Chopin Society announces new season

The Chopin Society has announced the guest pianists who will play recitals in St. Paul in the 2010-11 season. Performers for 2010-11 include a number of veterans of the international concert stage:

Croatian pianist Kemal Gekic on Oct. 10.

Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti on Nov. 14.

Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz, 2005 Gold Medal Winner of the International Chopin Competition, on Feb. 6, 2011.

legendary Russian pianist Elisso Virzaladze on April 17, 2011. The season also includes a free lecture-recital on Shostakovich's Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87 on October 22, with Macalester Associate Professor of Music Mark Mazullo. All of the concerts are at 3 p.m. on Sunday. The fall concert dates will take place in the concert hall at Janet Wallace Finde Arts Center at Macalester College. The spring 2011 concerts will move to Sundin Hall at Hamline University, while the Macalester arts venue undergoes a major renovation. The Chopin Society has a reputation as a small-venue showcase for first-rate talent, mostly from outside the United States. It featured the young Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin in 2006, and Sudbin has since then signed on to record Beethoven piano concertos with the Minnesota Orchestra. At just 22, Chinese native Yuja Wang wowed the Star Tribune's critic with her Chopin Society recital in March 2009. "She is well beyond adjectives like 'promising,' " wrote Larry Fuchsberg of Wang. "She is a finished artist of formidable range and depth." Wang went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award. Tickets: 612-822-0123, or go to www.chopinsocietymn.org.