Philadelphia Orchestra, Feb 8 2026

I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra on Feb 7, 2026. I'd heard them two or three times at Carnegie Hall but never on their home turf. And what a beautiful concert hall. The woman next to me (a longtime Phil Orch audience member) said that they have amazing acoustics, "like being in the middle of a violin." I don't have an ear for acoustics, it always sounds fine to me, but I'll take her word for it.

The concert was conducted by Rafael Payare. They opened with Louis Ballard's *Devil's Promenade,* written in 1973. Ballard is an Indigenous composer and the piece uses some Indigenous instruments, folk music, and concepts. It opened with the string players knocking on their instruments, some with more zest than others. What the piece lacked in harmonic and melodic interest it made up for in rhythmic vitality. The lyrical middle section had an appealing metric ambiguity. It had a noble flute solo and a gorgeous theme for the violas, the cellos playing pizz, and the violins cantabile-ing above. This snowballed into a vigorous finale which went from fast to faster to wow, it really can go faster. The ending had the timpani and other big drums throwing a very serious tantrum, capped off with a big TA DA! for the full orchestra. There's a special skill in landing the ending.

Here's a Naxos recording (gotta love Naxos):

The centerpiece of the program was the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, written in 1878. I'd never heard this piece and was interested to learn that the soloist was not some hot shot touring the world but the Phil Orch's own concertmaster, David Kim. My seatmate told me that the orchestra gives him a solo spot about once a year. There was a palpable feeing of love and appreciation for Kim in the air.

He played well but something was missing. At first i called it "authority" but then decided that what he lacked was something more slippery and elusive - - you could call it glamour, charisma, star quality. Even the virtuoisic moments felt correct and impressive rather than thrilling. It's a pretty sad statement when the highlights of a concerto are the in between moments when the soloist stops playing and the orchestra takes over.

Something odd happened with his cadenza at the end of the first movement. Quite a few times he spelled out a chord from the low range up to a super high note. Let's say the last notes are My Dog Has Fleas! Well two or three times I could see his bow move across the string on the final note but the note didn't actually come out. My Dog Has ___. This was upsetting. However about a third of the audience (including my seatmate) gave him a loud and enthusiastic standing ovation at the end of the first movement.

The slow movement was a bigger success. The tone of withdrawn romantic longing was in line with his pale and wan sound, like a Russian girl looking out the window at the falling snow, one tear eventually escaping from her eye and slowly slowly rolling down her cheek.

But then whoa, an abrupt change and we were off to the races for the finale. It felt like it was written so that if you can play it then it'll come across so Kim delivered on those terms. Sadly again the best moments were when he lowered his violin and the orchestra played without him. The audience went NUTS when it was over, an instant screaming standing ovation, brought him back for four bows. It brought a tear to my eye, especially when he turned and thanked his colleagues in the orchestra.

Here's a performance by Itzhak Perlman. He is not lacking in glamour, charisma, or. star quality.

The second half was *El Amor Brujo* by Manuel de Falla, written in 1915. It's scored for contralto and orchestra and our soloist was flamenco singer Marina Heredia, a statuesque woman in a gorgeous black dress and a big ivory and black fringed shawl which she gathered about her with occasional drama, occasional concealed annoyance. Eventually she took it off and put it on her chair. She had a body mic which didn't bother me since she's not a classical singer.

The singer is only featured about half of the time and WOW that orchestra is amazing. Maybe it was where I was sitting, maybe it was the hall, but whenever one of the winds had a solo (the flute, the clarinet, the French horn etc) it was a Hello Dolly moment, loud and defiantly center stage with a virtual spotlight. Ethel Merman as Dolly. Scale it back honey, give someone else a chance. It didn't seem intentional, it seemed like an acoustical anomaly.

Anyway the orchestra sounded spectacular, full bodied playing, delicious rich sound, really digging into the spicy Moorish flavor of the piece. The singer thrilled me right off, she had the raw, raspy sound that I associate with flamenco singers. She did some dialogue over the course of the piece, something I wasn't expecting. Her first scene was full of breast-beating anguish (thank you for the supertitles) but she delivered it in a contained manner, giving it even greater impact. She did some elegant flamenco rotating of the hands in one section, that was a joy to see. She had it going on, she knew it, she wasn't held back from sharing it.

Here's a performance from 2020 by an orchestra in Murcia, Spain: