1 minute video I've just come across this film footage from Japanese TV of The Mikado in August 1946, Tokyo, Ernie Pyle Theatre. You get a tiny glimpse of the back of Jorge Bolet's head.

My thanks to Francis Crociata for recently sending me the original version of a Rachmaninoff anecdote concerning Josef Hofmann Rachmaninoff calling Hofmann the best pianist in New York. I think you were actually referring to a 1931 exchange of letters between SVR and JH first published in the Bertenssen and Leyda Rachmaninoff biography: In the meantime more compliments passed between the two greatest pianists. Josef Hofmann addressed a letter to “Premier Sergei Rachmaninoff”: “By “Premier” I mean the “Premier of Pianists,” in spite of my artistic attempt of Sunday last!” “After thinking over your offer to exchange hands with me, which you were so good as to suggest at the Zimbalist party, I accept. So I am to trade you my 20 fingers, according to your count, for your 10, which I still swear—despite the smaller number—are far superior. The only difficulty is how to close our deal—and in a painless fashion. Any suggestions?” January 19, 1931 My dear Mr. Hofmann: “There is a story that goes as follows: “Once upon a time in Paris there were a great many tailors. When one of them succeeded in renting a shop in a street devoid of tailors, he wrote on his sign: THE BEST TAILOR IN PARIS. The next tailor who opened a shop in the same street was forced to write on his sign: THE BEST TAILOR IN THE WHOLE WORLD. What was there left for the third tailor, who rented a shop between these two?—He wrote with becoming modesty: THE BEST TAILOR IN THIS STREET....” Your touching modesty, as expressed in your letter of January 15, as well as your incomparable professional knowledge, gives you full right to that last title: “You are the best in this street.”

"It has been a long time since we have heard in Lima a pianist of Bolet's stature." 9 June 1982 Auditorio, Colegio Santa Ursula, Lima Mendessohn, Fantasy in F minor Op.28 Schumann, Fantasy in C major Op.17 Schubert/Liszt, 5 Lieder (Auf dem Wasser au singen, Der Müller under der Bach, Der Lindenbaum, Aufenthalt, Erlkönig) Liszt, Mephisto Waltz Jorge's only recital that year in Lima, Peru, a recital arranged in association with Baldwin Pianos (Los Zorzalas 140, San Isidro, Lima) El Comercio 13.6.1982 An appearance preceded by magnificent reviews. It was a program of tremendous difficulties, technical and musical, and the result was a delicious, enchanting and impressive evening. He is a pianist of great power, knowledge, elegance, and sobriety, to which is added an amazing technique. It can be said that it has been a long time since we have heard in Lima a pianist of Bolet's stature. The audience gave him a long and well deserved ovation. (Lucas)

Jorge Bolet began his major return to the UK in 1977. Edward Greenfield's review is very complimentary. 17 February 1977, Thursday (he was aged 62) Queen Elizabeth Hall, London Haydn, Sonata in E flat (No.52), Telemann/Reger, Liszt 3 Concert Studies, Don Juan Fantasy Jorge was generous with encores. Chopin: Nocturne in F minor, Op.55 No.1, Moszkowski: La Jongleuse, Op.52 No.4, Chopin/Godowsky: Etude in G-flat major, Op.10 No.5 (Study No.7 in G-flat major), Liszt: Valse-Impromptu, S.213 and Saint-Saëns/Godowsky: The Swan (from Carnival of the Animals). Dr G. de Koos & Co. Management organised the concert - the company had handled JB's first European tour in 1935. Jorge hadn't been completely absent from the UK in the 1970s, cf. March 1973 (Birmingham) Oct/Dec 1974 (London), but these few events had been orchestral concerts. But it was in 1977 that he he was to have a big, possibly his biggest break - with a long-term record contract for a major international label, Decca; this was to bring him the fame he had sought for so long. ​ Edward Greenfield in The Guardian : 'Some years ago they issued records of the legendary pianist Josef Hofmann made from the piano rolls he cut in the 1920s, using the highly sophisticated Duo-Art system. I was sceptical that piano articulation at high speed could ever have been so miraculously clear and even. 'I still wonder whether some touching up was done on the actual rolls, but here was a pianist absurdly under-appreciated in this country who had me believing in the Hofmann legend after all. As Mr Bolet demonstrated over and over again, that miraculous clarity is achievable by human fingers in live performance. (...) It is not often that we have piano-tigers even from across the Atlantic pouncing to such effect.

10 July 1979 Teatro Solís, Montevideo, Uruguay 30th anniversary of SODRE (Servicio Oficial de Difusión, Representaciones y Espectáculos; Official Service for Broadcasting, Performances and Entertainment) in con junction with the Embassy of the USA Liszt's Sonata, Funerailles and his Transcendental Études 7, 6, 12, 9 and 8. (JB's first appearance in the country) ​El País (Montevideo): Inimitable style. He is a gigantic man, and possesses a musical and pianistic talent that is in perfect harmony with his physique. He has the almost mythical grandeur of the Romantic tradition, inherited directly from Liszt, complemented by the rigour and control of a contemporary instrumentalist. He possesses a mechanism of infinite possibilities, but what matters in him is the flight, the imagination, and the brilliant musical intuition with which he uses those means (lo que importa en él es el vuelo, la imaginación, la genial intuición musical…) The presence of this artist is an event and for Montevideo a revelation. Unfortunately, this revelation was enjoyed by a group of pianists and a small core of discerning, aficionados. Those that stayed home missed what might be considered one of the culminating recitals of the last decade. What Jorge Bolet does with list music surely has few parallels in our time. “I am an old-fashioned pianist (pianista anticuado) to many,” he comments with a smile. “Of course," he adds, "I received the Lisztian style directly from his disciple Rosenthal, and now I am trying to transmit my own interpretations, and I hope they too will remain 'old-fashioned' in this vein." It is like rediscovering Liszt; it is like suddenly encountering an authentic poetic world in which virtuosity is not an external means to dazzle but a fundamental reason that conditions all artistic creation of a period. A few years ago, another talented American, Earl Wild, had already given us a glimpse of what can be achieved with musical virtuosity. But Earl Wild focused on Liszt's gentler, more volatile side;in contrast, Bolet delved more deeply into his dramatic interior without losing the exquisite formal craftsmanship. Funerailles had a totally unusual, reflective repose. It wasn't the ostentatious display of spectacular power that is usually the case, but rather the reflection of a painful experience being recalled. In the Transcendental Studies (several of which have hardly ever been heard here), Bolet's pianistic richness was transfigured into true musical magic. His dynamic range allows him a variety of planes that never settle for the ordinary chiaroscuro. He reaches the most resonant and overwhelming fortissimo without straining the instrument. One senses that behind that fortissimo there is still room for an even more resonant accentuation, and when this occurs it has a shaking power. But in the pianissimo zone, his possibilities for colouration (aided by an wise, infallible use of pedal) achieve prodigious effects of atmosphere and nuance. Everything in his playing is so lucid and so clear that in the most profound (dense?) moments of the Sonata, these passages seemed to be revealing areas that, until that moment, had remained nebulous. But this clarity is not the stark and objective attempt to X-ray a score (as happens with many current analytical pianists) but rather the result of an infallible musicality served by a technique that can do anything. Regarding Bolet's open and elastic rhythm, there, the old Romantic tradition is most evident in all its splendour. It had been many years since we felt the eloquence of the "rubato" applied with such tact, naturalness, and good taste. This cannot be learned; it is in the very essence of the work and is the natural pulse of all 19th-century writing. Anyone who doesn't grasp it instinctively and recognize it as an essential part of the structure will always give an impression of contrivance. In Jorge Bolet's work, Liszt's music grows into a work of art and not as a mere will-o'-the-wisp, because the performer has redefined its authenticity through a performance style that is completely inimitable. W. Roldán Washington Roldán (1921–2001) was a highly respected Uruguayan music and dance critic. Based in Montevideo, he was a prominent figure in the country's cultural landscape, serving as a lead arts and music writer for the major newspaper El País and the Centro Cultural de Música. He was born in Paysandú on January 23, 1921. He came to Montevideo in 1941 to study law, but music proved more compelling. In Montevideo, he met Lauro Ayestarán, who helped him find his way in journalism and musicology. His friendship with the composer Héctor Tosar began at the Faculty of Law. In 1947, he began writing for the newspaper El País, where he continued until 2000. Simultaneously, he wrote dance reviews under the pseudonym Fígaro en Marcha, and was also a correspondent for Buenos Aires Musical and the magazine Clave. In 1962, he left for the United States, where he worked for eight years as a diplomat in Washington, D.C., while also enjoying his extensive musical output. Upon his return to Argentina in 1970, he resumed his role as a critic. El País a few days later, on 15 July Jorge Bolet's hatreds are as strong as his loves. One of them, curiously, is Berlioz, whose "Symphonie Fantastique" he detests and considers "totally artificial." Bolet knows that in his antipathy for Berlioz he "is a minority of one," but he feels more supported in his criticisms of modern music, but he admits to liking Penderecki and Ginastera. He considers himself fortunate with the critics, with the exception of the Dutch ones. "In Amsterdam, the critics don't accept music that isn't intellectual Bolet is a great admirer of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which (agreeing with this columnist) he considers the best in the world. "Their esprit de corps is admirable, and it's the only orchestra in the whole world that can play splendidly even with a very bad conductor." Despite his physical robustness, he does not belong to the breed of tireless workers: "Mentally, I study a lot, but I dedicate relatively little time to piano practice. I’ve always had a great facility for the habit of being able to keep works under my fingers. From a young age, I imposed a rule on myself: I am not going to be a slave to the piano. It is the piano that is going to be my slave." (Notes by E. F.)

I'm not on Facebook but I occasionally come across interesting things on sites that are public. Gusztáv Fenyő wrote a few months ago on historian of pianists Mark Ainley's page: 'I played for Bolet in Sydney when he was on tour (1977): Chopin's fourth ballade. He was very complimentary. When I asked him, do you play much Beethoven, he answered "You don't have to play Beethoven to be a good pianist". Then he proceeded to play me some Chopin-Godowsky....a lovely man.' How lovely to see this comment, and it has developed into a trip down memory lane. I studied with Mr Fenyő during 1983-84, when I was a final-year student (of Classics - Latin and Greek) at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. I recall talking about Jorge Bolet with him, and in fact I worked on the Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in C sharp minor and Beethoven's Sonata No. 30 Op.109 in E major in those lessons. He was a very exciting teacher and I still remember vividly thibgs from those lessons. I regret not doing some Bártok (or did I do the 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs Sz. 71, BB 79?) (And much, much later, I taught myself Hungarian, but not so well.) I still marvel at his career trajectory. Born to Hungarian parents, he grew up in Buenos Aires (he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay but his family moved across the Rio de la Plata 4 days later, he tells me), then moved to Australia at the age of 15 in 1965... and eventually to Glasgow! I've been to Buenos Aires a few times over the years, but in those early untravelled days I recall asking him if he nipped over to Acapulco for the weekend...Oops! I recently contacted him again via email and it was a happy trip down memory lane. He graduated from the NSW Conservatorium, Sydney in 1969 aged 19. On 26 February 1970, Fred Blanks (whose reviews of Jorge Bolet are on this site) reviewed Gustáv Fenyő in a Prom Concert with the Sydney Symphony and John Hopkins, in Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 4 ("a very fluent and expressive account"). Located on the edge of the Royal Botanic Garden in central Sydney, the Conservatorium was oiginally commissioned in 1817 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie (who was born on the island of Ulva off the coast of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands off the West Coast of Scotland), the building was designed by prominent ex-convict architect Francis Greenway. Intended originally as the stables and servants’ quarters for the governor's house, the castellated structure is a rare Australian example of the Old Colonial Gothick Picturesque architectural style. (I always think when I see it that it's something out of a Sir Walter Scott novel.) Gusztáv Fenyő (aged 27) and Piers Lane were finalists in the Sydney International Piano Competition in 1977 (16 July - 4 August) , but JB was not an adjudicator then - though he was later. (Fenyő was in Sydney from 1965 to 1971 and then again, after his studies in Europe, from 1975 to 1978.) In July 1979, GF played in Perth with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Hiroyuki Iwaki in a concerto commemorating the 150th year of the foundation of Western Australia. You can see Gusztáv Fenyő on YouTube in the Beethoven sonatas; this link is to No.30 Op.109 in E major, which I studied with him. It was filmed on 21 October 2021 at The Cathedral of The Isles, Millport, Isle of Cumbrae - close to my own home town in Scotland, a little farther down the coast. The pianist's website adds further detail: Since settling in Glasgow in 1980, Gusztáv Fenyő has been one of Scotland’s leading musicians. He is well-known for his cycles of works by one composer, including Beethoven’s 32 Sonatas, which he performed in both Glasgow (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) and Edinburgh (Queen’s Hall) in 1990. Related to the great Hungarian violinist, Joseph Joachim, Gusztáv Fenyő first came into prominence as a teenager when he won the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s annual concerto competition playing Liszt’s E flat concerto. Following a period of study in London with Artur Schnabel’s disciple, Maria Curcio (1971-73), he continued his studies under Pál Kadosa (whose students include György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Arpad Joó (who conducted Bolet), András Schiff, Zoltán Kocsis, Dezső Ránki) and Vilmos Tátrai at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. While in Budapest, he gave numerous Hungarian premières by composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez, Xenakis, Cage and Takemitsu, as well as premièring works, some dedicated to him, by Hungarian composers, including Kurtág, Sári, Serei and Csapó. (He played some of this modern music in Glasgow recitals, and a friend told me that after one piece, Mr Fenyő said, "Excuse me a moment, while I wipe my blood off the keys!") Gusztáv Fenyő's blog has an interesting point about tempos: "Play what is written" (September 2017) The Australian Jewish News, 7 April 1977 23 June 1979

Jorge's date book said he flew from New York to Mexico City on 31 May 1982. I’ve just spent an afternoon in the British Library looking through microfilms of a major Mexico City newspaper, El Universal (more to come, hopefully a review). I had originally dated the orchestral concerts to June 1981. He gave two orchestral performances: 4 & 6 June, 1982 Sala Nezahualcóyotl., Mexico City Franck, Symphonic Variations Rachmaninoff, Variations on a theme of Paganini Enrique Diemecke and the Orquesta Filarmonica de le UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) And there was a solo recital on Saturday, 5 June, in the Palacio de la Antigua Escuela de Medecina: Mendelssohn, Schumann and Schubert/Liszt Mendelssohn, Fantasie in F sharp minor, Op.26 "Scottish" Schumann Fantasy in C major Op.17 Liszt/Schubert + Mephisto Waltz [?] Enrique Arturo Diemecke (born July 9, 1952) is a Mexican conductor, violinist and composer. He is currently the Artistic General Director of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and music director of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic and the Flint Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, United States. Manuel Monroy interviewed JB and reviewed the concerts for El Universal (10.6.1982). Jorge said that he had left his house in California last June (1981) and had still not returned. He had given 24 concerts in 16 cities in Australia, 12 in Germany, and then in Vienna, Holland, Spain, Italy. He will return to England to play at the Edinburgh Festival.. From Mexico, he will go to Lima, Peru for the first time, and from there to Santiago de Chile, Montevideo, Brazil and then he will return to Lima (and thence to the USA for a tour there). Going back and forth from one country to the next is a living hell (hace que la vida se convierta verdaderamente en un infierno): change of food, hotels, climates and customs - overwhelming!. "I plan to retire in two years' time".

A newspaper review dated 26 May 1980 mentions a concerto with Armando Krieger and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Sodre (in Montevideo, Uruguay). It featured Uruguayan composer. León Biriotti's Symphony No. 3, "in memoriam Lauro Ayestarán" and Jorge playing Rachmaninoff 3 This score, which is important, dates back some 12 years (1968) and is only now being considered. The symphony, over 20 minutes long, masterfully utilizes rhythms and sound textures (it features a very rich percussion section: tom-tom, wood block, marimba, cymbals, triangle, vibraphone, bass drum, gong, celesta, plano, timpani, and bells, employing a total of seven instrumentalists for this section alone, in addition to the full orchestra) and culminates in a non-literal, but distinctly pronounced, evocation of Montevideo's candombe—reminiscent of some of Lauro Ayestarán's works—which closes the piece with verve and splendor. It was very well received, which is encouraging, although Biriotti's aesthetic is currently taking a different path than that of the more or less traditional symphony. 'At that same concert, one had the opportunity to witness a true master of the piano: the Cuban-American Jorge Bolet. A legendary and towering performer, over 60 years old, with supernatural drive and touch, at the highest possible level. Bolet's generous sound and digital precision shone in a work like Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, Op. 30, which seems written specifically to exhaust pianists and dazzle the audience. Yielding to the audience's fervor, Bolet granted two sentimental pieces as encores (Rachmaninoff and Moskowski) that sounded like music simply because they were played by this pianist. 'The case of Jorge Bolet is instructive, for, on the surface, we are faced with a formidable performer who knows—or doesn't want to know—nothing about musical progress or the evolution of the art of performance. He is a genius of the piano, but perhaps, paradoxically, not a great artist. The choice of his programmes (last year he gave an incredible Liszt Festival performance, which thrilled everyone present, including this writer), and the two encores show a remarkable performer who lacks a historical sense in his selection of works. Thus, Bolet belongs to a species on the verge of extinction. He is multifaceted (?), despite his quality as a soloist.' As can be seen from this bird's-eye view, in a short time, we were presented with instances of complex interpretation, each with its own merits. A little-known composer (Bruckner), a visiting ballet that disappointed, the confirmation of a great artist (Lukas Graf), and the highs and lows of another celebrated name (Jorge Bolet) alongside a premiere by Biriotti. The Symphony No. 3, which is interesting for many reasons, beginning with being a national work, offered something for everyone. Carlos Gasset, La Semana de El Día N° 72, 31-may-1980 Spanish: En ese mismo concierto se tuvo ocasión de contemplar un monstruo sagrado del piano. El cubano-estadounidense Jorge Bolet. ejecutante legendario y gigante, de más de 60 años, con un impulso y "tocco" sobrenaturales, al mejor nivel possible. El generoso sonido y la pulcritud digital de Bolet pudieron lucir en una obra como el Tercer Concierto op 30, de Rachmaninoff, que parece escrito a propósito para matar pianistas y deslumbrar al público. Cediendo al fervor del auditorio, Bolet concedió dos ñoñerías como bis. (Rachmaninoff. Moskowski) que parecieron música por ser hechas por este pianista. El caso de Jorge Bolet es aleccionante. pues, en apariencia, estamos ante un intérprete formidable que no sabe—o no quiere saber— nada referente al progreso musical o sobre la evolución del arte interpretativo. Es un genio del piano, pero tal vez. paradójicamente, no un gran artista. La elección de sus programas (el año pasado hizo un Festival Llszt Increíble, que entusiasmó a todos los presentes. incluido quien escribe), y los dos bis muestran a un notable ejecutante que carece de sentido histórico en la elección de las obras. Así que Bolet se inscribe dentro de una especie en vias de extinción. a varias puntas, a despecho de su calidad como solista. Como podra apreciarse en esta vista a vuelo de pájaro, se estuvo, en corto tiempo, ante instancias de interpretación compleja, todas con su qué ver. Un autor poco difundido (Bruckner). un ballet visi tante que defraudó, la confirmación de un gran artista (Lukas Graf) y las luces y sombras de otro nombre célebre (Jorge Bolet) al lado de un estreno de Biriotti. La Sinfonía N° 3. que interesa por muchos motivos, comenzando por ser una obra nacional Hubo para todos los gustos.

El Comercio (Lima, Perú), 23 July 1983 Jorge Bolet's second visit (after 1982) to Peru and the The City of Kings, Ciudad de los Reyes. Monday 25 July 1983 in the Auditorio Santa Ursula, Lima. He had arrived in Lima on Monday 18th at 5:20am. There were orchestral rehearsals on 20 and 22. This was a dangerous time to be in Peru. ​Sendero Luminoso, a notorious terrorist organisation, was orchestrating a brutal campaign for against the country. 23 July 1983 (Saturday) in Arequipa, Peru, the second most populated city of the country, and birthplace of Peruvian author and Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) Schumann, Fantasiestücke Brahms, Handel variations Liszt, Petrarch Sonnets & Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 Jorge then flew back to the capital on the 24th. 25 July 1983 Auditorio Santa Úrsula, Lima, Peru C. Franck, Symphonic Variations Rachmaninoff, Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op.18 Orquesta Sinfónica de la Escuela de Música/ Peruvian conductor Armando Sánchez Málaga The auditorium was on Av. Santo Toribio 150, in the upmarket suburb of San Isidro. Jorge then travelled to Brazil, but he was back in Lima for a recital on Wednesday, 3 August 1983: Schumann, Brahms, Liszt (same as Arequipa, 23rd)

Manuel Reguera Saumell recalls Jorge Bolet in Camagüey Born in the old Francisco sugar mill in Cuba, when Gerardo Machado began his first term in office (1928), Manuel Reguera Saumell studied Architecture at the University of Havana, worked on the Master Plan for Havana as an urban planner, wrote very successful plays and left Cuba more than half a century ago for Barcelona, ​​the land of his paternal ancestors, where he had already lived as a child. His novel La noche era tan joven y nosotros tan hermosos ("The Night Was So Young and We Were So Beautiful") is probably one of the most revealing books of the years preceding the triumph of the 1959 Revolution, with an intrigue in which the homoerotic ingredient (the change of sexual orientation of one of the characters in the plot) makes him a sharp narrator in this field. ―When I was 14, I was sent to Camagüey to study at the Escolapios in this city. I was locked up for five years, during which the only contact with the outside world was the masses in the beautiful neo-Gothic church of the boarding school. I don't remember anything special about that school of priests. Everything was stupidly normal. The only one who was a little different was Father Ullastres, who taught music and had noticed that I was a little different from my classmates, almost all of them country bumpkins (casi todos guajiros catetos), sent by their wealthy families to study at that institute. The only student who knew that Beethoven was not a player on the Almendares team was me. That's why Father Ullastres took me to the Teatro Principal and there he introduced me to the great Jorge Bolet after he had played Chopin during an unforgettable concert (mid-1940s?). The Escolapios were known for having a very good basketball team, but I wasn't interested in sports. Francisco was the name of the founder of the sugar factory, the Asturian Francisco Rionda Polledo, who built it in 1899 a few kilometers from the port of Guayabal, southeast of Camagüey, and which is now called Amancio Rodríguez. From an interview in January 2022, the year the author died

A fellow student in the same year as Jorge Bolet (1927) was Sidney Foster (born in Florence, South Carolina, in 1917) who was aged 10, the youngest student Curtis ever took. (In 1968 Foster, a Professor at Indiana School of Music 1952-77, was to coax Bolet there from Spain as a teaching colleague.) Imelda Delgado in a book on Foster relates a shocking event in which in 1929 the young Sidney was dismissed from Curtis for being a "bad boy", though it later turned out that individuals in the school's administration had been embezzling funds from his Miami sponsors and somehow shifted the blame in an incident of "contrived mendacity". When Foster returned to Curtis, in 1934, he studied with Saperton until his graduation in 1938. Among the other students were Nadia Reisenberg, Shura Cherkassky and the now-forgotten Lucie Stern. Born in 1913, a year earlier than Bolet, Stern died in 1938. In 1925, one year after Curtis's founding, Josef Hofmann had accepted 11-year-old Lucie Stern into his highly competitive piano studio. She was born in Riga, Latvia. Hofmann served as her examiner during the audition, and immediately accepted Stern as his pupil. In addition to piano, Stern’s other main area of study was composition under Rosario Scalero. Stern’s classmates at Curtis, including Shura Cherkassky (Piano '35) and Jorge Bolet (Piano '34), remember her as a free spirit who found it difficult to cope with the rigid structure espoused by Curtis at the time. Her inability to thrive became so evident that Hofmann, in December 1927, took the unprecedented step of granting her permission to live in New York and commute to Philadelphia on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for her lessons at Curtis. Unfortunately, despite an increasingly successful solo career outside Curtis (The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in 1926 that Stern 'possess[ed] a talent which is met with only once or twice in a musical generation') this accommodation of Hofmann's proved insufficient, and Stern was dismissed from the institute after the 1929 spring semester. From Curtis archives website The Houston Chronicle (2 October 1927) mention s that "Little Jack Gregory Abram [from Texas] has won the scholarship at the Curtis Institute which will ensure his musical education. Isn't that grand! David Saperton, Mrs Spofford, and several others examined him. Jack said that Mr Saperton walked all around and viewed him from all angles, but it did not disconcert him." Jacques Abram (August 6, 1915 – October 5, 1998), born Jack Gregory Abram an American classical pianist, was born in Lufkin, Texas. Abram began improvising at age 3 and performing in public at age 6. As a youth he studied with Ima Hogg and Ruth Burr of Houston. At the urging of Ignace Jan Paderewski and Josef Hofmann, who had heard Abram in concert, his parents enrolled him in the Curtis Institute, where he studied with David Saperton. At age 13, Abram transferred to the Juilliard School, where he continued his studies with Ernest Hutcheson. Abram debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall performing the MacDowell D minor concerto. In 1948, Abram gave the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's piano concerto in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1949 he gave the work its New York premiere under the baton of Leopold Stokowski, and on January 25, 1956 he was soloist in the work's first recording, with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Herbert Menges.

During a tour of South America in 1983, Jorge had two dates in Peru. He admited that some countries he visited were politically unstable and sometimes dangerous. However he also mentioned to his friend Mattheus Smits that these countries were known for having attentive audiences of some highly cultured people. I am aware of the general situation in Peru at this time, but I recently looked at the specific political situation in July 1983. and it was grim I need to confirm that Jorge actually went! Lima 23 July 1983 (Saturday) Arequipa, Peru Schumann, Fantasiestücke Brahms, Handel variations Liszt, Petrarch Sonnets & Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 *Birthplace of Peruvian author and Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) 25 July 1983 Lima, Perú with Peruvian conductor Armando Sánchez Málaga & Orquesta Sinfónica de la Escuela de Música. ​ In July 1983, Peru was in a severe political and security crisis, defined by the rapid escalation of the Maoist/terrorist Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) insurgency and a nationwide state of emergency. President Fernando Belaúnde Terry was under intense pressure, facing both armed conflict and economic damage from the El Niño phenomenon. The Shining Path terrorised the high Andes, causing severe violence, including the April 1983 Lucanamarca massacre. By July 1983, the group was active, with the government responding with a 60-day nationwide state of emergency declared in early June 1983. While the primary Shining Path conflict was concentrated in Ayacucho, the insurgency began to spread throughout the southern sierra, creating tension and increased security monitoring in regional hubs like Arequipa. In early July 1983, a wave of bombings rocked Lima, creating a fear of attacks during the July 29th military parade. on 21 July there was a blackout; the terrorists successfully blacked out the capital, a common tactic used to create chaos before launching ground assaults. Following the blackout, attacks were carried out against several high-profile targets, including police stations. Jorge Chávez International Airport was targeted as part of the broader offensive. Sendero Luminoso was founded in the late 1960s by Abimael Guzmán, a philosophy professor. They launched their "people's war" on May 17, 1980, by burning ballot boxes in the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho, on the eve of Peru's first democratic elections in over a decade.