Recalling Van Cliburn’s Moscow Triumph With Melodrama And A Wink

In the premiere of Evan Mack and Mark Campbell’s ‘American Sputnik,’ baritone Joseph Lattanzi inhabited Cliburn with a Candide-like innocence, and pianist Stanislav Khristenko played for what seemed like the entire hour with brilliant displays of self-communion and sudden bravura. (Photos by Chris McGuire)

May 7, 2026 | By Laurence Vittes | Classical Voice North America

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Gilmore International Piano Festival has always understood that great piano festivals are about more than piano playing. For its 35th-anniversary edition, the organization made its most audacious institutional statement yet: a co-commission with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra of a new solo work for baritone, piano, and orchestra, American Sputnik, with music by Evan Mack and libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning Mark Campbell, premiered May 1 at Chenery Auditorium.

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