Baby grand.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

OLGA KERN, a gold medal winner at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last June, wants to talk not about her triumph, her career or her music, but about her 3-year-old son.

"He's absolutely changed my life," she says by phone from the Van Cliburn Foundation headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. "On the stage, I think only about my son."

Her son, Vladislav, is the joy of her life. Recently divorced, the 26-year-old mother leaves the boy in the care of her mother in Moscow while she jets around the world. And she misses him dearly.

Winning the Van Cliburn Competition - she actually shared the title with Stanislav Ioudenitch of Uzbekistan - brought her not only a $20,000 cash award and a recording contract, but also professional management for two busy concert seasons.

These days, Kern is a red-hot ticket in the classical world. Word of her Feb. 28 appearance with maestro Giancarlo Guerrero and the Eugene Symphony Orchestra generated so much excitement that a Saturday concert was added to the traditional Thursday date.

And yet, she takes it all in stride.

"My son has taught me a lot," she says with a laugh, "because now I am so happy with everything. I'm happy that he now speaks very well. He's very smart.

`He likes music, especially piano. He likes very much (Wolfgang Amadeus) Mozart and (Franz) Schubert. And he can dance all the day. I love this.

"Children are so open and so clear. Sometimes they show something from inside, from soul. It's so great because usually people are so afraid for their lives.

`In Russia, people live in a very difficult situation - no money, nothing. Especially musicians. It's very difficult. But if you have a child, it's a very different life because he doesn't understand the word `nyet' yet."

Since having a child, Kern believes her playing is different.

"Absolutely," she says. "I don't know what happened after he was born, but I feel I'm a different person. I feel music much better than I feel before him.

`I can't explain it. But this feeling is so good."

Although Kern may be feeling a spiritual connection with her son on stage, rest assured that her mind is very much on the music at hand - in this case, Sergey Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor (Op. 18).

"I love this concerto," Kern says. "I have played all four (of his) concertos and the `Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.' When I was 17 years old, I won the International Rachmaninoff Competition in Moscow. This composer for me is really special."

Rachmaninoff wrote this piece after a dark period of depression in his life. As a result, Kern believes it oozes with love.

"Every time I play this concerto, I feel something so big: love to God, love to people, love to nature, love to Russia, his love," she says. It is "big" and "full of melody and beauty.'

She says it also is "very difficult for the fingers. Really fast. Technique must be perfect."

BORN INTO A family of musicians, Kern (whose maiden name was Puschechnikova) began studying piano at the age of 5.

"From maybe 2 years, I loved pianos because the piano was always in our house," she says. Her father was a concert pianist, her mother a piano teacher.

"My grandfather was an oboist and my great- grandmother was a singer who sang for Rachmaninoff,' Kern says. `When Rachmaninoff was in Crimea and she was also in Crimea, they met each other and they played together concerts. And now, every April, I play a concert in Crimea in memory of this concert.

`Also, my great-great-grandmother was a pianist and a friend of (Pyotr Il'yich) Tchaikovsky. I have some pictures (of her) with him. There were a lot of letters from him to her and from her to him."

With a pedigree like that, it's no wonder Kern was a laureate of several international contests, including the Hamamatsu, Ciani and China competitions. Or that she has toured throughout her native Russia, Western Europe and the United States, as well as Japan, South Africa and Korea.

As a recipient of an honorary scholarship from the president of Russia in 1996, Kern is a regular soloist with the Moscow State Symphony. She also has appeared with the Moscow Philharmonic, Russian National, China Symphony, Belgrade Philharmonic, Torino Symphony and Johannesburg Philharmonic orchestras.

Currently, Kern is a postgraduate student at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Accademia Pianistica Incontri col Maestro in Imola, Italy, where she studies with Boris Petrushansky.

For Kern, the Van Cliburn was not just another competition. Winning it put her close to her idol, the competition's Texas founder.

"I have a lot of pictures of him; I have all CDs of him. He understand how Russian music must be. He plays with Russian soul. So I always wanted to win this competition."

From all reports, Kern absolutely knocked the judges out. Or as the Dallas Morning News critic Scott Cantrell floridly put it, "Ms. Kern surged onstage in her torso-hugging red dress, plugged the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto into a nuclear reactor and all but melted down the whole of North Texas."

In demand as a concert pianist, Kern is often on tour these days - and away from her son - for three weeks or more at a time.

"I miss him so much," she says. "My mother takes care of him. I know everything is good when I'm gone.

`I can't take him with me; it's very difficult for child. But maybe when he will be bigger, about 4 years old, I can take him with me."

Kern handles the separation by calling her son every day.

"He explains to me everything what he makes today, what was interesting today and which friends were today in our house," she says, adding that one day she probably will teach him to play the piano.

"He is very, very musical. He loves music. He loves pianos. He always tells me, `Oh, Mama, you play so loud. I can't listen to you. I show you how I play.'

`He touches the keys really soft and he tries to play the piano. I love it."

EUGENE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

WHAT: Sergey Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, selections from Aram Khachaturian's "Gayane" ballet and Sergey Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Olga Kern); conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday

WHERE: Silva Concert Hall, Hult Center, Seventh and Willamette streets

HOW MUCH: $10 to $38 through the Hult Center box office, 682-5000

GUARDLINE: To hear examples of the music, call GuardLine at 485-2000 from a touch-tone phone and request category 3733

FREE PREVIEW: Guerrero and Kern will preview the concert at noon Wednesday in the Hult Center's Studio One

FREE PRE-CONCERT LECTURE: Guerrero will speak at 7:15 p.m. Thursday in the Hult Center's Soreng Theatre

ROSEBURG CONCERT: The program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Friday at the Umpqua Community College's Jacoby Auditorium in Roseburg; tickets are $10 to $14; [phone]

Arts reporter Fred Crafts can be reached by phone at 338-2575 and by e-mail at [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

Winning gold at the Van Cliburn has led to increased bookings for Olga Kern, and more demand for glamorous publicity photos.