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Russian American pianist Olga Kern boasts familial connections with both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

The sa国际传媒官网网页入口 favorite (a regular here, she usually sells out) will perform a concerto by the latter with the New Mexico Philharmonic on Saturday, Oct. 12, at Popejoy Hall.

Rachmaninoff鈥檚 Piano Concerto No. 3 in d minor is often described as the Mount Everest of concertos.

Composed in the summer of 1909, Rachmaninoff premiered the piece on in New York City with himself as the soloist.

Kern performed the piece when she won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn competition in 2001.

鈥淚t鈥檚 like a symphony; it鈥檚 not just a concerto,鈥� Kern said in a telephone interview from her New York home. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the hardest. It鈥檚 very emotional, very physical. It鈥檚 a long composition 鈥� 45 minutes long.

鈥淚鈥檓 playing a big cadenza in the first movement,鈥� Kern explained. 鈥淔or us pianists, it鈥檚 a very exciting piece to play every time. Every time, I can find something new in it.鈥�

Kern鈥檚 great-grandmother was a mezzo-soprano.

鈥淪he knew Rachmaninoff and Rachmaninoff was accompanying her on piano,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are letters and notes in Rachmaninoff鈥檚 memoirs of dates when they performed together. For me, it feels like genius touched my family.鈥�

Kern鈥檚 great-great-grandmother was a pianist who played with Tchaikovsky.

鈥淪he knew him,鈥� Kern said. 鈥淪he was his friend. Her gave her photographs with his signature. It鈥檚 in the Tchaikovsky Museum鈥� outside of Moscow.

Kern began studying piano at age 5 at the Central Music School of Moscow, and gave her first concert at age 7. She won her first international competition, the Concertino Praga Competition, at age 11 in what was then Czechoslovakia. At age 17, she won first prize at the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition. While in school, she received an honorary scholarship from the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin in 1996.

Kern became an American citizen in 2016 and teaches at the Manhattan School of Music.

The New Mexico Philharmonic will follow the Rachmaninoff concerto with Austrian composer Anton Bruckner鈥檚 Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, one of the composer鈥檚 most popular works. It was written in 1874 and revised several times through 1888.

Bruckner composed 11 symphonies.

The symphony鈥檚 nickname of 鈥淩omantic鈥� was used by the composer himself. This was at the height of the Romantic movement in the arts as depicted, amongst others, in the operas of Richard Wagner.

According to Nazi Albert Speer, the symphony was performed before the fall of Berlin, in a 1945 concert. Speer chose the symphony as a signal that the Nazis were about to lose the war.