Piano Concerto

With his programming choices for the 1999-2000 concert season, Annapolis Symphony conductor Leslie B. Dunner begins sharing his musical priorities with his players and his public.Indeed, his choices mark a delightful change from the "Greatest Hits" format of the 1997-1998 conductor-search season and the pleasant but sometimes disjointed programming of the guest conductor-filled season drawing to a close.The music of Russia and France are prominent in Dunner's heart. We can expect glorious encounters with each next season.

The Annapolis Symphony's 1998-99 season comes to a close this weekend with a pair of concerts conducted by Leslie B. Dunner, completing his first year at the helm.The program will be brought to us by the letter "B": the G minor Violin Concerto of Max Bruch and the "Egmont" Overture and Symphony No. 7 of Ludwig van Beethoven.Young Canadian violinist Lara St. John will be the soloist in the Bruch.A grand winner of the Canadian Music Competition at the age of 9, St. John went on to win prizes at the Yehudi Menuhin Competition, the Philadelphia Orchestra Competition and the Concours Nerini in Paris.

Daniel Hays is rhapsodizing about one of his life's passions:"It's not only an escape," he says. "It opens up new vistas. It's like, you open up a room, and then there's another door and then another, and it just opens up such " He pauses. What is the right word? A flash of inspiration pulls him to the piano keyboard an arm's length away."Like Chopin writing about the fall of Warsaw," he says above the heroic music rising from his Yamaha grand.In a couple of days he'll be playing at the Metro Food Market in Hunt Valley.

Berlin Symphony and Helene GrimaudBrahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor (Erato 3984-21633)Anyone looking for a new recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor of Brahms cannot do better than a performance of the piece by pianist Helene Grimaud and conductor Kurt Sanderling (with the Berlin Symphony) on the Erato label.This recording may not seem initially as exciting as some others. The tempos tend to be slow, and the artists appear to be searching to create warmth rather than raise adrenalin levels.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has announced its schedule for next season. Performances for the Casual Concerts are identified with an asterisk (*).Celebrity SeriesSept. 17-19Gunther Herbig, conductorManuel Barrueco, guitarBeethoven: "Egmont" OvertureSteven Stucky: Guitar Concerto (world premiere)Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, "Eroica"Oct. 8-9 (Oct. 10 - Casual)Alan Gilbert, conductorBridgett Hooks, sopranoLars Vogt, pianoBeethoven: "Ah! Perfido" *Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 *Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, "Pastorale"Oct.

"That's the hard part right now," says Darin Atwater, composer and pianist. "I find myself in a place where I'm composing a lot differently."Atwater, 27, who is featured as composer and piano soloist on the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's annual "Live, Gifted and Black" free concert wrote the piano concerto he'll be playing as a throwback to the romantic era.It's based on the spirituals "I Want Jesus to Walk Wid Me" and "Steal Away," and the piano part sounds as though Rachmaninoff were improvising over these familiar songs.

Expect nothing but firsts at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts this weekend.The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra presents its first subscription concerts of the 1998-1999 season at 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday.Leslie B. Dunner, the ASO's new music director, will take the Maryland Hall stage for the first time since he was appointed conductor in April.Dunner will make his subscription debut with two firsts composed by Johannes Brahms, a giant of 19th-century music whose sumptuously sustained melodic lines and deep orchestral sonorities will be loved as long as great music is played.

Barry Douglas and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 are old friends.The 37-year-old pianist learned the piece, which he will perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra tonight in Meyerhoff Hall, almost 20 years ago. He's programmed it at least once or twice each season since the start of his international career in 1986, when the Belfast-born musician became the first Western pianist since Van Cliburn to score an outright victory in Moscow's Tchaikovsky Competition."My...

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra audiences are in for "a good dose of Russian melancholia," says pianist Andre Watts, featured artist with the BSO this weekend.Watts will play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, and the orchestra, under guest conductor Jerzy Semkow, will perform Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony No. 6 in B minor.Though their composers belonged to different centuries, the pieces were written less than a decade apart. The "Pathetique" (given its title by Tchaikovsky's brother and manager, Modest)

This is the season that will probably be remembered as the year of the piano.Since September, this area has been visited by more major pianists than in the previous five years combined.Horacio Gutierrez, Radu Lupu and Andras Schiff have performed concertos with the Baltimore Symphony and performed recitals; Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, Richard Goode, Garrick Ohlsson and Murray Perahia have given recitals; Andre Watts will perform Rachmaninoff with the BSO tonight; and the biggest enchilada of all, Russian phenom Evgeny Kissin, will cap the season April 27 with a much-anticipated recital in Meyerhoff Hall.

James MacMillan, the multi-faceted Scottish composer and conductor, is the latest "Beethoven of today" to participate in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's season. Although a considerable force on the contemporary scene, he is not exactly well known around here, so his Explorer Series venture with the BSO provides a welcome introduction. MacMillan's intriguing calling card includes two of his own works on the first half of the program - each containing a bundle of folk tunes, classical hit parade allusions, spiky harmonies and dry wit - and Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 on the second.

Marin Alsop will pay tribute to her mentor, Leonard Bernstein, and his hero, Gustav Mahler, during the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's 2008-2009 season, Alsop's second as music director. Works by both men figure prominently, along with new pieces by Christopher Rouse and Jennifer Higdon, continuing Alsop's commitment to contemporary American music. After last season's successful pricing of subscription seats at $25 per concert, the BSO will again offer a $25 deal. This time, it won't include all locations at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, but more than 70 percent of the seats will be eligible for $25-per-concert subscription packages.

Music director Jason Love and the Columbia Orchestra will present their final concert of 2007 at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Jim Rouse Theatre. The evening begins with Charles Ives' Symphony No. 2, and ends with Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1, featuring acclaimed pianist Brian Ganz, a Howard County native who teaches at the Peabody Conservatory. At first glance, a program devoted to the music of Ives and Brahms might suggest a cacophonous burst of Americana followed by a heady dose of straightforward romanticism.

Headlines proclaiming Leon Fleisher as a teenage piano prodigy; applause rocking the theater; and a sepia record jacket announcing the pianist teaming with conductor George Szell on Mozart's 25th Piano Concerto -- these triumphal sounds and images tumble off the screen at the start of Nathaniel Kahn's Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story. But they swiftly give way to an empty Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with a vacant piano center-stage, as Fleisher speaks of the terrible time in 1964 when he was preparing for the most important tour of his life and he discovered that he couldn't use the fourth and fifth fingers on his right hand.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra will mark the centennial of Dmitri Shostakovich's birth in a big way. Each will devote to him two weeks of programs with starry soloists and conductors who knew the composer well. Between Sept. 28 and Oct. 7, BSO music director emeritus Yuri Temirkanov conducts Symphony No. 5 and No. 10, as well as Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Yefim Bronfman). Call 410-783-8000 or visit baltimoresymphony.com. And Nov. 2-11, Mstislav Rostropovich leads the NSO in Symphony No. 8 and No. 10, Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Martha Argerich)

If you're traveling about the country during the next few weeks, don't be surprised if you bump into a major player from Baltimore's cultural stage: Marin Alsop, music director-to-be of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She's conducting from coast-to-coast, starting tonight, when she leads the New York Philharmonic in a free concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park. Despite the heat wave, this may turn out to be one of the cooler spots in Manhattan. Alsop has programmed a fun piece by John Adams, The Chairman Dances, derived from his opera Nixon in China, and Beethoven's evergreen Symphony No. 5. In between will be Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, with Leila Josefowicz, a fast-rising young talent on today's scene, as soloist.

Internally, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra does not present an entirely cohesive image these days, with an unproven executive freshly installed and a rash of departures on the staff, including some of its most devoted and valuable members. Financially, the orchestra doesn't look entirely steady, either, given worrisome debts that could hit a new high next year. Artistically, though, the BSO couldn't sound much more unified or solid. What the audience found Saturday night at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall was an ensemble operating at the top of its game, led by a music director at the top of his. For the season's final classical subscription program, Yuri Temirkanov focused on two strong personalities who knew how to shake up expectations, extract fresh instrumental colors and, in the best possible sense, just show off -- Hector Berlioz and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The most auspicious musical debut of the 2003-2004 Anne Arundel concert season was undoubtedly that of the Londontowne Symphony Orchestra. Founded by Kathy Solano, a violinist with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and a county music teacher, the chamber orchestra -- consisting of area professionals, semiprofessionals, music teachers and a few students -- has delivered two lovely full-length concerts and is poised to offer a third. At 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, the fledgling orchestra will conclude its inaugural season at Southern High School in Harwood with a handsome program to be conducted by Ernest Liotti of Baltimore's Loyola College.

Under the best of circumstances, the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Johannes Brahms can be a scary prospect for a soloist. The outer movements abound in two-fisted, blood-and-guts action; the rapt Adagio in between calls for an exceptionally poetic touch. Ultimately, what the concerto demands from the pianist is total, unconditional victory. So why is Leon Fleisher, who hasn't enjoyed full, free use of his right hand for almost 40 years, attempting such a task in Baltimore this week? "It's interesting and it's fun," he says.

You've no doubt come across the kind of dessert that restaurants like to dub, with good reason, "Death by Chocolate" -layer upon layer of impossibly rich, incalculably caloric confectionery. I never can resist it. On Wednesday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra served its capacity audience a program that could have been called "Death by Tchaikovsky." I couldn't resist that, either. This was the big-gun opening of the Kennedy Center's month-long focus on Tchaikovsky, a festival that will provide a substantial sampling of the composer's output in multiple genres.