Tuesday trills

Hilary plays Higdon:  I know you're busy, but if you can spare just a half-hour to hear something special today, make it at 3:00.  That's when Walter Carroll will play Hilary Hahn (33rd birthday today!) doing the Pulitzer-winning Concerto written for her by American composer Jennifer Higdon.  If you've ever enjoyed the violin concertos by, say, Sibelius, Prokofiev and Barber, and have a taste for imaginative and melodic music and awe-inspiring virtuoso playing, you'll get a kick out of this one.  Please tune in!

Giving the critics some love:  I've been pretty tough on music critics since starting this blog.  So, it gives me great pleasure to applaud one of our best classical critics, Anne Midgette, for a piece she wrote recently about superstar pianist Lang Lang.  What I love here is the way she acknowledges something that I wish all critics would come to terms with:  that critics see and hear things differently from other listeners, and that when the critical consensus is at odds with the popular consensus, maybe the critic would do well to reexamine her viewpoint.  Brava!

Carol du jour: Want to have the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention?   Click on this simply stupendous performance by the great French tenor Georges Thill of Adolphe Adam's "Cantique de Noël" ("O Holy Night"):

 Hear what I mean?  By the way, if you have a favorite carol video you'd like to share, please email me the link at jm@nepr.net.