For KSO guest artist Adam Golka, music makes the man

Adam Golka

Adam Golka

Try to find American pianist Adam Golka on a day off and you may find him, as I did, walking around in a Philadelphia neighborhood looking for the house where the great Rudolph Serkin once lived.

A first-generation American, Golka's parents immigrated from Poland in the 1980s. His older brother, Tomasz, is a conductor.

Like many young classical musicians, Golka - who will perform Rachmoninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor" with the Knoxville Symphony Thursday and Friday, March 25 and 26 - doesn't have much of a life that doesn't involve music in one way or another.

"I think the nature of the musical life lends itself to corrupting things like friends taking you out drinking," Golka said, when asked what he did for fun.

"I think I have enough fun. I enjoy what I do too much to need to just play. Being on stage, for me, is such an adrenaline rush, it is a real highlight. It's a thrill anticipating whether or not the audience will respond. They might hate me and I'll be booted off the stage," Golka said.

At only 22, Golka keeps a busy schedule that includes recitals and chamber music concerts, as well as orchestral performances.

In January, he performed with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, with the KSO's assistant conductor James Fellenbaum on the podium.

Just two weeks ago, he gave his Carnegie Hall debut in New York, with the New York Youth Symphony.

In May, Golka will be part of a marathon performance of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas, all performed by students of Leon Fleisher. Golka will play seven of the sonatas, including the massive and energy-consuming "Hammerklavier Sonata," the "Piano Sonata No. 29 in B Flat Major," Op. 106. It comes at the end of the concert, after he has already played six others.

"It's going to be daunting," Golka said. "I'm trying to not think about it too much."

As for the Rachmaninoff "Third," Golka said, "When I first started playing it, I didn't think it was difficult. But now, I find it very difficult.

"It's drifting-like in its construction; very cluttered and hard to make sense of. It's very virtuosic, of course, but I don't think that's the point of it.

"In many ways, it's a kindred spirit with Mahler."

Also on this week's concert is another Rachmaninoff, his "Vocalise," a wordless song originally written in 1912 for piano and soprano. Rachmaninoff also arranged it for orchestra without soloist.

It's also been arranged by a lot of others for just about every combination imaginable.

Completing the program is Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 1 in F Minor," Op. 10, written as his conservatory graduation piece when he was only 20.

In response to his professor's criticism, Shostakovich took to calling it his "symphony-grotesque."

Harold Duckett is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.

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