Classically Black: On the Liszt--Andre Watts

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WILL-FM's Roger Cooper interspersed recordings of Andre Watts' brilliant piano performances with commentary by three central Illinois piano music specialists to create Classically Black: On the Liszt -- Andre Watts.  Pianist and conductor Ian Hobson, Stravinsky Awards founder Roger Shields and accompanist John Wustman talk with Cooper about Watts' performances and about his impact on younger pianists.

The program includes Watt's performances of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Liszt's E Flat Piano Concerto.

"Andre Watts is probably this country's top-ranking pianist," said Cooper. "He's known for his technique, which is wedded with his musicality and keen intelligence."

The son of an African-American G.I. and a Hungarian mother, Watts began playing the violin at the age of four. Several years later he began studying piano with his mother, who was an accomplished pianist. Later he attended Philadelphia's prestigious Academy of Music.

When he was 16, he made a sensational debut with a superb performance of the Liszt E Flat Major Piano Concerto. "Today, 33 years later, the critics and the audiences are still buzzing about this remarkable pianist and that magical evening," said Cooper.

Shields says during the program that Watts is a supremely honest pianist. People are all combinations of sophistication, naivete, intelligence, stupidity, sensuality, maturity, simplicity, and other attributes, he said. "Those elements exist in music and I think Watts is not afraid to present those varieties of what we are very directly and honestly to the public," said Shields.

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