Enjoy a beautiful classical concert and lunch with your fellow music fans on the first Friday of each month at St. John’s Lutheran Church, adjacent to La Villita in downtown San Antonio. The First Friday concerts begin this week on September 6 at noon, and pianist Zachary Ridgway stopped by Classical Connections to perform on our beautiful Steinway as a preview of his concert, which opens the series.
Ridgway says his program will feature music by Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt, and some of Earl Wild’s amazing and virtuosic transcriptions of songs by George Gershwin, including the very tricky “Fascinatin’ Rhythm.”
“I spent so much time learning that over the course of most of a summer,” Ridgway says. “It’s just one of the hardest things I’ve ever worked on! And then… I realized it was about 90 seconds long!”
“That’s the sort of thing that makes a pianist ask big questions, like, what am I doing with my life?” Ridgway joked. “[But] we get to concert day, and somehow it’s all worth it!”
The space itself where Ridgway and others will perform sounds beautiful. In the sanctuary at St. John’s Lutheran, the floor is cork, so it just creates wonderful resonance with the music. You’ll want to treat yourself to this program, and many others this fall.
Get details at: https://stjohnssa.org/music/first-friday-concert-series/
Listen to audio of this in-studio session using the player at the top of this page to hear more music from Zachary Ridgway.
