Going in I was somewhat surprised to see that Andrew Litton would not only be conducting, but also playing the piano for Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The double duty seemed like too much to me. Litton assured us, however, before the piece, that, because the pianist and the orchestra play apart from each other during the composition, it wasn’t really a problem.

I think he was wrong. First, there certainly were, unsurprisingly, places in the music where there was overlap. (Did he think we wouldn’t notice?) Second, though it was amusing(?) to watch him sporadically rise from the piano bench for two or three seconds at a time to wave his hands at musicians who probably weren’t watching him before sitting back down and immediately resume his playing, I can’t help but think that it affected his concentration.

So, how did he sound? Next time the festival rolls out Rhapsody in Blue, please bring back Michelle Cann. Her rendition was much more dynamic. I’ll even go so far as to say that I preferred Sean Hayes’s interpretation in the play Good Night, Oscar.

As for the rest of the concert, I had not previously heard either Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances or Manuel De Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat, though I had heard good things about the latter, before going, from a friend in the know, who remains credible, as I enjoyed it.