Rach 3 by Olga Kern and the Grant Park Orchestra

The Grant Park Music Festival’s outdoor venue is at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, sitting in the heart of downtown Chicago around the skyscrapers.

Tonight’s concert featured the Grant Park Orchestra, Carlos Kalmar and pianist Olga Kern, playing a magnificent program:

Sergei Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3
Igor Stravinsky Game of Cards
Edward Elgar In the South

The outdoor festival is exactly like the Frank Gehry architecture — it pierce through the air and stand firmly among the Chicago skyscrapers. You feel more the shape and less the nuance. Rachmaninoff carries through with Olga Kern’s powerful playing, very metallic, sculptured and sharp. She played the first original cadenza for mvt I written by Rachmaninoff. My pianist friend think it’s the best cadenza ever written and its early appearance even shadows rest of the concerto movements.