Chopin Society of Atlanta

Ode to homeland hero inspires talent scouting

By Pierre Ruhe
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/22/2006

When the Chopin Society of Atlanta opens its sixth season this evening at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center, the veteran Polish pianist Marek Drewowski might feel some unexpected scrutiny.

Although the society operates on a tiny budget and doesn't advertise, it's quietly building a national reputation for spotting major talent ahead of the curve.

The ears behind the organization belong to one woman, a trim, reserved Polish blonde named Dorata Lato. As impresario, teacher and pianist, she speaks in a whisper, her accent strong, her words precise.

She doesn't give concerts — "at the beginning, I had too much stage fright" — but feels strongly about what makes a good musician.

"I don't have an agent," she says. "I make the decisions. I don't want players who know the notes but don't have artists in them. There are thousands of young players today who have no idea about history or the feelings of music, why the music matters. I bring people for whom music is what matters.

"Drewowski is a good example of a pianist," she says, "but really an artist."

Daniel Gustin, director of the prestigious Gilmore International Piano Festival and Award, in Michigan, has heard the society in action.

"Grass-roots organizations like [Lato's], with professional standards and high ideals, can spot deserving pianists and give them the break that takes them to the next level. They can have extraordinary effects on concert life in a city."

As a child in Warsaw, Lato attended music-intensive school, where she was "all the time surrounded by music. Even in science class, you could hear someone singing or practicing the piano down the hall."

After college, she was working as a producer for Polish radio. On a trip to New York at the height of the Polish Solidarity workers' protests, she decided to stay in the United States, eventually making her way as a piano teacher and meeting her future husband, Piotr Folkert, a fellow Polish émigré and concert pianist.

The genesis of the Chopin Society of Atlanta dates to 1996 and the cultural olympiad, a fringe festival to the Atlanta Summer Olympics. Lato and her husband were living in New York when he was invited to perform at several events in and around Atlanta, including a gala for the Polish president.

Feeling worn down by life in America's culture capital, they liked what they saw of the South. Atlanta's mighty airport, and friends in the northern suburbs, convinced them to move to Alpharetta.

Hungry to start something, Folkert and Lato produced and wrote an unusual show to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Frederic Chopin's death, in 1999. Dressed in 19th-century garb borrowed from the Alliance Theatre, WABE-FM announcer John Lemley narrated the life of the composer while Folkert played Chopin's music. A second show, with Lemley in powdered wig, celebrated Bach.

From that, Lato and Folkert hatched the idea for a concert series devoted to their favorite composer. The concerts cost a few thousand dollars to produce, and were funded, initially, by profits they'd made from selling a house. They photocopied the programs at Kinko's and reinvested whatever small profit they made into the next concert.

Now, after a few financially rocky years, they have several devoted volunteers pitching in and more than 30 sponsors, including the local Polish consulate, the Goethe Institute and Alliance Française. The society's budget has grown to $25,000 a year, covering three concerts.

They also followed the playbook developed by the International Federation of Chopin Societies, all of which are chapters of the mother group based in Warsaw — a means of advancing a beloved composer as well as the sentiments of Polish national unity.

"When he lived in Paris," Lota says, "Chopin always missed Poland. You read it in his letters; he was terribly witty and sensitive. I know how it feels to be very far from your homeland, the birds and the willow trees and the streams that you get nowhere else."

With Folkert's concert career taking off, he bowed out of regular Atlanta gigs, although he remains Lato's primary adviser.

Former Spivey Hall director Sherryl Nelson, who booked Folkert at the acclaimed recital hall in Morrow, calls Lato and Folkert "the real deal."

"They've got wisdom," she says, "and they carry with them the grand European tradition, and their programming choices reflect that."

A fortuitous e-mail

Her biggest coup to date has been hosting last year's Atlanta debut of Ingrid Fliter, an Argentine pianist who had won prizes in several European piano competitions but was still almost completely unknown in the United States.

"Out of the blue, Ingrid e-mails me," recalls Lato, who says the query was one of dozens from budding pianists (or their agents) who seek opportunities for a professional career. "Ingrid's résumé was impressive, like so many. Then I listened to her playing on her Web site. It took me 15 seconds to know she was an important artist, and that we had to have her, no matter the difficulties."

Fliter, reached at her home in Italy, says though she was hardly a star, "the organization treated me with big respect and offered me the best conditions to prepare for my concert. The atmosphere was inspiring."

While in Atlanta, the young pianist's life changed. The Gilmore festival's Gustin attended her recital and, afterward, announced to her that she'd won the 2006 Gilmore Award, with a $300,000 cash prize, a sort of "genius" grant given every three years to a pianist of high originality and substance.

Secretly, a Gilmore committee had been following Fliter from concert to concert. When they heard her Roswell show — despite the hall's poor acoustics and an inferior instrument rented for the occasion — they knew they had a winner.

After the award was officially announced in January, orchestras and concert series around the globe clamored to get a date with her — perhaps the best vindication of Lato's tastes. (By a complicated process, Fliter made her U.S. orchestral debut with the Atlanta Symphony a few months later, just days after the award was publicly announced.)

For Fliter's Roswell performance, Gustin adds, "Ingrid had a full house for her recital, with lots of parents and their children — you could see the next generation of musicians in the audience. The Chopin Society has its priorities straight, on a lot of levels."