April 13, 2012
Dallas - There is little doubt that James Gaffigan
is a fine conductor and well on his way to being one of the greats of
his generation. The last time he was in Dallas, he also did an exemplary
job of conducting the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Pianist André Watts burst on
the concert scene, as a discovery of Leonard Bernstein, with a
performance of Liszt's first piano concerto at a Young People's Concert,
which was televised Jan. 15, 1963. Watts is what we would now call an
"army brat," the son of a Hungarian mother, Maria Alexandra Gusmits, a
pianist, and an African-American father, Herman Watts, a U.S. Army
noncommissioned officer. He was also a racial pioneer on the concert
stage; the Voting Rights Act was only passed in 1965. Now, he has
surpassed all of these descriptions and only has one remaining: great
musician, and one of the best pianists of the era.
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