Simon Trpčeski (pronounced Terp-chess-ki) would have us believe he's just a regular> guy. Don't be fooled, he's such an amazing pianist he's hardly over thirty and has already been invited to perform for the fourth time with the SF Symphony (here are reviews of his last visit). He'll play Grieg's famed piano concerto starting tomorrow, one of the most beloved Romantic pieces in the repertoire.

He was just performing it in London last week, and we quote: "The gifted Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski was [the] soloist and, between them, he and [25yo conductor Robin] Ticciati gave us the most beautiful and unhackneyed account of this ubiquitous concerto that I have heard in a very long time."

The conductor here will be Vasily Petrenko, in his SF Symphony debut, with whom Trpčeski is currently recording the orchestral piano works of Rachmaninov. The first cd of this project actually just got released this month, which they'll sign for you after the concert tomorrow and Saturday. Trpčeksi also takes great pride on being Macedonian, the small former Yugoslavia republic with a fierce nationalistic fervor. He's quite the rock star there, and he took our call from his home in Skopje early last week.