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Legendary pianist Misha Dichter to perform with LSCO

Leora Zeitlin

Misha Dichter has had an illustrious career spanning more than 50 years – performing with the world’s great orchestras and musicians, making dozens of recordings, and all the while delighting in repeatedly analyzing each piece of music to discover something new. “It’s so exciting – you’re having a conversation every day with the composer,” he told Intermezzo host Leora Zeitlin.

Though he started studying piano at age four, Dichter says that hearing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as a teenager is what changed his life. He realized that “nothing meant as much to me in life as [music]. And that I could actually touch it in the form of playing the piano meant that much more to me.” Dichter has faced challenges, including two bouts of the hereditary disease Dupuytren’s Contracture, which almost halted his career. He talked about overcoming the disease, two different traditions of piano playing, the music of George Gershwin and several other composers, and more in this interview, which also included Lonnie Klein, artistic director of the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra. Dichter will perform Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F with the LCSO in two concerts on Saturday night at 7:30 and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Atkinson Recital Hall.

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