ROMAN RUDNYTSKY Concert pianist to embark on his seventh world tour

The tour will last most of the summer and includes a stint aboard a cruise ship.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- Concert pianist Roman Rudnytsky of Austintown will embark on his seventh world concert tour Wednesday.
Rudnytsky has been on the faculty at the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University since 1972. He has performed in more than 80 countries around the globe, earning him a Distinguished Professor Award from Dana in 1990.
His first concert overseas was in Europe in 1965. In 1975, he performed his first world tour.
The present tour will last most of the summer.
Performance pieces
Rudnytsky will be performing mostly solo recitals, although he will perform one concerto -- Mozart's Piano Concerto in B flat, K 450 -- with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Rivne and in the city of Luts'k, both in the Ukraine. He has prepared a large body of music and will vary his recitals from place to place.
"My first stop will be in Britain, where I will perform on two of the Isles of Sicily -- very rocky and picturesque 'get-away' islands," said Rudnytsky. "I will be playing the Beethoven Waldstein Sonata, Op. 53, among other works."
He will also play a set of several works by Chopin, including Scherzo No. 3, Etude, Op. 10, No. 4, and "Nocturne," all in C-sharp minor, and the Grande Valse Brilliant in E flat major, Op. 18.
One particular piece of interest he will be performing is a Horowitz arrangement of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." Though most people recognize this as an orchestral work, it was originally written for piano. Numerous musicians have transcribed it for orchestra, the most well known being by Maurice Ravel, but there are really no other concert piano arrangements for the piece.
Rudnytsky considers this quite a treasure.
"I had never learned the original, so I had nothing to unlearn," he said. "Horowitz felt he was able to make this work more pianistic than Mussorgsky. 'The Great Gate of Kiev' and 'The Marketplace at Limoges' are two particularly effective pieces from the set. One of my former students found me this and several other transcriptions, including the well-known 'Stars and Stripes Forever' and a 'Carmen Fantasy,' which I will also be playing -- a set of variations on a theme from Bizet's 'Carmen.'"
After Rudnytsky leaves England, where he also will perform two concerts inland, he departs to Iceland.
The Ukraine is next on his itinerary, then he is off to Jordan, where he will perform two recitals and give three master classes through the U.S. Embassy's public diplomacy program.
"This organization selects various performers as ambassadors, bringing us into contact with lots of people in different walks of life, making for a very nice evening," Rudnytsky said. He has done concerts in a number of regions through the Embassy, including Macedonia, Nicaragua and Peru.
Unusual venue
One of the more unusual performances will be aboard a cruise ship. "Most cruises don't employ classical pianists," he said. "The P & amp;O cruise line is one of the few that does. It is a British company, and I am usually the only American on board."
Rudnytsky said he has done about 30 cruises and has lots of free time to enjoy himself. "It is a 17-day cruise, and I will perform five or six different programs," he said. "I also volunteer to lead tours onshore."
Rudnytsky will be on the ship The Artemis, which will dock in ports in Spain, France, Italy and several islands. He will return home in early August to prepare for his next tour, which begins in September.