“Why do we attend public performances? Why, indeed, when staying at home is far easier?” Such are the questions the Bolivian-born piano maven Giselle Brodsky sought to answer when she founded the Miami International Piano Festival of Discovery in 1998. The words “of Discovery” were soon expunged, yet they were by no means hollow. From the first, Brodsky showcased a pride of keyboard lions and lionesses in worldwide demand yet unknown by name to the public at large. Locally, many have become cult figures. “We are not satisfied with the endless repetition recordings provide,” Brodsky proclaims today, “not with the quality of media programming, nor with the smaller-than-life sounds and images of videos and television. Particularly, we miss the time-honored, ultimate test of an artist—the solo recital in our space and before our eyes—with its demands of repertoire, interpretation, personality, and presentation.” Brodsky’s seasons are caviar for the cognoscenti—and occasions for the less initiated to discover their inner cognoscenti, too. Despite her emphasis on recitals, Brodsky also organizes the occasional all-concerto night, with a pickup symphonic ensemble. On October 19, Dmitry Ablogin leads off such an event with Chopin’s buccaneering Piano Concerto No. 2, followed by Ilya Itin with Beethoven’s Arcadian Piano Concerto No. 4 and finally Alexander Gavrylyuk with the rugged Grieg. A two-piano “extravaganza” with Kemal Gekić and Kristina Miller follows on January 11. Gavrylyk flies solo in recital on February 22. Bill Charlap and Brandon Goldberg team up for a jazz-greats special on March 26. Anton Gerzenberg—a student of the explorer extraordinaire Pierre-Laurent Aimard and winner of multiple competitions—closes the series on April 26 with a poetically inspired playlist, opening with the Romantic Polish virutoso Carl Tausig’s sulfurous Der Geisterschiff (The Phantom Vessel) and the modern mandarin György Ligeti’s gloss on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. After other deviltries, the young master wraps with Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz, No. 1. For sure, he will have encores up his sleeve. —Matthew Gurewitsch