'Chance of a lifetime' concert benefits cancer patients
By HARRIET HOWARD HEITHAUS, hkheithaus@naplesnews.com
May 13, 2005
Three stars of the Miami International Piano Festival and its 50-piece orchestra are offering their virtuosity to Naples in two gala events next month to help local cancer patients.
The three pianists will star in a major fund-raising concert May 21 at the First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs to benefit the Cancer Alliance of Naples. Patrons who pay $60 a ticket will get a banquet of Franz Lizst music, featuring the festival's designated stars of the future.
It will include back-to-back performances of Rossini's "William Tell" Overture by the Miami International Piano Festival Orchestra and Lizst's piano transcription of the same work played by Kemal Gekic. Lizst piano concerti Nos. 1 and 2 and his Hungarian Fantasy are also on that program.
Three days before that, 250 ticketholders who pay $150 each will hear a more intimate concert of different music by the same pianists with a reception at the home of William Noll, the Naples resident who directs festival's orchestra this year.
Noll has been the architect of the two fund raisers. As the first conductor to be engaged for the Miami festival's finale May 22, he said the idea came from a similar event there.
"The Miami festival did a Mozart concerto night several years ago. They had an anonymous donor give money for a concerto night and they're doing something like that again this year."
The caliber of music and musicians inspired him to see if the stars would perform here as well, he said.
"My idea was to bring it Naples night before (the Miami finale concert), because it's a shame to have it done only once. And I knew the music-loving people of Naples would support this kind of thing.
"And then it was brought to my attention the work CAN is doing and the opportunity this might be to help it. It was a great cause to work for," he continued.
Noll, a classical pianist himself, has performed everywhere from Beijing to Carnegie Hall, and has conducted for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York City Opera, among others. Since he moved to Naples, he has lent his name and performance skills to a number of local causes, such as the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He also has continued performing in programs around the country and for PBS specials.
Noll will direct the orchestra May 21 as it performs with:
* Kemal Gekic, a Croatia-born iconoclast known for his personal interpretations of the three-century repertoire he performs. He is the soloist for Lizst's "William Tell" transcription. Gekic has been widely recorded and is artist-in-residence at Florida International University this year.
* Russian pianist Ilya Itin, winner of the 1996 British Leeds International Pianoforte Competition and a soloist with internationally ranked symphonies from The Cleveland Orchestra to the Tokyo Symphony.
* Francesco Libetta, a young Italian pianist and recording artist known in his own country known for his repertoire and dexterity, including a left-hand configuration of the Chopin "Revolutionary" Etude. This festival is his U.S. debut.
Noll is excited about the music.
"You won't hear an all-Lizst program from an orchestra's regular season. It's a program you'll never hear in any concert unless it's a festival situation," he said of the May 21 performance. "To hear the orchestra play 'William Tell' and then the Lizst transcript of it is the chance of a lifetime."
"It's really exciting that this caliber of music is coming here and that it will be benefit the needs of local cancer patients," said Steve Wheeler, executive director of CAN.
