Tuesday, July 12, 2016 would have been the 82nd birthday of celebrated American pianist Van Cliburn, who died in 2013. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, Van Cliburn's 1958 win in the Soviet Union’s first International Tchaikovsky Competition was a welcome sign of warmth in the midst of Cold War tensions.
http://youtu.be/d4Z1e6HWV3Y
Watch Van Cliburn play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.3 in 1958 in Moscow:
http://youtu.be/apNTq-Tgf4w
Video of Van Cliburn playing the first movement from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Moscow in 1962:
http://youtu.be/-M7M4UoqBpA
VanCliburnProfile070714SLLF.mp3
Listen to more of Susan Lewis' conversation with Russian-born pianist Inna Lobanova-Heasley about how Van Cliburn and his music were received in Russia at the 1958 competition, and in the years following. Inna reflects about the impact Van Cliburn had on her growing up in Russia, and his immense popularity in her homeland.
