by Mike Telin
Note: this concert has been cancelled due to the severe weather forecast. There are certain pieces of music that, no matter when they were written, always sound new. And in the eyes and ears of Alexander Korsantia, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is one that holds that distinction. “It is an eternally fun concerto,” the pianist said during a recent interview. “It was written almost one hundred years ago but it still feels like it is aiming to the future.”
On Saturday, January 19 at 8:00 pm in E.J. Thomas Hall, the Georgian-born pianist will perform that concerto with the Akron Symphony under the direction of guest conductor Benjamin Zander. The all-Russian program will also include Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Tickets are available online.
When asked what he finds so attractive about the Prokofiev Concerto, the 1995 Gold Medal winner at the Rubinstein Competition quickly answered, “Its diversity. This concerto, probably more than any other by Prokofiev or any great composer, just covers a colossal amount of space in history. He is using an array of techniques from earlier music, like the polyphonic music of the Baroque, and the minuets and gavottes of the Classical era. Haydn is the champion of those dances in the 18th century, but in the 20th century that is Prokofiev.”
“Verdi and Wagner together represent the pinnacle of the high Romantic age in music, and both were masters of drama,” Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins says in a 
“Ghost”
“
A cave on the Scottish island of Staffa, the city of Rome, birdsong from Finnish bogs, and the vast landscapes of Antarctica provided key inspiration for four works — two of them among classical music’s Top 40, the other two rarely performed.
Anticipating Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival, or however you refer to the blowout before the beginning of Lent, the Akron Symphony joined forces with Neos Dance Theater on Friday, February 8 in E.J. Thomas Hall to produce its latest community extravaganza: a fully choreographed performance of the ballet score to Stravinksy’s 
Suites from Stravinsky’s ballets are popular choices for orchestral programs, but it’s not often the works are actually presented as ballets. It’s even more rare for performances to feature modern, reimagined choreography.
While Sergei Prokofiev’s third piano concerto receives more than its fair share of visits to the concert stage, and even his first concerto makes appearances from time to time, what about the composer’s second concerto — why does it languish in obscurity?
“I can look at all four symphonies of Brahms and say, ‘Oh that one is my favorite.’ Then I think, ‘No this one is,’” conductor Daniel Hege said during a recent telephone conversation. “But I have so much admiration for the Second Symphony. It has a lot of passion and emotional power all the way through, including a brilliant finish.”
“Pictures at an Exhibition” was the title of the Akron Symphony’s concert in E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday evening, November 18, but there were more pictures on the wall than those by Victor Hartmann that inspired Mussorgsky’s famous musical stroll through a gallery. The other two artists whose work was projected on either side of the stage were Charles E. Burchfield and Matthias Grünewald, their art the catalysts for pieces by Morton Gould