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Rachmaninoff en Ritmo by Terry Heimat

From the album

Album Title: Rachmaninoff en Ritmo
Label: Pier 5
Released: 2026

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About the Album

Terry Heimat and Alex Sino released the new crossover composition “Rachmaninoff en Ritmo,” the first single of the upcoming album “Funky Sonatas”, featuring the internationally renowned pianist, Dr. Svetlana Smolina, and Milton Salcedo, Grammy-winning pianist and composer along with the exclusive line-up of musicians.

Rachmaninoff was basically the original “main character energy.” While everyone else was writing polite salon music, he was out here composing emotional architecture — skyscrapers of sound, built with impossible hands and terrifying precision. His chords don’t “hit different.” They rearrange your internal furniture.

Rachmaninoff isn’t a genre. His music is a bridge—and we are still walking across it!

Just imagine:

Rachmaninoff was doing crossover before crossover had a name. The real kind — where borders dissolve, and the music becomes a passport.
He crossed over between centuries: 19th‑century soul, 20th‑century velocity, 21st‑century emotional bandwidth.
He crossed over between worlds: Russia → America → and everywhere where pianos exist.
He crossed over between disciplines: composer with the architecture of an engineer, pianist with the stamina of an athlete, melodist with the instincts of a film director.

Listening to the “Rachmaninoff en Ritmo”, imagine a staged musical narrative in which two grand pianos sit opposite each other, like fencers. One, internationally renowned pianist Svetlana Smolina, is steeped in the brooding, expansive world of late‑Romantic Russian virtuosity; the other, the Latin Grammy Award-winning pianist, composer, and arranger, Milton Salcedo, radiates the rhythmic fire and improvisational swagger of Latin jazz. The tension between two pianists is delicious: Rubato vs. clave, romantic melancholy vs. tropical exuberance, Fortissimo del Fuego!

When Milton Salcedo plays a montuno or tumbao, he’s thinking in clave. When Svetlana Smolina plays Rachmaninoff, she’s thinking in rubato and long melodic arcs.

So the duel becomes:

Clave vs. rubato
Rhythmic precision vs. expressive elasticity

The project is a high‑art collision—an exploration of how two musical languages can clash, flirt, provoke, and ultimately transform each other.

The recording features the All—Stars musicians lineup, including:

Featuring Steinway&Sons Piano

Dr. Svetlana Smolina is a recipient of the “New Names” scholarship program and holds a DMA from the University of Michigan, as well as an MM, BM, and Artist Diplomas from Indiana University South Bend, Oberlin Conservatory, Brussels Royal Conservatory, and Balakirev Music College. Smolina has performed with orchestras such as the Mariinsky Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New Florida Philharmonic, the Shreveport Symphony, and the New York Chamber Orchestra. She has performed at venues including Carnegy Hall, the Salzburg Festival, the Hollywood Bowl, Ravinia Rising Stars, White Nights, Maggio Musicale, Mikkeli, Ruhr, Easter, Rotterdam, Phillips Gergiev, International Gilmore, Settimane Musicali di Stresa, and many others.

Featuring Piano/Keyboards

A Grammy Award Winner, pianist, composer, and arranger, Milton Salcedo, is Colombian-American. From a very young age, Milton was influenced by a Latin musical environment. Milton worked, arranged, and composed for Néstor Torres, Juan Gabriel, Diego Torres, Olga Tañon, Antonio Arnedo, Elvis Crespo, Carlos Santana, David Visbal, Ismael Miranda, Amaury Gutiérrez, Andrés Cabas, Alejandro Fernández, Plácido Domingo, Rocío Durcal, Carlos Oliva, Luis Enrique, Natalia Jiménez, and John Secada, to name just a few of them. The support of undisputed international music stars such as Ed Calle, Dan Warner, Justo Almario, Ramón Benítez, and Néstor Torres, among others, is no less important, underscoring the great professionalism behind this production.

Drums And Percussion

Alex Alexander is a drummer/percussionist residing in New York City. He has performed and recorded with many artists worldwide. Among them: Dido, Eminem, Chaka Kahn, Ritchie Blackmore, David Bowie, Willie Nile, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Cliff, Joy Askew, Rickie Lee Jones, Bernie Worrell (P-Funk), Brian Hardgroove (Public Enemy). He performed at Lilith Fair with Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, Sinead O'Connor, Winona Judd, Chrissie Hynde, Ashwin Sood, Everett Bradley, the Jazz Legend Ornette Coleman, and many more.

Bass And Double Bass

Mario Rodriguez is a renowned bassist known for his work in Latin and jazz, notably performing with Al Di Meola and saxophone legend Gato Barbieri. Beyond Barbieri, Rodriguez has worked with Al Di Meola, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and Juan Luis Guerra, and has extensive recording credits, including work for Sesame Street.

Trumpet

Terry Heimat is the Global Music Award Winner. He is a conductor, composer, Professor Zhangjiajie Academy of Arts, and multi-instrumentalist. Terry is the director of the Zhangjiajie Philharmonic Orchestra and a professor of music.

Cello

Denis Dmitriev, the principal cellist of the Zhangjiajie Phylarmonic Orchestra (China).

Orchestra

The Zhangjiajie Phylarmonic Orchestra (China).

“Rachmaninoff in Ritmo" is not “fusion.” It’s a duel, a dramatic dialogue in which each piano defends its identity while performing the music of Sergey Rachmaninoff and exchanging ideas with the other.

Some curve in stone,
Some write in chords.
Some whisper notes that fit their score.
Some walk where broken music calls.
They cry that shakes the concert floor.
Behind the chaos, silence screams
Forgotten conscience of shattered dreams.
The rebel thought sound left behind
Sleeps not in silence—but in time
Arpeggios drown in the music beat,
Cadenza weep and voicing plead
Their tempo trembles—we remain,
Unscored, unseen, the silent strain.
It rises in thirds where beauty cracks,
A thought unchained, not bound by tracks.
Not grace but gravity in form,
A storm of self beneath the norm.

—Alex Sino

Tracks

Rachmaninoff en Ritmo

Personnel

Additional Personnel

Mixed by Terry Heimat and Alex Alexander; mastered by Adam Ayan

Date featured

June 5, 2026

This song appears by permission of the contributing artist and/or record company.
It is for personal use only; no other rights are granted or implied.