VALDOSTA — Internationally renowned, Moscow-based pianist Katia Skanavi is scheduled to perform a local recital this week, featuring works by composers such as Handel, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Rachmaninov, and Liszt.

This season alone, Skanavi has toured the Netherlands with the Holland Symfonia and played Tchaikovsky in Paris with famed conductor Kurt Masur and the Orchestre National de France. She has played in her home city of Moscow, performed in the Russian Embassy in Madrid, and now she is visiting the United States.

So, what brings her to Valdosta?

Ed Barr, a local musician retired from Valdosta State University Music, learned of Skanavi several years ago.

“My friend and former student, pianist Jerry Gowen of Nashville, Tenn., first told me about Katia’s incredible musicality and technique after he heard her play in 1999,” notes Barr, who has followed her career ever since, a career which rarely brings her to the United States.

Recently, when Barr and Gowen learned that Skanavi was scheduled as a guest artist for the American Liszt Society Conference in Athens, Ga., “we seized the opportunity to arrange a performance here,” Barr notes. “With the support of Dr. Larry Scully of the Valdosta Chamber Players and Dr. David Lee Johnson of the (VSU) Department of Music, this dream has become a reality. This (Valdosta) recital will be the first of only three North American public recitals to be given by Ms. Skanavi this season.”

Having listened to her “Piano Chopin” CD, Skanavi’s recital should prove a remarkable treat for local music lovers, especially fans of classical piano. Her timing, tonality, expression, phrasing are the work of a virtuoso. This CD was named classical CD of the month by Garmophone Magazine. Other CDs include recordings of Handel, Schumann, and Rachmaninov, recorded live in Marseille.

When Skanavi plays Frederic Chopin’s sonatas on this CD, as organizers of the Valdosta concert have noted, “you get the impression that this is how Chopin meant for these songs to be played.”

Barr says he is consistently impressed with her musical “prowess and virtuosity. The feeling and expression she can draw from a piano is amazing. Rarely will one hear such warmth from a piano.”

Of Greek-Russian heritage, Skanavi has played piano since childhood. By her teen years, she was already performing and entering serious competition. She won third place and the audience prize as a teen-ager in the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris. In 1997, she entered the final round of the prestigious Van Cliburn Competition with her performance of Chopin’s Second Piano Sonata.

The Washington Post has commented on Skanavi’s playing as “elegant and majestic.” A performance “that bypassed keyboard display in favor of songful music-making. It was an aristocratic performance.”

RECITAL

Renowned pianist Katia Skanavi performs.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.