Rachmaninoff and the Tsar with Hershey Felder and Jonathan Silvestri at The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at The Santa Monica Performing Arts Center

Having safely fled Russia during the 1917 revolution, legendary pianist-composer Sergei V. Rachmaninoff made his home in the United States. In 1942, at the age of 68, he received American citizenship and bought a home in Beverly Hills, but his soul never left Russia. Six months thereafter, a terminal illness brought forth the memory of a long ago encounter with Russia’s last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Tsar’s daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia. This memory would haunt him until the end. *RACHMANINOFF AND THE TSAR* features Sergei Rachmaninoff’s most beloved and enduring compositions including Prelude in C# minor, The 2nd Piano Concerto, The Paganini Variations, Preludes, symphonic selections and more. With Hershey Felder as Sergei Rachmaninoff, for the first time on stage, Felder will appear opposite another artist, British-Italian Jonathan Silvestri in the role of Tsar Nicholas II.