Edinburgh Festival

Jorge's masterclass in Edinburgh (early 1980s).

"If my memory is correct, the masterclass took place in a school next to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Arboretum Road. Left from Jorge can be seen Elisabeth Kittel, right from Jorge you can see me [Mattheus Smits]; the small group at my right is of some of the students. If I am not mistaken, the student on my right-hand side is Santiago Rodriquez who became an important pianist."

Photo: Mattheus Smits

Elisabeth Kittel (1925-2020), who was born in Augsburg, Germany, was a friend of Jorge and helped arrange some of his concerts in Europe.

'Elisabeth was a sponsor of the international summer academy at Count Schönborn's Weissenstein Castle in Pommersfelden from the very beginning. Young music students from all over the world would meet there for four weeks. Some of them played in an orchestra for the first time, others had their first solo performance there. Today, Elisabeth's grand piano is at Weissenstein Castle for student practice.'

(Martina Schulz, from a blog by Sergio Cardenas)​

Santiago Rodriguez (born February 16, 1952) is a Cuban-American pianist.

He was born in Cárdenas, Cuba, and began piano studies at age four with Nelson DeBerge. When Rodriguez was eight years old, he and his brother became part of Project Peter Pan, a project sponsored by Catholic Charities which brought Cuban children to America during Fidel Castro’s regime. Although his parents originally thought that they would be quickly reunited, it took six years for the parents to immigrate to America. He continued his piano lessons while living in the orphanage in New Orleans supported by money that his mother had sewn in his coat. When he was ten years old, Rodriguez debuted with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27.

Rodríguez has enjoyed a very successful performing and recording career and is currently the Chair of the Keyboard Department at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.

(Wikipedia)

"During 1980-1981 Baldwin recorded LPs with six of their associated pianists (David Bar-Illan, Jorge Bolet, Gilbert Kalish, Ruth Laredo, Santiago Rodriguez & Earl Wild) intended to be given away by their dealers to buyers of Baldwin pianos. These recordings hence weren’t commercially available in the traditional sense, unless you didn’t mind getting a piano along with the discs..."

(Christian Johansson)