Taiwan is the only Asian stop for Gutman this season, because she likes the country. Just last year she performed Schumann’s cello concerto in Taipei.

“It is a real pity I never have enough time to see more of Taiwan,” said the musician during yesterday’s news conference.

Dedicated to her teacher and friend, the late cellist and conductor Mtislav Rostropovich, the program includes Schumann’s “Fantasiestucke, op. 73 Nr. 1 bis 3,” Grieg’s “Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, a-minor op. 36,” and Rachmaninoff’s “Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, g-minor op. 19.”

Rostropovich was considered by many to have been one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century. He died on April 27 at the age of 80.

Gutman will perform with her compatriot Viacheslav Poprugin on the piano. Poprugin is a graduate of Moscow’s Gnessin Music Academy and has worked with Gutman since 1999.

On Rostropovich, Gutman said that he was a very strict teacher and spent a lot of time on his students. At the same time, he had an innate ability to see each student’s potential and to bring it out.

“He was my mentor,” she added.

Rostropovich’s absence left a void that will never be filled by anyone, remarked the cellist, who last saw the maestro on March 27 for his birthday.

Following her Taipei recital, Gutman will perform on Sunday at Taichung’s Chung-Hsin Concert Hall with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Chen Chiu-cheng.

Gutman’s repertoire in Taichung will include Tchaikovsky’s “Polonaise” from the opera “Eugene Onegin,” Dvorak’s “Cello Concerto, b-minor op. 104,” and a suite from Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier.”

According to the organizer Ars Formosa Company, tickets may be purchased online at www.artsticket.com.tw, and only a limited number of seats are still available.

This year, the artist kicked off her world tour in Seville, where she performed the Schumann concerto with conductor Claudio Abbado and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra at the Iberoamerican Festival.

Other scheduled stops in 2007 include cities throughout the U.S., South America, and Europe.

Gutman has performed worldwide as a soloist and with orchestras such as the Vienna, Berlin, Munich, and St. Petersburg Philharmonics, the London Symphony, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

She has worked with famous conductors from Wolfgang Sawallisch to Riccardo Muti, Bernhard Haitink, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Yuri Temirkanov, Sergiu Celibidache, and Kurt Masur.

Gutman founded the International Musikfest am Tegernsee in the Bavarian Alps in 1990 with her late husband Oleg Kagan, whom she dedicated the festival to after his death that same year.

Among her many accolades, she was bestowed the German decoration of Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Federal Cross of Merit, First class) by president Horst Kohler in 2005, and was nominated as a “fellow of the Royal College of Music” in London last year.

Coming from a musical family, the 64-year-old Kazan native started to play the cello at the age of five with her stepfather cellist Roman Sapozhnikov and later with her grandfather violinist Anisim Berlin, who studied with Leopold Auer.

In addition to Rostropovich, Gutman also trained with Galina Kozolupova, her teacher through her years at both the Gnessin Music School and the Moscow Conservatory, as well as the late Sviatoslav Richter, and her late husband.

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