“Robin Sutherland, the longtime San Francisco Symphony pianist renowned for his formidable keyboard skills, his vivid personality and his trademark ponytail, died on Friday, Dec. 18 at his San Francisco home. He was 69,” writes Joshua Kosman in Friday’s (12/18) San Francisco Chronicle. “He died of a brain tumor, Sutherland’s husband, Carlos Ortega, confirmed. Over the course of an extraordinary 45-year career with the Symphony, Sutherland established his reputation as an artist of elegance, power and stylistic range.… When he took the spotlight for a solo performance, the results were often mesmerizing.… Robin Sutherland was born March 5, 1951, in Greeley, Colo. He took to music early, studying classical piano and playing in a high school rock band…. In 1972, he came west and enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music—which is where he happened to be when the San Francisco Symphony called the school in desperate need of a substitute pianist for that night’s concert…. Sutherland had studied the piece that was on the program, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 1, and delivered an impressive performance. The next year … Music Director Seiji Ozawa created the principal piano position expressly for Sutherland. He held the job until his retirement in 2018.”
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