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