Russian fans recall Ulster pianist Barry Douglas's 1986 Moscow triumph, before the fall of the Soviet Iron Curtain

Natalia Iyudu, who is also of Estonian background, was introduced to Barry Douglas at the recent Camerata festival in Clandeboye estate in Co Down.

Iyudu, who is based in Holywood and works with leading mathematicians in research institutions such as IHES (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques) in Paris and Max-Planck-Institute in Bonn., was a student in 1986 when Douglas won the Gold prize in the piano section of the International Tchaikovsky Competition.

The highly prestigious award, which was launched in the 1950s, is only awarded every four years, and it is mostly won by Russians. Of the eight winners before Douglas, who was victorious prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain, five were pianists from the Soviet Union. It is a remarkable honour for someone from the UK to win, let alone from Northern Ireland – no-one else from the province has done so.

Iyudu explains: “I came to the [Moscow] conservatory [a concert hall and music school] to the Tchaikovsky competition in 1986 being at that time a mathematical student at the Mechanics and Mathematics department of Moscow state University. One of the brightest impressions was from Barry’s play. He did it on the same high level as Russians, but he brought something else: green hills and sea shores of Ireland.

"Or perhaps the approach of the Liszt school.” Liszt was a Hungarian composer, and one of the most brilliant pianists of his era.

"Barry’s music was alive and very touching. The first Tchaikovsky concert, which I usually found quite pompous and formal, was so alive, full of sense and emotion. I think this impressed a lot the spoiled-for-choice Moscow public, and everybody was convinced that Barry will win – which was happening very rarely, only in case of ‘absolute winners’.

“Later I listened a lot of his music and it helped me to go through difficult situations in life, because it expresses so crisp and clear the sense of beauty and humanity in all its possible incarnations. It touches the soul and mind and nurture all positive beliefs.”

Iyudu and her husband Stanislav Shkarin met Barry Douglas on Saturday August 25 at the end of the last night of the week-long Camerata event at Clanedboye, which involved a concert led by Douglas and finished with a meal in the Banqueting Hall. Shkarin is also a mathematician, working at Queen's University Belfast for last 15 years..

Douglas was delighted to meet the couple and talked animatedly to them.

It must be pretty rare that you meet someone who was at your 1986 concert, the News Letter asked him. "Yeah, it is very unusual,” he said.

“The people of Moscow and all over Russia made me feel from 1986 that I was part of them and that I played like them. I really was so honoured and happy to hear these comments. A ‘wee lad’ from Belfast being complimented in the home of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich.

"To this day I have so many friends who are in constant contact with me - now of course it is difficult in person but they email me or text me.”

Douglas added: "We are all one humanity and their great composers would have agreed that we have more in common that what sets us apart. The theme of the Clandeboye Festival this year was – Music Without Borders.”