Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra Presents LEVIN PLAYS MOZART Tonight

Renowned Mozart interpreter ROBERT LEVIN returns to join Music Director LARRY RACHLEFF and the RHODE ISLAND PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA for Mozart's Piano Concerto, No.20 in D minor tonight April 12.

The orchestra will also perform Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony No.5 in D minor, and the rarely-heard twentieth-century American gem, Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question. The concert takes place Saturday April 12 at 8:00pm at The Vets in Providence. The concert is sponsored by Taco/The White Family Foundation, and Mr. Levin's appearance is sponsored by Dr. and Mrs. Ronald DeLellis. WPRO News Talk 630 is the media sponsor. Tickets (starting at $15) are available at riphil.org/tickets, by phone at 401.248.7000, and in person at the RIPO box office, 667 Waterman Ave., East Providence.

The AMICA RUSH HOUR performance featuring selections from Saturday's program - and a side-by-side performance with members of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Orchestra - is Friday April 11 at 6:30pm.

LARRY RACHLEFF, music director, said: "I love this program so much, because I get to collaborate with one of my best friends! Bob Levin is perhaps the greatest classical pianist of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven in the world today. Bob has been with us before, but not for a long time, and he'll join us for Mozart's 20th piano concerto. Robert will improvise it like a jazz pianist, making up his cadenzas and adding notes all over - it's really a Mozart/Levin concerto. Interestingly," he added, "the last time the Philharmonic performed this concerto was a long time ago, on November 23, 1963, the day after President Kennedy was assassinated."

Rachleff continued: "The concert opens with the iconic New England composer Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question, a work for strings, four flutes and an off-stage trumpet, who intones the very question for which the strings provide the answer, perhaps. It's a touching and haunting piece, written at the beginning of the twentieth century: it sounds as if it could have been written two weeks ago."

Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony comprises the second half of the concert. "Two seasons ago, we gave you his 'Leningrad' Seventh symphony," Rachleff concluded. "His Fifth is his most popular, written in a kind of defiance to the Stalinists, created in such a way that they believed he was saluting them when in fact, he was not. It's a work of great drama and power and strength, typical of Shostakovich's bold mature language. We performed the work here many years ago, and look forward to exploring it again in this program."

Pianist ROBERT LEVIN is one of America's leading keyboard players in the early instruments movement, but he has a large repertory in all major periods and genres of piano music. He is equally at home at the harpsichord, the fortepiano and the standard pianoforte as a recitalist, concerto performer and accompanist. Mr. Levin is best known as a Mozart pianist and scholar and has written cadenzas to many of the master's recordings, published embellishments of Mozart solo parts and several reconstructions or completions of Mozart works. He studied with the legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in France while he was still a teenager. Mr. Levin attended Harvard University and upon graduation joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute as head of the theory department. He became the Resident Director of the American Conservatory (1979 - 1983). In 1993 he became a professor of Humanities at Harvard University.

The Philharmonic's season features eight Classical concerts on Saturday nights at 8pm at The Vets. Four are preceded by Amica Rush Hour concerts on Friday at 6:30pm, and four have Friday Open Rehearsals at 5:30pm. This season's remaining Amica Rush Hour Series concert is on Friday April 11. The shorter, informal, accessible Rush Hour concerts feature full performances of select repertoire from the Saturday Classical concerts whenever possible. The remaining Open Rehearsal, on Friday May 9, offers insight into the collaboration between the conductor, guest artists and orchestra musicians as they prepare for the upcoming classical concert. Subscriptions are on sale now. Please call the Philharmonic box office at 401.248.7000, or visit www.riphil.org/tickets.