I have always been a fan George Gershwin since I played his seminal Rhapsody in Blue a number of times as first trombonist in an accomplished youth orchestra. So, I was excited to hear about a special concert coming up in early September to support the Middleburg Concert Series.

Renowned classical pianist Thomas Pandolfi will perform on Saturday September 7th from 6-9pm. Playing on a rare 1877 Steinway Centennial Model D Concert Grand Piano at nearby Middleburg estate Elysian Fields, Pandolfi's performance will feature the works of George Gershwin and other contemporary composers, such as Hamlisch and Bernstein. Pandolfi has received wide critical acclaim for his interpretations of Gershwin and other composers across the classical repertoire. He is known as perhaps the finest interpreter of George Gershwin's piano songbook, including the sublime "3rd Piano Concerto in F" and "Rhapsody in Blue." This show will be extraordinary and there will only be 100 tickets available.

I recently sat down with Pandolfi to talk about his music and his career.

SC: Where are you originally from, and how did music become your life and career?

TP: I was born in Washington D.C. and raised in Maryland. My earliest memories of music are of my parents always playing classical music in the house. My father was a very good amateur pianist, and I soon loved classical piano music. Anytime there was a recording or radio broadcast and it featured piano and orchestra, I would get very excited about that.

At the early age of four years old, I would go over to the piano and play along, even though at that point I didn't know what I was doing. But what I was told, is that it was rhythmically and harmonically similar, and that's when my parents decided that I should start some lessons. My dad was actually my first teacher and then when my progress accelerated rapidly, he found another teacher that I stayed with until I went to Juilliard. I started performing when I was around 14 and then I went to Juilliard at 17. I was there for six years doing undergrad and graduate study.

SC: When you were a young performer, what music really resonated with you?

TP: The first composer who really turned me on to classical music was Franz Liszt. His music was attractive to me because of its drama and its power—it's brilliant and has extreme emotional impact. His music has technical brilliance that is almost acrobatic and very athletic. That aspect of that appealed to me in those very early days. I also was very attracted to the Russian Romantic literature by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Now today I generally say Chopin is my favorite composer.

SC: As you were beginning to perform at such a young age—some people have called you a prodigy who was doing amazing performances—do you recall an early breakthrough performance?

TP: Probably when I was 14 or 15. My teacher was a very strict. She focused me on classical and romantic repertoire written by Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. I played a debut kind of concert and it was reviewed very glowingly in the Washington Post. It was extremely well attended with lots of my teacher's colleagues and people in the music business. I would say that was a breakthrough for my early years.

SC: So, let's fast forward a couple of decades. You've been traveling around the country and around the globe performing both solo and with orchestras. What's been a very memorable performance for you recently?

TP: I guess here in the Washington D.C. area. I loved making my debut at Strathmore with the National Philharmonic because that's such a wonderful performing arts space.

I'm about to leave for my fourth tour of China actually next week. What struck me last time I was there, was the level of enthusiasm especially amongst younger people— I mean even kids-not just young adults- but kids— and they were all hanging on every note. I never had an audience there that was less than 3,000 people.

SC: You're going to be doing a program here in Middleburg and you're considered a leading Gershwin virtuoso. When did you begin to focus on George Gershwin's music?

TP: Before I tell you the story, I should point out that I will be playing Gershwin and a number of other composers at the Middleburg Concert. I am very excited to play the rare Steinway Centennial Model D at Elysian Fields.

At Juilliard, there is a performance contest each year. My second year there, my teacher suggested I enter the contest. He suggested I play the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F. I had never really played really much of any Gershwin, because as I told you, the teacher I had prior to Juilliard was very strict and had very specific ideas about repertoire that should be studied. Jazz influenced music just was not in the picture for my studies. But I loved that music, despite having never really studied it. I told him I don't know that piece off the top of my head, so I'll have to go to the library and listen. So, I went to the library and pulled the score and I put on the music and followed along. I immediately fell in love with this piece and I decided I would learn it and enter the competition.

What happens in the competition is that you have to play it with two pianos, one playing the solo part and the other a reduction of the orchestral part. And then if you win you get to make your debut at Lincoln Center with the orchestra. I ended up winning that competition, and played at Lincoln Center. Little did I know that in the audience was a very famous conductor, composer, family friend of Gershwin, and president of ASCAP, Morton Gould.

The next day Gould called the Dean of Juilliard and said he would like to meet the young man that played the Gershwin last evening. So, the Dean tells me I should go to Gould's office and bring my score. I went up to meet him and he had some very flattering things to say to me, he said that never since he had heard Gershwin play it himself had he heard such a convincing interpretation of that piece. So, I asked him if he would write that on my score, and he did, and then he asked me if I had played other Gershwin music, and I told him I had not. He said I had a real affinity for Gershwin and he encouraged me to pursue his music further and offered his help.

I became addicted to that kind of music and started to learn more and more of it, compositions such as "Rhapsody in Blue," the "Second Rhapsody," and the "I Got Rhythm" Variations for piano and orchestra. I learned the "Three Preludes" and soon the entire Gershwin songbook. Next, I began making my own transcriptions that started as improvisations but soon took a closer transcription form to the original compositions. I added a sizable amount of this music to my repertoire. And audiences really seem to like this crossover style that I do. If I play a classical program, I will add some of this material in at the end, kind of like a dessert for the performance.

SC: I've read you have an amazing ability on solo piano, to take orchestral pieces and distill them down to the piano where there's still a great deal of complexity and nuance. Would you talk about that?

TP: Yeah that's a great question. Following up what I just talked about on the transcriptions that I just mentioned: I began with Gershwin exclusively and then I started to focus on the composer that really turned me on when I was a small child. Franz Liszt would make these elaborate pieces he called paraphrases. He lived in the nineteenth century, so he would focus on operatic themes which were the big popular melodies of the time. He was also very well known for writing Gregorian rhapsodies which are all based on simple Hungarian folk dances. He transformed them into very elaborate, difficult, virtuosic showpieces. I took these as examples to try and do it with music from the more modern day. I made transcriptions on Bernstein's West Side Story, and Andrew Lloyd Weber's music, like Phantom of The Opera. I developed some Italian folk melodies, and even tried some Chinese folk melodies which I incorporated when I was in China. I worked this approach with holiday and Christmas melodies; I've done it with Marvin Hamlisch's music and also with Burt Bacharach and Barry Manilow melodies. These transcriptions allow the audience, and me as well, to hear some very familiar pop melodies in a whole different way—as a nineteenth century style, "big paint" transcription.

SC: What music do you listen to in your leisure time?

TP: I'm a big fan of the Swing Era, and music from the Rat Pack era with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. It was cool then and it retains that freshness even today. And then of course I love classical music and I love choral music. I think one of the hardest things to do on the piano is to make the piano sing. The more I can use the piano to reflect how a human voice sings or how a string performer plays, it really to my role as a musical interpreter.

SC: Thank you, Thomas. We look forward to the show in September and I wish you the best of luck on your latest international tour.

For tickets and more information on Pandolfi's Middleburg performance, go to www.middleburgconcerts.com , call: (540) 592-1660, or email middleburgconcerts@gmail.com. This month's Playlist is a selection of music that Pandolfi discussed with me, hear it here: tinyurl.com/y36no7qx

Steve Chase is in Unison with Gershwin on the stereo.