Moving Music in Aspen: Stephen Kim, Christopher Richardson and Orli Shaham.

No music critic I, but since I express myself about art a lot, why not sound?

We've been coming to the Aspen Music Festival for about 10 years and we have some very memorable experiences; but putting aside the great Mahler, Beethoven and Brahms and artists we've heard, this week was special.

Last night, Stephen Kim, 14, blew a sophistocated auditorium away with his rendering of the Sarasate Faust Fantasy; then Christopher Richardson, 11 years old, threw caution to the winds with his playing of the Prokofief Piano Sonato #4 - wow, what are these Asian kids getting in California?

Then tonight, Orli Shaham, yah, I know, her bro is Gil, whom we've heard at lot at Shriver Hall and the Meyerhoff - so she got an E-ZPass in, right?, but no, she earned her way in thru Horace Mann, Columbia and Julliard - played Musorgsky's [sic] Pictures at an Exhibition. 

Now, disclosure: I hate Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, or at least I have hated every rendition I've ever heard, in the concert hall, on the radio or on the iPod.  But boy, was this special; clear, energetic and dynamic (in the sense that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary meant - that is, relating to physical force or energy).

AMFS - you're doing something right, keep it up!