Classical music has by and large been late to the online party, but Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa has had what may become seen as an archetypical classical career for the Internet age. Emigrating from Ukraine to the U.S., and possessed of a formidable technique built up since age three, she found herself in competition with a host of other above-average pianists from the former East Bloc, and her career went nowhere. She happened to try out YouTube just as that medium was exploding, and her steely speed hit a ...
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Classical music has by and large been late to the online party, but Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa has had what may become seen as an archetypical classical career for the Internet age. Emigrating from Ukraine to the U.S., and possessed of a formidable technique built up since age three, she found herself in competition with a host of other above-average pianists from the former East Bloc, and her career went nowhere. She happened to try out YouTube just as that medium was exploding, and her steely speed hit a sweet spot, racking up hit counts numbering in the tens of millions. Even that did not immediately attract recording companies, but she and her husband sunk $250,000 of their own money into a series of Rachmaninov recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra, heard here, and some associated concerts. Mob-level crowds at those concerts finally did the trick, and the four Rachmaninov concertos plus the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, were released on Decca in 2013, four years...
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