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Pianist has a world of experience Photo by Jim Craven Alexander Tutunov practices at the Steinway on the stage of the Music Recital Hall at Southern Oregon University, where he teaches. Tutunov is guest soloist with the Rogue Valley Symphony tonight and Sunday. SOU's Tutunov opens as symphony soloist By Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune Drafted into the Soviet Army in 1987, Alexander Tutunov faced a choice: Fight in Afghanistan or learn to play the trombone. "I learned to play trombone," he says. Tutunov Trained as a pianist at the Moscow Conservatory with the elite musicians of his generation, Tutunov divided his army time between playing in a small marching band and digging ditches near Moscow. Was it a good band? "No," he says quickly. A native of Belarus, Tutunov, 32, is a winner of the Russian and the Belarussian national piano competitions who has performed widely in the U.S. and Europe. He is an assistant professor of music and director of keyboard studies at Southern Oregon University. When the Rogue Valley Symphony kicks off the 1999-2000 season, its 33rd, tonight and Sunday with a pair of concerts at South Medford High School, Tutunov is scheduled to perform Prokoviev's Third Piano Concerto. "I'm really excited about the music," he says. "It's fairly contemporary, yet fairly accessible." Conductor Arthur Shaw and the symphony will perform Giovanni Gabrieli's Canzona for Double String Orchestra and Dvorak's popular "New World" Symphony. Tutunov talks between visits from students in his office at SOU in Ashland, where he landed a decade after his army stint. Tutunov was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, a provincial town of about 400,000 half-way between Moscow and St. Petersburg. When he was 6 years old he was sent to boarding school at the famed Conservatory, one of three children picked from among hundreds of applicants. He spent 13 years there. "Actually, I'm really, really grateful," he says. "It was an environment where everybody ... people could read a huge opera score at first sight, and we didn't know otherwise, so we didn't get big heads, I don't think." After the conservatory, Tutunov taught, worked on his doctorate and was pianist with the Belarussian National Philharmonic, performing widely in the former Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. He holds degrees from the Minsk Musical College, the Belarussian National Academy of Music and the University of North Texas. "At 18, I stopped being a child prodigy," he says. While he was in the army, the Soviet Union fell apart. He met famed pianist and recording artist Joseph Banowetz when Banowetz was touring Russia's Volga River. "Why don't you come to the States and be my assistant in Texas?" the renowned pianist asked. Banowetz was teaching at North Texas University in Denton, Texas. Tutunov joined him there about five years ago. "That's where I acquired my Texas accent," he deadpans. He went from Texas to Illinois, where he taught at Illinois Wesleyan for a year. Invited to interview at colleges in Alaska, Nebraska and Oregon, he picked SOU. "The choice was pretty obvious," he says. `Alaska was six months' night." It's a choice that left music patrons here thanking their lucky stars. "He's wonderful," says Marcia Van Dyke, of Ashland. A former musician in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Van Dyke retired in Ashland and has seen Tutunov many times. "It's unbelievable he's here," she says. "I'll see everything he's doing this season. She describes his playing as powerful, dynamic and extremely musical. Tutunov says American audiences are more encouraging and forgiving than their European counterparts. "In Europe, people are more critical," he says. "Even when you hear applause here, you don't know how you really did." He declines to single out favorite composers. "I prefer not to have a favorite, because others can get mad," he says. Among his recent recordings is a concerto for piano and orchestra written by Peter Sacco of Ashland. Tutunov recorded it with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. A CD is expected soon. "It's an outstanding piece of music written in the 1950s," he says. Tutunov says he finds American students very open. "I try to treat them individually," he says. "They're not shy to ask questions. We don't waste time not knowing what we want. They want to learn. They have good potential, very talented." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA