In the SLC’s Nordic Hall, Archie Richards will perform his second one-hour classical piano concert. It features the first movement of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata. For many years, this sonata remained Beethoven’s favorite even though he wrote many others during that time. Archie will also play two love songs. They were written by the same composer, Franz Liszt, with almost the same names. But they’re very different.
Archie was a weekly newspaper columnist on money matters. He started playing the piano as a child but didn't find a good teacher until he was 32. That was Kyriena Siloti, with whom he studied at the Longy School in Cambridge, MA. Then in her eighties, Kyriena was the daughter and assistant of Alexander Siloti. He in turn was widely considered the best of the students of Franz Liszt and was world renown in the early-20th Century. While Archie was with Kyriena, his recording of a major Beethoven sonata was played on WCRB-AM Radio in Boston on a Sunday morning.