Sanders County Ledger - Your Best Source For Sanders County News

It's not every Monday that you get to hear live classical music in Thompson Falls. This week, however, the Clark Fork Enrichment Corporation (CFEC) was able to bring back a free concert for the community.

The Piatigorsky Foundation musicians Evan Drachman and Mary Au performed for an audience of more than 30 people Monday at Thompson Falls Christian Church. The performance was more than an hour long and Drachman said it was nice to be back in front of a live audience after the pandemic. "We enjoyed this tremendously and I hope we can come back sometime soon," Drachman said following the concert.

Drachman told the audience of his grandfather, Gregor Piatigorsky, a Ukrainian cellist who was born into a poor Jewish family. Piatigorsky fell in love with the cello and eventually was part of a trio dubbed "The Million Dollar Trio" by Life magazine, Drachman said.

The duo opened the performance with a trio of Robert Schumann's Fantasy Pieces. Drachman explained that his cello is 302 years old, being constructed in Venice in 1721. When Drachman graduated from high school in 1982 and moved to London to study the cello, it was the first time he saw that particular cello. He said that 10 years later at a music shop in New York City, the shop owner told him he had a cello Drachman had to see and it was the same one. From that day forward, it has belonged to Drachman. "I'm tremendously lucky to be able to play on this cello," he said.

The second piece Au and Drachman played was Rachmaninoff's Sonata in G Minor. Drachman said his grandfather was a friend of Rachmaninoff's and told the story of how Rachmaninoff was asked why he didn't write pieces for the violin. "He said, 'Why should I write for the violin when I have the cello.' I couldn't agree more," Drachman told the audience.

The final piece of Monday's concert in Thompson Falls was Chopin's Nocturne. Drachman explained that it was one of Chopin's piano pieces that had been arranged for the cello. The piece played Monday was arranged by Piatigorsky, Drachman's grandfather.

Annie Wooden

Mary Au

Au said she grew up in Hong Kong and at age 4 when she didn't like ballet lessons, she started the piano. Her father made her practice every day and she said he was glad he was so strict. Au is a former executive of the Grammy awards and said that she was working as the chief financial officer for an independent record label but was not happy. "One day I woke up and said, 'I've lost my soul.' So I came back to music," she explained.

Drachman said Piatigorsky Foundation has 10 traveling classical musicians who perform 220 concerts in 22 states each year. Monday was Au and Drachman's eighth concert in a week. He said that the pandemic was not the same, performing in front of a camera and to a microphone instead of a live audience. He said audiences continued to support the foundation throughout the pandemic. "We are just so happy to be back on the road and in front of live audiences."