Just back from a week at the Aspen Music Festival.  By far the most
exciting thing I heard was a piano concerto competition (the test piece
was the entire Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto - that is to say, they
made no cuts, so we heard it four times).  Each succeeding contestant,
quite surprisingly since the order was random, was better than the last
one.  And then contestant number four came out - a tall skinny young man
with a mop of tight brown curls (reminding me instantly of the young Van
Cliburn) - and proceeded to play exponentially better than any of the
previous contestants.  In many years of attending the Festival this is
the most impressive student pianist I've ever heard.  Frankly, his
performance reminded me of Richter's (in the famous recording with the
Warsaw Philharmonic).  He sat bolt upright - none of the gyrations so
often seen by 'expressive' players - and played like a master.

Turns out he's just turned 18, is at Peabody, a student of Boris Slutsky,
a pianist/pedagog about whom I've been hearing wonderful things.  I spoke
with him afterwards and he told me that he'd started studying the concerto
only two days before he arrived for the Festival in late June.  'It was
so familiar, that it wasn't hard to learn.  I was fortunate that I already
knew the Rachy Third; it made this one like playing Jingle Bells.' (Yeah,
right.) It was all said with naive modesty, not boastfulness.

His name is Eric Alan Zuber, and although these predictions are often
go wildly astray, I think we'll be hearing about him in the years to
come.

Other highlights: Varese's 'Octandre', which I'd never heard live.
Kyoko Takezawa playing an elegant Sibelius Violin Concerto.  David Zinman
conducting the Aspen Chamber Orchestra in a Beethoven Fourth Symphony
even better than his recording with the Zurich Tonhalle (in that wonderful
Beethoven series he did using the new Baerenreiter Beethoven edition).
Paul Sperry reciting the Edith Sitwell verses (ALL of them), collaborating
with a group of six musicians in Walton's Facade.  A student quartet
playing an incandescent Ginastera First Quartet.  A master class with
legendary Juilliard piano professor Herbert Stessin.  Another with Joseph
Kalichstein with a marvelous young woman, Ang Li (yup, same name as the
movie director!) playing the Schumann Fantasie in C.

I missed a Sarah Chang recital because of a migraine. Drat.

Low point: a piece of klezmer dreck (Three Songs - with Jennifer Ringo,
soprano and a small chamber group) by current hottie Osvaldo Golijov.
It was given a wonderful performance and I have to admit that it brought
people to their feet, but it struck me as pure and utter crap.

Scott Morrison