“Vadym Kholodenko’s young daughters are buried in Fort Worth, where the Ukrainian pianist had moved his family after he won the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition,” writes Andrea Ahles in Thursday’s (5/4) Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, TX). Kholodenko, whose daughters were killed in March 2016, “has tried to focus on the other great joy of his life, music…. It is music that brings Kholodenko back to Fort Worth this month, first to play with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in performances [of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3] May 12-14 at Bass Hall, and then to help with the opening proceedings of the quadrennial Cliburn competition…. Prokofiev’s Third is a favorite of Kholodenko’s…. ‘I always have this image in my head, it’s like a sunrise,’ Kholodenko says. ‘It heals everything … this dramatic light inside overwhelms everything.’ … Last August, when Kholodenko played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the FWSO at Bass Hall, he received a large envelope full of letters of support from the symphony musicians.… ‘Every message was so special,’ Kholodenko says.… ‘From time to time, I open it and read it. It has this power to heal.’ ”
Posted May 8, 2017
