Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra Music Director Rossen Milanov leads the CSO through Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, “From the New World” July 9 in the Amphitheater.
ROCCO PRIOLETTI
Staff Writer
Even to those uninitiated in the classical music canon, Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 remains an adventurous entry point for concertgoers. From pianist Maxim Lando’s perspective, the work is like rock ’n’ roll. Bookended by nonstop glissandos and octave parts with insistent, melodic and percussive qualities, Prokofiev’s grand culmination of sound offers something for everyone.
“I think that’s the beauty of getting to play it live for audiences that maybe aren’t so familiar with it,” Lando said. “They get to take aspects of what they like in music, put it all together and create the piece for themselves. It’s such a personal, different experience for everyone.”
One of the most rewarding facets of performance for Lando is the lasting effect it imbues on others. He remembered an audience member who went to the concert unexpectedly and was experiencing hardships in life, coming up to him in tears after a performance.
“That just makes me realize the power of music. It’s the universal language that doesn’t need to be spoken, but that everyone can connect to, everyone can understand and in some way, hopefully touches people,” Lando said.
At 8 p.m. tonight, Lando will take the stage alongside the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra during their evening performance of Prokofiev’s third concerto. Guided under Rossen Milanov’s baton, the program will open with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s orchestral suite “Symphonic Dances.”
“It’s been living with me for a lifetime,” Lando said of Prokofiev’s third concerto, remembering listening to the piece when he was as young as 2 or 3 years old. “My earliest memories are hearing Martha Argerich in the car, hearing her recordings of this piece over and over again on repeat. I just thought it was the coolest sounding thing.”
Lando began playing piano in the years shortly thereafter, raised by parents who are both musicians and ran a school in Long Island, New York.
“My parents would rent out one of the halls in Carnegie every year, from an early age. So, I was literally a toddler, and I would be able to crawl around on the stages there,” he laughed.
The pianist grew up surrounded by music. Whether at home or with his childhood friends, who were all similarly aspiring pianists and musicians, Lando described his musical upbringing as a fun and inseparable part of his life.
“I think just growing up in that atmosphere, which was so unique and very atypical to kind of a normal childhood, just made me know very early on that this is something that I want to explore for a lifetime,” Lando said. “… I knew that music was always going to be a part of me.”
Lando has since performed with more than 75 symphony orchestras worldwide. In 2025, he was awarded the Khaledi Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Classical Music from Festival Napa Valley. After becoming the First Prize winner of the New York Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in 2022, he performed Liszt’s Concerto No. 1 on the same stage he crawled around as a child: Carnegie Hall.
“It’s exhilarating. It’s always exhilarating. I’m a pretty anxious person all around,” Lando said, describing the feeling of performing onstage, “So, I feel like when I’m actually on the stage getting to perform in front of great crowds, especially with an orchestra, you feel on the top of the world.”
Lando’s upcoming performance marks his first visit to Chautauqua Institution. Recently, he played a lesser-known Prokofiev concerto with Milanov. However, Prokofiev’s third piano concerto had been on both of their horizons; he described the piece as being “so full of life, it’s full of air, it’s full of sarcasm at times.”
“I heard from so many people that it’s just a gorgeous place and an amazing area to make music. I’m so excited to get to play with Rossen with the entire orchestra,” Lando said. “I think we’re just going to have fun up there. It’s going to be a good time.”
