Roman Rudnytsky concludes West African tour (04/23/00)

Roman Rudnytsky concludes West African tour

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Internationally known concert pianist Roman Rudnytsky completed a concert tour in March in a very unusual area of the world for classical music: West Africa. He gave nine recitals in six countries of the Francophone area under the sponsorship of the U.S. embassies in those countries.

These performances took place in the capital cities of: Chad (N' Djamena), Benin (Cotonou), Guinea (Conakry), Togo (Lomé), Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou) and Mali (Bamako). Mr. Rudnytsky also spent a day in Dakar, Senegal, and briefly touched down in several other countries of the region, including the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Mauritania.

His recitals were part of the "public diplomacy" activities that the U.S. State Department actively promotes. Public diplomacy involves an outreach to the host countries, often by providing informal settings where government ministers, other ambassadors and business leaders can interact without the pressures of formal meetings and negotiations. Concerts and other cultural events act as catalysts for this type of interaction.

Thus, in every one of these countries where Mr. Rudnytsky performed, there was at least one recital organized at the U.S. ambassador's residence for a specially invited audience. However in N'Djamena, Conakry, and Ouagadougou, there were also recitals arranged for a more general public, and these were held at the local French Cultural Centers.

The United States Information Service (USIS) previously fulfilled these types of public diplomacy activities, but in a government reorganization it was abolished as a separate agency and its functions were absorbed directly into the State Department. This change occurred by the beginning of October 1999. Over a 15-year period (1984 to 1998) Mr. Rudnytsky had played many concerts and conducted many masterclasses under the auspices of the USIS in 17 countries, with repeat visits in several of these.

Mr. Rudnytsky also had a short concert trip to Britain at the beginning of April.

On April 2 Mr. Rudnytsky gave a recital in Parma for the Cleveland-area Ukrainian community in support of a charity for blind children in Lviv.

At the beginning of May, he will once again travel to Great Britain to play recitals in the Isles of Scilly and in Scotland. On May 12 he will play a recital in Honolulu. At the end of the month he will travel to Venezuela to perform as soloist with the orchestras of the cities of Maracaíbo and Mérida. With both orchestras, he will perform the two piano concertos of Maurice Ravel.

Concerts coming up later in the year will include his seventh New Zealand tour (late July to mid-August), followed by recitals on several Pacific islands of Micronesia including Saipan and Majuro. He will perform in Britain again in late September and fulfill his eighth tour in Chile in late October-early November. He will also play recitals on cruises of the British P&O company during June and December.

For 2001 he plans concert tours in such places as Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Australia and the Channel Islands of Great Britain. He will also do another African tour due to the reinvitations he received after the one last month.

Mr. Rudnytsky continues to serve on the piano faculty of the Dana School of Music of Youngstown State University, which presented him the "Distinguished Professor Award" in 1990.

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