Andre Soars to New Heights in Home Town!!
An unmistakable electricity and sense of expectation filled the Concert Hall of Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The night was Saturday, December 20, 2025. The event was the beloved annual Holiday Concert of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra. Our own Andre Previn Peck - the immensely gifted piano prodigy of this proud and rather special small city - was the invited guest artist. Andre brought to the audience an extraordinary performance of Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major. He was greeted with tremendous warmth, love, and a palpable anticipation by an knowing audience of what was to come. He fulfilled their deepest desires and expectations for an extraordinary journey.
Andre performed the work with incredible energy, passion, intensity, and an overwhelming command of the work's (almost) impossible technical and musical demands. His Horowitzian Octaves set the place ablaze. Andre’s gorgeous, singing tone, and irresistible flow in the dreamy Andantino brought forth visions of an icy, placid, luminous lake. The Scherzando section of the work was wickedly demonic and ironic bringing forth tremendous anticipation of the cadenza. Andre’s performance of the cadenza was wildly uninhibited and overwhelming in its crazed passion and fitting violence. He drove the final hair-raising accelerando right to the edge of the cliff without ever going over - reiterating the principle theme for the final time. He devoured the work whole.
Understandably, the audience erupted in a frenzied response to this kind of music making. After numerous curtain calls, the conductor (the remarkable Alexander Platt) called on Andre to offer an encore. This was a real surprise as none of us close to Andre (and Andre, himself) had anticipated his being prepared for an encore. But, with his usual aplomb, Andre performed the Ravel impressionistic masterpiece, Jeux d’eau (The Fountain). The great pianist, Alfred Cortot, once described the work as “liquid poetry”. Andre did not announce the composer or title of the work, but the audience got the message. One could not escape the multi-colored cascade of translucent light. It was the perfect foil and soothing balm to the Prokofiev. It brought Andre’s time on stage to a magnificent, splendid, peaceful, and hopeful close.
But - with all this said - there is more. When Andre was asked by our dearest friend and colleague how he felt about his performance, he said two words: surreal and superb. This leads me to believe that Andre had in fact experienced a transcendent moment as an artist. It is a very rare and profound occurrence which goes beyond the real. Barriers dissolve and an artist’s sense of self becomes one with the music. One becomes the music - so to speak. Having experienced this rarified existence, I know that Andre - barely sixteen years of age - will seek with all his gifts and talent to return again and again to this artistic oasis. He played “beyond himself”. It was a transcendent performance.
Yours in Music -
Joe & Jo Anne
