If you want your evening to sound like a concert hall rather than a hotel lobby, Romantic music is where to look — and the Russian composers wrote some of the most beautiful of it.
Send the date, the venue and a line about the occasion. I reply personally, with a programme suggestion and a quote.
By Dr. Maria Pisarenko, DMA · concert pianist in Las Vegas · October 2026
Much of the Romantic piano repertoire was written to be played in salons and drawing rooms — for guests, at close range, while life went on around the piano. That is exactly what a wedding reception, a gala dinner or a private party is. These pieces are melodic, warm and instantly recognisable, and they sound their best on an acoustic grand.
I grew up with this music. I was trained in Moscow in the Russian piano tradition, and in Las Vegas I have presented whole evenings of Russian music — The Russian Seasons at the Winchester Dondero Cultural Center.
Light, graceful, never insistent.
A moment that asks the room to be still for a minute.
Music the table can talk over, and that rewards anyone who stops to listen: Chopin nocturnes, Debussy’s Clair de lune and Rêverie, Satie’s Gymnopédies. On the concert stage I have played Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, Scriabin and Prokofiev; at dinner, the Russian school shows itself more quietly — in how a melody sings.
Every programme is built with the host. If there is a piece that matters to you — Russian, classical or a song of your own — one requested piece is prepared in advance for every booking.
Send the date and the venue and I will come back to you with a programme suggestion and a quote.