson played - namely, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 - is written down, frozen on the page in black and white. Yet this youthful-looking pianist performed with an exciting, improvisatory air, as if this music wasn't familiar at all but coming alive under his fingertips, ready to go in unexpected directions.

"This is what any great performance - and Wilson's performance was by any standard, great - should be of any piece of music. But it's particularly fitting for Rachmaninov, whose grand, sprawling concerto invites a certain subjective interpretation."

"Wilson, whose presence has graced stages nationally and internationally, approached this music with a capacious imagination, a reminder that musical ability doesn't merely reside in fingers and muscle and posture. The fluid fingering, the mastery of tempo, the delicate shades of dynamics, the precise use of the pedal - in sum, sheer technical power - served the goal of musical insight. The disappointingly small crowd of 1,300 at the 2,200-seat Civic Center Theater was transfixed throughout the lengthy three movement piece. Then came applause, cheers and foot-stomping."

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