Yunchan Lim Plays Rachmaninoff

As Jury Chair for the Van Cliburn Competition performances, Marin Alsop knows first-hand what makes a winner, and she has championed the thrilling young Korean pianist Yunchan Lim since he astonished the judges with his assured, explosive performance of Rachmaninoff’s legendarily challenging Piano Concerto No. 3 in 2022. Philadelphia Orchestra audiences have already experienced this astonishing young artist’s gifts, but only now will you hear him live in the work that established his worldwide reputation.

Through his heady youthful years among the sea-changing artists of early-20th-century Paris to his triumphant tour of the United States, Igor Stravinsky remained a Russian through and through, an artist who turned again and again to the fables, the literary traditions, and the melancholy soul of his motherland. In The Firebird, first created for Sergei Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes, Stravinsky perfectly portrays the mythical creature of Russian fairy tales, possessed of a sorcerer’s gift of bestowing blessings or curses on its captor.

Samuel Barber had strong ties to Philadelphia; the Curtis Institute was his home from age 14 to 20. Convinced of his destiny and determined to be a composer, young Samuel once wrote a letter to his mother begging that he not be compelled to play football, as it would take time away from his music. His First Symphony, written when he was just 25, is proof that he knew what he was talking about: it’s the work of a master, vividly orchestrated, intricately textured, irresistibly drawing the listener into its powerful dramatic heart. The Philadelphia Orchestra gave the world premiere of the revised version of this symphony in 1944.