In Thursday’s (7/18) Denver Post, Ray Mark Rinaldi writes about the Philadelphia Orchestra’s July 10 performance at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival in Colorado. “Who can resist following up a performance by The Philadelphia Orchestra with the ‘Jazz After’ offered by the Vail Jazz Festival. Orchestra musicians dress down, head to the Larkspur restaurant and trade riffs…. For Philly, the jazz was a bit of dessert after one of the finest concerts the The Philadelphia Orchestra has ever played in Vail. No exaggeration…. Expectations were already high for Wednesday’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2…. The orchestra has a way of going right to the edge but avoiding crassness or cliché. This music was attacked in teams, with tight playing traded from strings to woodwinds to brass section…. [Music Director Yannick] Nézet-Séguin moves like a gymnast on the podium.… The audience swoons. The first piece of the evening elicited a different response: Wonder. Guest cellist Alisa Weilerstein wrangled and tamed Shostakovich’s difficult Cello Concerto No 1. Weilerstein let her bow, and her hair, swoop expertly over her instrument. She handled the highly technical parts with stamina and kept the music, which can seem distant sometimes, feeling human.” Also in residence at Bravo! Vail each summer are the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.
Posted July 19, 2013
