Gabriela Montero

Gabriela Montero is back for another night with the Colorado Symphony tonight, 3/22. Last night she played Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3, with Marin Alsop making a return to conduct the orchestra. The woodwinds sounded good. It looked like someone in the violin section might have broken a string. Anyway the piece ended with a great flourish led by Alsop that got the whole place on their feet. Montero (she has long blonde hair these days) came out for a second bow and the orchestra started leaving the stage. The lights came up and people were still on their feet and clapping. Montero came out for another bow and one of her trademark encores. She asked the audience, (or some of the people in the orchestra who hadn't made it offstage and so took their seats again), to shout out a theme. One suggested Beethoven's Fifth. So she pounded out a few bars of the trademark theme then paused for a moment before going into a fleshed out, whimsical improvisation using the theme. Tickets aren't cheap. My seat was above the bass section; we could see Alsop's face. The piano lid blocked view of Montero's hands, and in some forte parts, the piano couldn't be heard with the orchestra. The seat was $33.50. That's affordable for indie rock fans, but a better seat would have been alost 2x as much, which makes it harder to decide to go to the symphony more often than once every few months. Nicola Benedetti plays the Bruch violin concerto with the symphony next week.