Pianists

 Dear friends of piano music,

 A while ago, when my daughter was a baby, I had some time to read and came across Jeffrey Archer's "Clifton Saga". In order to train my gray matter a bit, I took on the English-language original, and I literally devoured all seven volumes - rarely have I read such a breathtakingly exciting, captivating family chronicle. The numerous characters are no longer present by name to me, but I remembered one scene yesterday: a young couple meets for a date, they go to ballet (which we can only dream of at the moment ...), for the young man it's a premiere , whereas the woman knows her way around very well and has seen everything several times. She envies his lack of experience, because this enables him to rediscover a whole wonderful world for himself. Mums like me are in the fortunate position of reactivating a little of the amazement of their children, who also discover new things every day - you can see well-known things with new eyes, discover something amazing about them. Just like the directors in the theater try to give a well-known piece new perspectives and depth of field - with more or less approval of the audience.

The happiest people, measured by this standard, are the pianists. The repertoire for piano is so vast that one could perhaps hear everything, but not play everything in life. I am constantly discovering new treasures from the past, but the most wonderful thing is of course to discover and play something completely new from a composer who is still alive. I would like to share this great happiness with you today, because I met a very young and incredibly talented composer, 16 years old, an autodidact who wrote this piece at the age of 14, when he had only played the piano for three years. I have no words to describe it - you have to hear it! I hope we will hear a lot more from Ali Afifi. He is already a great composer and I wish him that he can develop his full potential and have a great career. The world is full of wonders, not only for pianists and despite all viruses!

Greetings from Heidelberg

Kerstin