The legendary Ukrainian pianist Alexander Brailowsky was born in Kiev on the 16th of February in 1896. He took his first piano lessons from his father and later studied at the Kiev Conservatory, graduating with a gold medal in 1911. He continued his studies in Vienna, Zürich, and Paris, and made his concert debut in Paris in 1919.

Brailowsky specialized in the music of Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin. He was the first pianist in history to perform all 218 solo piano works of Chopin in a series of six recitals. He presented this series for the first time in Paris in 1924 and presented it thirty more times in cities in Europe, North America, and South America. One of those series, in 1960, was in honor of the 150th anniversary of Chopin’s birth.

Alexander Brailowsky passed away in New York City in 1976 at the age of eighty. Although he was a Chopin specialist, his repertoire included works by many other composers, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Camille Saint-Saëns, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy, and others. On Friday, February 16th at 6:00pm, KCME’s Back in the Day will honor Brailowsky on the 128th anniversary of his birth. Please join me for a stunning performance of one of the most popular piano concertos ever written, featuring one of the greatest pianists of all time, Alexander Brailowsky.