Roman Rudnytsky is about to play his second piece of the evening at the Marriott. He doesn't play it. He preps the audience about what to expect from the Beethoven's piece. “It is a sonata in four movements. Each movement is like an Act in a play.
There are compositions with even three or two movements. The composers before Beethoven like Mozart or Haydn composed in a certain format. Beethoven rewrote the rules, he was much ahead of his time,” Roman Rudnytsky tells the audience and in a few words gives a grasp of what he is playing, in what context it has to be heard, and a brief history of music.
Roman Rudnytsky can easily be called an evangelist of piano having played in 95 countries including places like Chad, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and even some Micronesia islands. “I am not a prima donna who will play only on a Steinway Grand, I will play on a Clavinova or an upright. No, I don't play on the keyboard,” he says.
A first generation American, whose brother is a cellist and both the parents musicians, it was natural that Roman take up music. He gave his first performance at 7 in Toms River near New Jersey.
“Music was part of our lives but we had a normal childhood. There was no pressure to perform or expectations to live up to. Yes, it helps that music is so much a part of your life you are almost steeped in music,” he says.
At a time when music recordings attain perfection, Roman is a firm believer in live music. “Live performances have a magical quality about them. It is something that happens in a moment and then it is gone. Even the albums that I sell are about live performances. When people come to listen to a live performance and they don't match up to the recordings, they feel disappointed. Whereas, if I am selling music which is a live performance, the audience never feels cheated when they compare it with the recording they have at home,” says Roman, giving his take on the sale of music.
