Thomas Pandolfi performed in On Stage Live, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8 at White Concert Hall.

On Stage Live is the oldest non-profit performing arts organization in the Topeka area, providing outstanding and affordable live cultural entertainment and educational experiences to a diverse audience. It promotes appreciation of the performing arts and enhances the quality of community life.

2019 – 2020 season has five concerts. This is the second concert of the season.

The concert theme was Liszt meets Bacharach and Manilow, and the concept was transcription. In music, transcription is defined as the analysis of an acoustic musical signal to write down the pitch, onset time, duration and source of each sound that occurs in it.

The performer, Thomas Pandolfi, is an American pianist who touches the hearts of all who hear him with his passionate artistry and amazing technique. A graduate of The Julliard School, Thomas earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as a scholarship student. “Listen up to take music from other composers and make these elaborate arrangements, which we call transcriptions. Sometimes we also use the word paraphrase,” said Pandolfi.

The concert began with Apres Une Lecture du Dante, composed by Franz Liszt. Liszt’s ideas came from the ideas of Mephistopheles, Heaven and Hell, death, faith and religion, which preoccupied Liszt’s musical genius for many decades. In the late 1830s, Liszt sketched a piece consisting of two movements for piano which he called Fragment after Dante.

Pandolfi also performed a piece called Liebestraum No.3 in A-Flat Major (“Dream of Love”), also composed by Franz Liszt. The piece is one of Liszt’s most famous pieces and is known around the world. The audiences remained wholly engrossed in listening to his romantic music. “Is it not beautiful?” said Pandolfi after playing the piece.

After performing the Liszt pieces, Pandolfi performed two more pieces called Bacharach Medley composed by Burt Bacharach and Manilow Fantasy composed by Barry Manilow. Both pieces were arranged by Pandolfi.

Julia Marsh is a Washburn University Alumni who has bought season tickets of On Stage Live for five years. “I enjoyed everything he played. When watching him play the piano, his fingers look like they’re flowing,” said Marsh.

Edited by Jada Johnson, Jackson Woods, Jessica Galvin