Rudolf Golez: Acclaimed Filipino Virtuoso Pianist in concert
THE heavy rain on November 17, 2012 did not stop a knowledgeable and discriminating audience at Gennario’s Ristorante in Glendale, California, from expressing their almost boundless admiration for Rudolf Golez, a Filipino virtuoso pianist based in the Philippines.
Indeed, the piano concert entitled Music Tapestry of Rudolf Golez unfolded an exciting evening fantasy of the dazzling immortal music of Addinsell, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Debussy, Liszt, Chopin, Abelardo, and Gershwin in an exclusive engagement by a true Filipino virtuoso.
Dexterity Of Flying Fingers
Opening with British composer Richard Addinsell’s “Warsaw Concerto, a single-movement piano concerto written for the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight, the boyish-looking Rudolf Golez belied his 39 years of age by astonishing his rapt audience with his keenness in depth and subtlety and the dexterity of his flying fingers.
He then sublimely showcased the genius of Russian Sergei Rachmaninoff in Prelude In C# Minor and Etude In E-Flat Major, one of the finest pianists of his day and one of the last great romanticists in Russian classical music.
Juilliard-TrainedVirtuoso Pianist
As Rachmaninoff studied at age 14 with piano teacher Nikolai Zverev, Golez spent his high school years at the Juilliard School of Music Preparatory Division in New York City under world-renowned pianist Seymour Lipkin. He later earned Masters In Piano Performance from the University of the Philippine Conservatory of Music.
Van Beethoven’s most popular sonata dedicated to his student with whom he fell in love, Moonlight Sonata, and French Claude Debussy’s early work, Dreaming Reverie, highlighted the deeply moving sensitivity and musicality of Golez, who was the sole prize winner at the First ASEAN Chopin International Competition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2004.
Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt’s Dream of Love and Mephisto Waltz added to the rich and varied repertoire of classical piano literature of Golez, who has participated in the 9th International Piano Festivals in Tenerife and Vila-Seca, Spain, and the Festival of Light in HongKong, with master classes conducted by Prof. Arie Vardi.
Magnetic charm of left-handed Golez
Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor composed by Chopin in 1834, which uses cross-rhythms (the right hand playing sixteenth notes against the left hand playing triplets), showed the elegance and magnetic charm of the left-handed Golez.
One of the Philippines celebrated composers, Nicanor Abelardo, gave his legacy in Nocturne, a by-product of his long and lonely walks and night rides with his friend Pakong, which Golez magnificently played like only a Filipino pianist can capture the nocturnal settings. He teaches at the Philippine Women’s University and Cebu Normal University.
Lastly, American composer George Gershwin’s The Rhapsody In Blue (1924), one of the most popular of all American concert works, even as he had no formal piano schooling, elicited a standing ovation for the masterful technique of Rudolf Golez in blending classical, blues, and jazz movements to the sublime.
As requested by the audience the enchanting and memorable evening ended with an encore of a powerful rendition of Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude and of Constancio de Guzman’s patriotic Bayan Ko, eliciting astonishing awe for a superlative poet at the piano keyboard.
Sponsored by the Law Offices of Roman P. Mosqueda, Asian Commodities Company, Purse Marketplace.Com, Philippine News, Heart of Hearts Home Care, Appogee Application Developers, and LegalShield, “Rudolf Golez in Music Tapestry” was produced by multi-awarded producer and director, Errol Mendoza, Artistic Director of the DreamAge Group in Los Angeles.
(The Author,, is a student of music. He is a tenor who sings and plays piano, violin, flute, and clarinet.)
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Roman P. Mosqueda has practiced criminal defense and Immigration law for over 20 years. He is a long-time member of the California Public Defenders Association. , and trained as a prosecutor with the Los Angeles City Attorney under the Trial Advocacy Program of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He is also a volunteer, State-Bar trained arbitrator on attorney’s fees dispute resolution. Send comments or inquiries to [email protected] , or call (213) 252-9481 for free consultation appointment, or visit his website at www.mosquedalaw.com