<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1250"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.5.7036.0"> <TITLE>Olga Kern</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY>  Olga Kern played last night at University of Houston, Moores Opera House.  By some strange twist of the fates my wife and I ended up third row, center- maybe 12 feet from her.  Oh my gracious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I flinched a number of times when she crashed into the keys with a force I've not often seen.  It wasn't one of the school pianos, so had to be adapted to the environment. Evidently Yamaha sent a tech to do the action work, but Avery Todd did the tunings.  I have heard a very few tuners in Houston whose work enters into the realm of "art", and Avery certainly is one of them. I could have a ball just sitting quietly at a piano he's tuned and listening to intervals and sounds and balance and all that stuff.    I had to hope that some little thing might go the tiniest bit out, thus proving that no piano can be perfectly tuned, and after an hour and a half of incredibly powerful playing the tuners in the crowd might have noted a note or two struggling to slip a bit.    It was a totally "wow" kind of evening, not only aesthetically in terms of music, but in having some small idea of the level of intuitive work and experience required to present an instrument so fabulously.    Kudos to those who can regularly walk in those rarefied technical realms with confidence. les bartlett -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.441 / Virus Database: 268.17.35/680 - Release Date: 02/10/2007 9:15 PM   </BODY> </HTML>