Pablo Ferrandez returns to Heinz Hall having had a sensational debut in a 2023 December concert with Anne Sophie Mutter and John Williams playing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Anne Sophie Mutter. He describes the challenge of playing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 1., the composer’s fear of being taken away in the night were he to run counter to what Stalin thought he should be writing, the importance of the timpanist in the First Concerto, his family of musicians naming him after Pablo Casals, growing up in sunny Spain, his recordings for Sony including the Brahms Double Concerto with Anne Sophie Mutter, the Czech Philharmonic and Manfred Honeck, and what he knows about Pittsburgh and the orchestra in this conversation with Jim Cunningham.