Steady Lupo Returns To Play With Symphony

There is more that glitters than gold. Winning a gold medal in some prestigious music competition gives the winner a thrill and an entrance pass to the concert circuit. But gold medals carry no guarantee of successful long-term careers.

Take pianist Benedetto Lupo. He won second place in the 1982 Casadesus Competition, third in the 1985 Gina Bachauer Competition, third again in the 1989 Cliburn Competition. True, there were firsts in the 1990 Cortot and the 1992 Judd competitions. But in the big contests, Lupo may have looked a bit like an also-ran.

But in the years since, Lupo’s steadily increasing fame has surpassed his flashier competitors, many of whom have faded from the scene - victims of burnout or the failure to grow as artists.

Lupo will perform Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Spokane Symphony Friday on a program that will also include works by Richard Wagner and William Schuman. Fabio Mechetti will conduct.

This is Lupo’s second appearance with the orchestra. He made his Spokane debut in September 1994, performing Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”

The 35-year-old Lupo began his piano studies when he was 6 and made his orchestral debut at 13, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. His teachers included such influential Italian pianists as Pierluigi Camica, Marissa Somma, Sergio Perticaroli and Aldo Ciccolini.

Lupo was born in Bari, a port city on the Adriatic coast between the “spur” and “heel” of boot-shaped Italy. He still lives in nearby Aquaviva delle Fonte and teaches at Bari’s Conservatorio Piccinni.

Lupo’s career has included orchestral concerts, solo recitals and chamber music appearances in major cities in Europe and North and South America. In summers, he has performed at such festivals as Rome’s Villa Medici, the Festival de Musique in Aix-en-Provence and the Chopin Festival in Poland.

Lupo’s large list of repertoire contains 45 concertos. It contains standards by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms as well as more unusual older works by Antonio Salieri and Giovanni Paisiello and newer ones by Luigi Dallapiccola and Nino Rota.

His recording of Rota’s “Concerto soiree” recently appeared on the Nova Era label.

The orchestral part of Friday’s program opens with Schuman’s “American Festival Overture” and closes with a Wagner sampler featuring the Prelude and Liebestod from “Tristan and Isolde” and the Introduction to Act III, the “Dance of the Apprentices” and the “Procession of the Mastersingers” from “Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg.”

Linda Siverts, the symphony’s principal keyboard player, will present a pre-concert lecture discussing the evening’s music in the Opera House auditorium beginning at 7.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane Symphony and pianist Benedetto Lupo will perform at 8 p.m. Friday at the Spokane Opera House. Tickets are $13 to $28, available at the symphony ticket office (624-1200), G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.