Concert Review: Underdog Day Afternoon

Alan Gilbert conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Lullaby of Broad Streeet? Alan Gilbert.
Photo of Alan Gilbert by Chris Lee © 2013 The New York Philharmonic.
Background photo of Broad Street © Google Earth. Photoshop by the author.

When Alan Gilbert was elevated as the new music director the New York Philharmonic six years ago, it was recognized as an attempt by that venerable orchestra to embrace change in the new century. This week, Mr. Gilbert visited another orchestra coming out of its own period of adjustment: the Philadelphia Orchestra. In recent years, the Broad Street band has overcome bankruptcy, labor strife and the installation of its own young music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Obituary: Jon Lord (1941-2012)

Keyboard pioneer was a composer and founding member of Deep Purple. 

"We're as valid as anything by Beethoven."
--Jon Lord, in an interview with the New Musical Express, 1973.

Organist, composer Jon Lord.
Photo from JonLord.org.

Keyboardist, organist and composer Jon Lord has died after a long bout with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.

Born Jonathan Douglas Lord, in Leicester in 1941, Mr. Lord began studying classical piano at the age of five. He was a London session musician in th early '60s playing keyboards on The Kinks classic "You Really Got Me." In 1968, he founded Deep Purple with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, injecting his classical influence into projects like Concerto for Group and Orchestra.

Mr. Lord's signature sound combined the Hammond organ with the Leslie speaker cabinet, a rotating amplifier that created a distinctive, swirling tone. He then drove the Leslie through a Marshall stack to create an over-driven sound that could duel on equal footing with Mr. Blackmore's guitar.

After the first of many lineup changes, Purple evolved from blues and experimental music into one of the cornerstones of the first wave of British heavy metal music. They recorded seminal albums like Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head and the live Made in Japan. Internatonal stars, Purple rode the forefront of a wave that also included Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.