Gach plans all-Chopin recital at Escondido arts center

By PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 9, 2008 12:20 PM PDT ∞

Every year, pianist Peter Gach performs an all-Chopin recital, as he will do again Sunday at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, but the experience never becomes routine. Gach has had a lifelong love affair with the music of Chopin, and he loves any opportunity to share it with an audience.

Gach first discovered Chopin's music as a boy, when he found some Chopin scores while sifting through a box of sheet music at his parents' farm in Pennsylvania.

"I grew up in the country. We weren't a musical family, but just by chance this box fell into my lap," Gach said of the experience a few years ago. "It was like a magic box of wonders. I read it like a kid would attack a box of chocolates. It introduced me to a whole new world."

Gach, who is Palomar College's longtime artist in residence, went on to earn a music degree at the Indiana University School of Music and then studied Chopin's music in greater depth at the Warsaw Academy of Music in Poland.

"What I learned in Warsaw was a way to approach Chopin," Gach said of the experience. "It takes a long time of solitary work to discover how the hand, body, and music mesh together to form a personal interpretation of the music."

In Warsaw, Gach studied under Jan Ekier, who helped him further appreciate Chopin's music. "I had heard Chopin played before, but something about the way he played it was different. His approach inspired me and gave me a clear vision of how it should be played."

Gach regularly performs the works of Bach, Haydn and many modern composers, but he always returns to Chopin, whose music has been a touchstone for Gach's career.

"I still marvel at the ways Chopin can unite the purely technical, the acoustic, the musical and the emotional," Gach said. "He is like other composers whose works have stood the test of time. I can always come back to him and learn something new. I enjoy returning to the familiar pieces and hearing how fresh-sounding they are."

This year's concert will feature Chopin's Polonaise in C-sharp minor and F-sharp minor, Four Mazurkas Op. 17 and Three Mazurkas Op. 56, Two Nocturnes Op. 55 and 27, the Waltz in A-flat major Op. 64, and the Ballade in G minor.

Peter Gach: "All Chopin"

When: 2 p.m. April 13

Where: California Center for the Arts, Escondido, 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido

Tickets: $12, general; $10, seniors; $8, students

Phone: (760) 744-1150, Ext. 2453

Web: www.palomarperforms.com

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