I entered Meyerson Symphony Center Thursday night wondering if could stand to hear Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto again; I left thinking I could stand hear Olga Kern play it every day for the rest of my life.

Kern earned her foothold on the international concert stage ten years ago when she took the gold medal at the 2001 Cliburn Competition. Thursday night’s performance, the first of four scheduled through Sunday with the Dallas Symphony and music director Jaap van Zweden, demonstrated why she has become, and likely will remain, one of the most significant musicians of our time.

Audiences assume, with good reason, that all solo artists will have achieved a very high level of intellectual and technical competency. Although hardly anyone thinks of Kern as an intellectual musician, her mental command of the music is impeccable. As in all of the performances by her that I’ve heard, she constantly demonstrated not just a firm grasp but deep insight into the possibilities of the music, which is particularly important in the almost haphazardly structured First Concerto of Tchaikovsky.

As for technique, as always, she proved to have that almost uncanny ability to make the piano roar, whisper, and glitter: her arms and hands form a well-regulated machine, and her control of the physical aspect of playing the piano, clearly visible in the elegant, bare-armed attire she favors, is amazing and superb.

Audiences also assume that an artist will bring something extra in emotion—and here, once again, Kern leaves the rest of the pack far behind. The listener always senses, in a Kern performance, that decisions are made on the spot; that, though there’s careful planning and intense knowledge behind every gesture, there’s also a spur-of-the moment reaction, an ability to play a little faster, a little slower, a little softer, or a little louder depending on the exact mood of the moment.

A fine example of this emerged in Thursday’s performance in the slow middle movement. Although perception by the listener of tempo in a live performance can be deceptive, it certainly seemed that Kern and conductor van Zweden chose to take this section a little bit slower than usual—and, as a result, that Kern was able to bring a seductive playfulness to the music.

But there’s something else besides the technique, the intellect, and the more obvious emotions as well—something less easy to analyze but no less evident in a Kern performance. Call it aura, call it charisma, call it star quality. Think Hepburn, think Horowitz, think Brando. And that’s the ability of the artist to care desperately about the art and the audience—and to be beautiful while doing it. You can’t buy it, you can’t teach it. But Kern’s got it. And we can be thankful that there is an Olga Kern, and a few other artists like her, to carry the great tradition she represents into the future.

After intermission, van Zweden and the orchestra turned to Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony for a worthy exploration of that expansive, descriptive work. Obligated to a non-musical program, Tchaikovsky achieves a lot here, but never quite reaches the gut-wrenching passions of his more famous symphonies and concertos. Still, Van Zweden and the orchestra found a good deal of excitement and color here—the delicate effects in the second of the four movements were particularly impressive.

Courtesy photo