Prodigy debuts with Pacific Symphony

Carl St.Clair was back on the Pacific Symphony podium Thursday night for the first time since March. His program featured a pair of big and familiar Russian masterpieces and a Czech rarity. The piano soloist was to be the starry sensation Yuja Wang but she was indisposed. A 16-year-old whiz kid stepped in to take her place and no one seemed to mind.
Conrad Tao is his name. He is an accomplished pianist, violinist, composer and scholar who is currently studying in the pre-college division at Juilliard. His résumé already fills three columns impressively. Rachmaninoff's swashbuckling "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" was his calling card here, taken over from Wang.

Sixteen year-old pianist Conrad Tao, who replaced Yuja Wang, performs Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" with Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony on June 2, 2011.

Tao did a very nice thing when he came on stage to greet the audience – he smiled. It was an easy smile with a little "aw shucks" in it and it had, I venture, everyone rooting for him from the get-go. Not that there was anything to worry about.

The kid can play, and his assurance was immediately evident. He listened to what he played, too, shaping phrases intelligently, inflecting rhythms crisply, pausing with pregnant meaning. His technique allowed him to get around the keyboard without labor; the results were clean, clear and warm.