Pianist/writer/actor Hershey Felder channels Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff in his new two-hander “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,” running through Sept. 21 at Writers Theatre. Courtesy of Stefano DeCarli
In response to a query about his favorite composer, pianist/writer/actor Hershey Felder pauses then gives a diplomatic reply.
Invariably, his favorite composer is the one he’s playing, said Felder, who’s known for his solo plays-with-music devoted to classical masters: George Gershwin, Frédéric Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Irving Berlin and Claude Debussy.
So that makes his current favorite Sergei Rachmaninoff, the late 19th- and early 20th-century Russian composer/pianist/conductor who Felder channels in “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar,” in i