My Sunday evening
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I knew Stephen when he was a student at Juilliard. My teacher had arranged a masterclass with Adele Marcus who was Stephen's teacher at the time. Hough played the Prokofiev 6th Sonata. I believe I recorded it at the time as I recorded the masterclass. He later spent a few weeks that summer with my teacher who was very impressed with him. I spoke to Hough about the Saint Saens piano concerti - and recommended he listen to the 4th and 5th, explaining that I had no idea why the 2nd was performed so much - when the 4th and 5th were also delightful works. Hough later recorded the whole cycle. I tried to have the local radio station (WFMT) do a broadcast of some of the performances at the masterclass - but they declined. The manager explained that they'd been burned by the quality of "student" performances in the past. I called them back a few weeks later when Hough won the Naumburg competition - noting that they had no problem with the quality of the performance. He's a good guy. I remember playing some Albeniz for him - and discussing the tempo. He later played that some work when he visited Chicago. I saw him a few years back - but we've not stayed in touch.
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