Concert Review: Conflagration, Comedy and Crisis

A perfect pair of programs at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Explosante-fixé: Paul Lewis and the parts of a piano.
Photo by Joseph Molina © 2016 harmonia mundi usa.

The Mostly Mozart Festival is celebrating half a century of providing refuge to New Yorkers coping with the city's erratic August temperatures with air-cooled concert halls and skilled performances of classical and early Romantic repertory. Two of those programs were on offer Tuesday night, with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra offering their first symphonic concert at David Geffen Hall this year, and Paul Lewis playing Schubert and Brahms upstairs in the elegant glass confines of the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.

Concert Review: Revenge of the Nerds

Andrés Orozco-Estrada debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Talk to the hands: Conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada
made his Cleveland Orchestra debut this week.
Photo by Werner Kmetitsch courtesy the artist's website.

Things are changing at Severance Hall, the staid Egyptian-inspired concert hall that squats, temple-like at the side of the lagoon in eastern Cleveland, Ohio. On Thursday night, the lobby of Severance was decorated with a bright neon and incandescent sign: the word NERDS blazing red and green, inviting concertgoers to take selfies with this work of pop art.