Spontaneous improvisations have become Gabriela Montero’s trademark as a pianist. Still well alive in jazz today, improvisation was a standard ingredient in Classical piano recitals up to the 1930s. When Gabriela Montero revived the tradition, the classical music scene was astounded, but her free extemporizations are now the undisputed highlight in her concerts. Returning this year to the Ruhr Piano Festival for the ninth time, she has chosen to devote the evening to one of the great subjects of our time: emigration, an issue which, as a born Venezuelan, lies close to her heart in view of the tragedy currently experienced by her home country. Montero has chosen works by composers who were forced to leave their native land. And of course she will improvise, using Charlie Chaplin’s tragicomic silent film “The Immigrant” (1917) as a basis. In this cinematic masterwork brimming with profound emotion, humor, and irony, a man crosses the Atlantic and wanders the streets of New York, penniless. This is ideal terrain for Montero: in her spontaneous performances she often lets the sparks fly; at other times, she bathes the piano keys in moving melancholy.