Since our beginnings in 1999, the heart of our mission has always been the discovery of young exceptional talent. The Miami International Piano Festival sponsors an unparalleled number of concerts each year, bringing young artists from around the world to the “Discovery Series” at the Wolfsonian Museum  in South Beach. The festival strives to provide a global platform for these artists to share their imagination and insight.

Dmitry Yudin’s debut surpassed all expectations. He tackled a terrifyingly virtuosic program with authority and musicality. His imagination and sensitivity were on display throughout the whole concert, creating one of the most memorable debuts in the festival’s history.

He opened his concert with Beethoven’s late masterpiece, the Sonata in E Major, Op. 109. A work usually reserved for the end of concerts, the sonata felt perfectly in place at the beginning, as Yudin’s playing was full of youthful optimism. The variations of the third movement seemed to blossom out of the instrument, each one more splendid than the last. The sonata sounded fresh and full of life.

The concert continued with Brahms’s fierce Paganini Variations. Yudin presented both books, often played separately, without pause. The fact that this is one of the most fiendishly challenging works in the repertoire did not seem to bother him. He played with absolute control. More importantly, though, he demonstrated profound musical insight. With this piece there is sometimes the risk that it will sound like mere exercises – one technically difficult variation after another on the same familiar theme. This was never a danger for him, as he discovered all of the drama of a symphony in Brahms’s imaginative writing.

Mendelssohn’s Fantasy in F sharp minor, Op. 28 opened the second half. Rarely played in concert, this work is an absolute jewel. Yudin’s playing was superb, with fast fingerwork, deep sensitivity, and youthful charm. Mendelssohn’s sprays of quick notes in runs and arpeggios sounded absolutely clear in Yudin’s hands, and he brought a bittersweet sentimentality to the more lyrical passages.

He used a selection of Fairy Tales by Medtner to display the vast scope of his imagination. Though often underplayed, Medtner has always been a favorite composer of the Miami International Piano Festival, and the Fairy Tales are some of his most enduringly popular works. Yudin’s performance of these pieces was unforgettable. Changing seamlessly between intimate tenderness and powerful intensity, he conjured up miniature magical worlds, transporting the audience with a vibrant palette of colors.

The concert ended with a rarely-heard warhorse, the Etude-Fantasy by American composer John Corigliano, commissioned for the Van Cliburn competition in 1976. Yudin held the audience in rapt attention. In this work he showcased more than just technical mastery. A long section for left hand alone, complicated contrapuntal textures, and dizzyingly charged rhythms make this work a feat of pianism. Yudin’s control over the audience’s attention was so complete that as the final notes of the piece faded away, the audience waited to clap for a whole minute until he stood up.

After receiving thunderous applause, Yudin returned to the stage to play an encore of Rachmaninoff’s Etude-Tableau in D minor, Op. 33 no. 4. In this small vignette, he encapsulated everything that made the evening so memorable: technical mastery, musical artistry, and young imagination.

His concert was unforgettable, and we eagerly await his return.

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