You can’t beat rhythm

Narrative Musicale reveals astonishing connections

Expect the unexpected from Grand Piano Series.

For one thing, it simply refuses to be silent over the summer. For another, its Director of Education and Community Engagement, composer/pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski, continues to make his special brand of artistic magic in the series’ summertime Narrative Musicales, a unique format for presenting classical music to audiences of all ages.

Those who’ve attended Soukhovetski’s Narrative Musicales in the past already know what multifaceted events they are: hour-long, intermissionless, immersively intimate multimedia programs that combine live music, storytelling and visuals with a one-of-a-kind emcee who ties the pieces together with strong, unforgettable narrative threads.

Every member of July 16’s nearly sold-out audience will walk out an hour later knowing something they never knew before, thanks to one of Soukhovetski’s most unusual cross-cultural musical comparisons.

We all know Ludwig von Beethoven. But count on Soukhovetski to reveal what the iconoclastic German composer’s left-hand keyboard rhythms share with and, in the end, contributed to Scott Joplin’s skipping, syncopated ragtime, even boogie-woogie’s back-and-forth bassline.

“Once you hear it,” said Soukhovetski, “you can’t unhear it.”

American music, from ragtime to rock, has long been seen as uniquely innovative and rebellious. But Beethoven, even in total deafness, brewed musical disruption in his own laboratory, right up until his last piano sonata a century before Joplin.

And in the New World, Joplin’s work was more than just tunes played on honky-tonk upright pianos in smoke-filled saloons. Could it be that he possessed aspirations and talents as serious as those of any composer on the continent? Did he, too, have as debilitating a disability as deafness to overcome?

Come find out for yourself.

Beyond performance, Soukhovetski’s work includes composition, libretti and interdisciplinary collaborations in dance and film. His recording Yuliya: Forgotten Songs of Julie Weissberg Rimsky-Korsakov, with soprano Sarah Molton Faux, was released last year by Azica Records. He’s a voting member of the Recording Academy (Grammy Awards) and serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School. Born in Moscow to a family of prominent artists, he studied piano and composition at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory and has lived in Naples since 2024.

NARRATIVE MUSICALE: Beethoven and Joplin

When: 4 p.m., Thursday, July 30
Where: Ubben Signature Event Space, Artis—Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Naples.
Purchase tickets: ($50) at grandpianoseries.org or artisnaples.org.

Call Artis—Naples at 239-597-1900 for assistance.