Joseph Kalichstein, the Israeli-born US pianist, chamber musician and teacher, has died at 76 of pancreatic cancer.
Kalichstein was most widely known for the piano trio he formed with violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson, originally to perform at the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The threesome became a permanent ensemble in 1981.
Kalichstein also was a widely traveled solo pianist and a longtime teacher at his alma mater, New York’s Juilliard School.
In recent years, he was artistic director of the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio regularly performed in that and other leading chamber-music series and festivals.
The trio commissioned works from a number of prominent composers, and made many recordings of both standard and contemporary repertory.
A frequent visitor to Richmond since the 1980s, Kalichstein performed as a soloist in several dates with the Richmond Symphony and with the trio in a succession of engagements in the Rennolds Chamber Concerts at Virginia Commonwealth University.
An obituary by Tim Page for The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/04/02/pianist-joseph-kalichstein-dies/
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