Pianist

The Champagne Bar at the Hotel Bel-Air is dark as a lair. Ice clinks as men and women on caramel-colored leather chairs and forest-green couches imbibe, converse and laugh. A roaring fire blasts light and warmth, which is welcome, despite the heat of a late-summer evening, because the air-conditioned room feels like an ice bucket. Against a wall, under giant paintings of swans, Antonio Castillo de la Gala -- dapper in a dark suit, striped tie and crisp shirt -- surveys his domain from his perch at a Yamaha baby grand piano.

In “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” keyboard virtuoso Mona Golabek essentially channels her mother, pianist Lisa Jura, and strikes musical and emotional notes that transcend technical display or biographical sentiment. This elegant, heartfelt solo show, which opened at the Geffen Playhouse's intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater on Wednesday, is an arresting, deeply affecting triumph. Based on Golabek's acclaimed book, "The Children of Willesden Lane," the narrative course reveals itself with almost casual assurance.

In “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” keyboard virtuoso Mona Golabek essentially channels her mother, pianist Lisa Jura, and strikes musical and emotional notes that transcend technical display or biographical sentiment. This elegant, heartfelt solo show, which opened at the Geffen Playhouse's intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater on Wednesday, is an arresting, deeply affecting triumph. Based on Golabek's acclaimed book, "The Children of Willesden Lane," the narrative course reveals itself with almost casual assurance.

NEW ORLEANS - Pianist Jon Cleary has lived in this city all of his life: Even when he didn't. Long before he saw it. And even when he was in forced exile from it. A musician by trade, a storyteller by consequence, Cleary has deeply absorbed New Orleans' pace and idiosyncrasies and, over time, its distinctive stories and sound. "My ambition," he says, "has always been to come to New Orleans. " Cleary, whose genre-bending style is steeped in early traditional New Orleans R&B, soul and funk, is not a household name but he's recorded and toured with marquee artists such as Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt (with whom he worked for more than a decade)

In her excellent piece on pianos in cinema ("The towering ivories," Jan. 5), focusing on the new film "The Pianist," Scarlet Cheng found room for the names of Roman Polanski, Wladyslaw Szpilman, Max Ophuls, Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, David Helfgott, Jane Campion, Holly Hunter, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Kahane and Christopher O'Riley, as well as those of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and the Fabulous Baker Boys. Couldn't she have squeezed in the name of the real-life pianist who played most of the piano music in "The Pianist," the talented Janusz Olejniczak?

Sofia Cosma, a concert pianist who defied long odds to rebuild her career after seven years in Soviet prison camps and later established herself as a performer and teacher in Southern California, died of natural causes Feb. 12 at a nursing home in Oxnard, said her daughter, Ilona Scott. Cosma was 96. Cosma's musical aspirations were dashed in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Cosma, who was Jewish, was attempting to rejoin her family in Latvia when she was arrested and incarcerated in a Siberian prison.

Because of illness, pianist Andre Previn has canceled his two appearances next month at the La Jolla Chamber Music Society's SummerFest '89. Society executive director Neale Perl announced Tuesday that Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman will replace Previn at both the Aug. 20 benefit concert and the Aug. 22 chamber music program. The 31-year-old pianist is a veteran of many festivals, the Hollywood Bowl, Ravinia, New York's Mostly Mozart and last season's local Batiquitos Festival.

Alexander Slobodyanik, 65, a Ukrainian-born pianist who was a star in the former Soviet Union before moving to the United States in the late 1980s, died Aug. 10 of meningitis at a hospital in Morristown, N.J. Born in Kiev on Sept. 2, 1942, Slobodyanik studied music at the prestigious Moscow Central Special Music School before moving on to the Moscow Conservatory. According to a New York Times obituary, he was recommended to the impresario Sol Hurok by pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

As you could prove by half the Westerns ever made, the saloon pianist is an American institution as old as the stagecoach and possibly even the livery stable. The black hats and the white hats might have been doing an indoor version of the shoot-out at the OK Corral, but the pianist kept playing his sleeve garters off, trying to restore order and a feeling for the finer things of life.

Esbjorn Svensson, 44, a Swedish jazz pianist whose fusion of lyrical melodies and rock-inspired electronics broke fresh ground in modern jazz, died Saturday in a diving accident off a small island near Stockholm. Police will conduct a routine investigation of the accident, said Burkhard Hopper, manager of the musician's band, the Esbjorn Svensson Trio. Svensson and his band won worldwide critical acclaim and several awards, including the Guinness Jazz in Europe Award, for their 2002 album "Strange Place for Snow."

"Sublime Schubert" is what the Los Angeles Philharmonic is calling this week of Schubert and nothing but. The festival began at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Monday night with a performance of the most beloved song cycle, "Die Schöne Müllerin," by possibly history's most beloved composer. And, yes, the scorching performance from baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Christoph Eschenbach was sublime, but not in the sense of a heavenly destination occasionally reached by way of the ridiculous.

Among the accolades heaped on Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés is a honorary citizenship from the city of New Orleans. "The mayor gave me the title," Valdés, 71, said recently, speaking by phone in Spanish and plainly savoring the memory. It's not the first time that New Orleans has swapped gifts with Cuba, or vice versa. Culturally, as well as economically, they've been locked in a centuries-long clench that has survived shifting musical currents, to say nothing of revolutions, economic embargoes and inflammatory political rhetoric.

One of the top jazz releases of the new year, "Guest House" by Trio M features pianist Myra Melford backed by bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson coursing through oblique-angled yet warm instrumentals. With Melford's rich melodies at the center of a host of deep-pocketed rhythms, the band continues jazz's legacy of avant-garde, in-the-moment exploration but never at the expense of accessibility. The Musicians Institute, 1655 N. McCadden Place, L.A. 8:30 p.m. Fri. $25. http://www.jazzbakery.com .

Clare Fischer, a Grammy-winning pianist, composer and arranger who crossed freely from jazz to Latin and pop music, working with such names as Dizzy Gillespie, George Shearing and Natalie Cole as well as Paul McCartney, Prince and Michael Jackson, has died. He was 83. Fischer died Thursday at Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank of complications from a heart attack he had two weeks ago, said family spokeswoman Claris Dodge. Although he entered professional music through jazz, his expansive creative perspective quickly grew to embrace many other musical areas.

Paul Motian, an influential and much-admired jazz drummer who first gained renown in the late 1950s as part of the Bill Evans Trio and later became a composer and the leader of his own groups, has died. He was 80. Motian died Tuesday at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City of complications from myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disorder, said Tina Pelikan, a spokeswoman for ECM Records. During his nearly six-decade career, Motian (pronounced like "motion") spent a substantial amount of time with two of the finest jazz pianists: Evans and Keith Jarrett.

The message of "Pianomania" is a simple one: to make the kind of beautiful music the great classical pianists create, you have to be obsessed with the search for the perfect sound. And you need the perfect accomplice as well. Which is where Stefan Knüpfer comes in. Officially known as the chief technician and master tuner for the Austrian branch of the great piano firm Steinway & Sons (already the subject of another fine documentary, "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037")

Among the San Diego brat pack studying at Juilliard these days, pianist Kenneth Bookstein has to work the hardest to stay in the public eye. Violinist Frank Almond Jr. kept the wire services humming this spring when he placed among the 12 finalists in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. And pianist David Korevaar--like Bookstein, a La Jolla High graduate--made headlines last fall when he won the $40,000 Peabody-Mason competition in Boston.

Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich has long been a pianist of acknowledged seriousness. At his London debut in 1961, his principal vehicle was Beethoven's "Diabelli" Variations; in Los Angeles appearances over the years, his programs have been nothing if not demanding.

Larry Zarian Former Glendale mayor and TV, radio host Larry Zarian, 73, a former mayor of Glendale and the first Armenian American to be elected to the City Council, died of blood cancer Thursday at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. Zarian also served as a board member for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and as a state transportation commissioner. He had his own local cable television show, "The Larry Zarian Forum," and also had hosted a talk-radio program on KIEV that focused on political issues.

Roger Williams, a pianist who was one of the most popular instrumentalists of the mid-20th century and who hit No. 1 on the pop charts in 1955 with his arpeggio-strewn "Autumn Leaves," has died. He was 87. Williams died Saturday at his Los Angeles home of complications from pancreatic cancer, his former publicist, Rob Wilcox, told the Associated Press. "The biggest thing I have to offer," Williams told Time magazine in 1968, "is emotion. I think I play with more feeling than any other pop pianist.