Pianist Scott Cuellar returns to the solo spotlight with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra for a third straight season, racking up back-by-popular-demand bona fides and continuing to build a reputation as an audience favorite in Jackson. See why at MSO’s “Epic Heights” concert on April 12, 2025.

This time with MSO, Cuellar tackles Sergei Rachmaninoff’s famously difficult Piano Concerto No. 3. Movie-going symphony-lovers may remember the concerto for its central role in the 1996 film Shine, inspired by a true story. In the film, a piano prodigy spirals into mental illness following the demands of this super-challenging work, a controlling father and more.

“Rachmaninoff’s 3rd has this mythical status, certainly among pianists, as kind of the Mount Everest of the pieces in the concerto repertoire,” Cuellar said. Prokofiev 2, Bartok 2 and Brahms’ 2nd are up there, too, under the “incredibly hard” header. “But somehow, Rach 3 just has a mythical something about it, in part… because it starts so innocuously.” A beautiful, familiar, haunting melody comes right out of the gate. “And then it turns into this unrelenting monster, starting from page 3,” he chuckled.

Cuellar first discovered Rachmaninoff in his high school years, as he was becoming more serious about piano. “Somebody had told me about the movie Shine and I remember watching it. Of course, the 3rd concerto just sort of takes on this Herculean stature in the mind of an impressionable 15-year-old,” he reflected.

“As a young kid, that felt like… something that you only get to do when you attain something career-wise,” he recalled. “This is the first time I’ve played Rachmaninoff 3 with an orchestra, so it’s actually very exciting for me…. It feels like a rite of passage.”

When he and MSO Conductor Crafton Beck discussed repertoire and they decided on Rach 3, Cuellar said, “I did feel my heart skip a few beats.”

Rach 3 was his Covid project. When his concerts were canceled and his teaching moved online, he saw the time stretching before him as an opportunity to be able to play anything he wanted. If he was ever going to climb one of those Mount Everest pieces, this had to be it.

“I love the other big pinnacles as well, but Rach 3 just has a special place, and I thought I should just go for it,” he said. In those long pandemic months, he got it to a point where he could say he’d played it. “The piece really is as hard as they say,” Cuellar continued, “It feels, just so much harder than anything else I’ve played. Just so physically demanding. Unrelenting. So, I’m kind of getting back into that and coming to terms with the fact that it really hasn’t gotten easier,” he relayed, with a laugh.

What’s nice, though, is that he made a lot of musical decisions in those nine pandemic months — how he was going to design phrases, how he wanted things to hang together. “That’s really the hard work, once you get the notes – making it make sense to you and to the audience, and having a good idea of direction and design, not only small scale but large scale…. How am I going to going to make this climax feel like a climax? How am I going to lay the steppingstones to get myself to this point. Where am I going to really pull back and become more intimate? That takes time.

“You can kind of tell when a piece feels new to somebody. It can be really good, but it will feel like a brand-new pair of shoes or something. What’s nice is that this feels like an old shoe in a way.… I can come into rehearsals and into this performance with a perspective.”

At this point, his goal is to pace his energy expenditure from start to finish. “You’re in for a 45-minute-long ride. You know, once the safety belt comes down on the rollercoaster, you’re there for the duration.

“I’m learning where I need to lighten up and when I can go for it, so that I feel like I have enough in the tank for the ending, which is huge.”

Cuellar is now in his third year in Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music, where he teaches applied piano and other keyboard courses. Praised for his virtuosic scope, expression and fluidity in performance, he has given solo recitals at major venues around the world.

Jackson isn’t alone in claiming him as a frequently returning favorite. “San Antonio would be another spot like that for me,” said Cuellar, who won the gold medal at the 2016 San Antonio International Piano Competition, in addition to prizes for best performance of a Romantic work and of a Russian work. As part of that win, he played with the San Antonio Symphony and secured spots on chamber music festivals. Organizers liked what they heard, and he’s been invited back frequently, including a festival this summer.

Madison Central High School Auditorium — 1417 Highland Colony Parkway, Madison, MS — is the location for MSO’s “Epic Heights” concert at 7:30 p.m. on April 12, 2025. Seating is general admission with a reserved section for Conductor, Connoisseur, and Loge season ticket holders.