October 7, 2025 by Edward Sava-Segal
Yunchan Lim (piano), Philadelphia Orchestra / Marin Alsop (conductor). Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, 5.10.2025. (ES-S)
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 125th-anniversary season opened its subscription series with a twentieth-century journey that moved backward in time. Under Marin Alsop, now the orchestra’s principal guest conductor, the program paired the world premiere of John Adams’s The Rock You Stand On with Yunchan Lim’s much-anticipated debut in Bartók’s Piano Concerto No.3 and a sweeping sequence from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Heard together, these works traced a descent from contemporary pulse to classical poise and finally to theatrical vitality – a sequence that showcased the orchestra’s precision and expressive range under Alsop’s assured direction.