Yunchan Lim Plays Rachmaninoff

Yunchan Lim is coming to Marian Anderson Hall at The Kimmel Center on Thursday, October 29, for a night with The Philadelphia Orchestra. He'll be on piano, with Marin Alsop conducting. The main draw is Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, the same piece that put Lim on the map: he won the Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medal in 2022 as the youngest pianist ever to do so, and that performance was a big part of it. Alsop was the jury chair for that competition, and she's championed him ever since. This is the two of them appearing together with the orchestra.

That concerto isn't the only thing on the program. The orchestra will also play Samuel Barber's Symphony No. 1, which Barber wrote when he was 25 and which The Philadelphia Orchestra premiered back in 1944. Barber had deep ties to the city, living at the Curtis Institute from the age of 14 to 20. The third piece is Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, originally written for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Between the Rachmaninoff, the Barber, and the Stravinsky, the evening covers three very different composers in one sitting.

If you're planning to go, it's worth knowing the concert runs about two hours, including intermission. The performance is part of a run that goes from October 29 through October 31, so there are a few nights to choose from if Thursday doesn't work for you. You can find tickets and more details on the Philadelphia Orchestra's website.