Pianist Horacio Gutierrez has cancelled all his engagements through January 2008 due to a diagnosis of primary gastric lymphoma.

"[It] is 90% curable with chemotherapy, which he is undergoing now," his manager, Seldy Cramer, told Playbill Arts. "He plans to return to the stage in January."

Cramer has rebooked nearly all of Gutierrez's appearances, including two with the Philadelphia Orchestra in November at which he was scheduled to perform Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2. Gutierrez will be replaced by Markus Groh playing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1.

Born in Cuba, Gutierrez received the second prize at the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Avery Fisher Prize in 1982. He has performed regularly in the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and currently teaches at the Manhattan School of Music. Noted for his bold but refined renditions of concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, Gutierrez has also given special attention to works by Andre Previn, William Schuman and other American composers.

By Kevin Shihoten