Two pianists: Polonsky and Podgurski

There's something about Anna

Pounding, pedaling and darting like quicksilver, the slender young pianist Anna Polonsky stole the show at her duet recital with cellist Peter Wiley. At the Art Museum, by contrast, the jazz pianist Neil Podgurski showed a different, quieter side with a new band.

Michael Woods

Mar 17, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Jurowski's latest Orchestra 'audition'

The Jurowski watch

In a well-conceived and generally well-executed program of Berg and Mahler, Vladimir Jurowski once more dropped his card into the Philadelphia Orchestra's conductor sweepstakes. The performance of Mahler's rarely heard choral masterwork, Das klagende lied, should be remembered as one of the season's highlights. But please can the condescending pre-concert talks.

Robert Zaller

Mar 13, 2009 · Articles · 5 minute read

Lucinda Williams at the Keswick

A country icon finds her cruising speed

Dark though her subjects have been over the years, Lucinda Williams now gives the impression of being completely at ease with herself and her fellow musicians and reveling in 30 years of her own repertory.

Dan Coren

Mar 10, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

"Vita Nuova' at Alice Tully Hall (New York)

Dante meets Alice Tully: An anti-composer's anti-opera

New York's renovated and reopened Alice Tully Hall is buxom and Botoxed, and there's padding too in one of its featured premieres, Vladimir Martynov's oratorio-cum-opera Vita Nuova, though some payoff in the end.

Robert Zaller

Mar 03, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Dolce Suono's search for the ancient Greeks

In search of antiquity

What did ancient Greek music sound like? We'll never know. But Dolce Suono took us on a worthy quest to provide an answer.

Tom Purdom

Mar 03, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Vienna Philharmonic at Verizon Hall (2nd review)

The odd couple: Lang Lang with the Vienna

The extremely well balanced Vienna Philharmonic is accustomed to shouldering a huge and diverse workload. But last week it assumed what struck me as a dispiriting assignment: playing second fiddle to the histrionics of piano virtuoso Lang Lang.

Steve Cohen

Mar 01, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Vienna Philharmonic at Verizon Hall (1st review)

An orchestra like a seamless bolt of cloth

The Vienna Philharmonic, in its first Philadelphia appearance in six years, showed again why it's in a class by itself among the world's orchestras in a program of Wagner, Chopin, and Schubert. Soloist Lang Lang, alternately brilliant and frustrating by turns, left a more mixed impression.

Robert Zaller

Mar 01, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Astral Artists' "Musical Tapestry'

Musicians who care about their audience

So you want challenging new music that's nevertheless comprehensible and digestible? Astral Artists' “Musical Tapestry” offered young musicians who are not only talented but also eager to recruit converts to their unusual repertory.

Dan Coren

Feb 27, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Curtis grads play Schubert trios

Young composer, young musicians— and grownup emotions

Three of Curtis Institute's most successful graduates of the past 20 years took on two of Schubert's best-loved trios in a concert that explained, among other things, why chamber music audiences tend to be older than Olympic swimmers.

Tom Purdom

Feb 24, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Opera Company's "Turandot'

A little more light on the subject

The Opera Company's Turandot boasts a pleasant tenor in Francesco Hong, an innovative director in Renaud Doucet and a colorful set borrowed from the Dallas Opera. Why, then, was the stage in near-darkness for much of the opera?

Steve Cohen

Feb 24, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read