Orpheus with pianist Richard Goode

Among the most eloquent and loyal of Orpheus’ many guest collaborators over the years has been pianist Richard Goode, hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness. New Yorker critic David Blum wrote: “What one remembers most from Goode’s playing is not its beauty—exceptional as it is—but his way of coming to grips with the composer’s central thought, so that a work tends to make sense beyond one’s previous perception of it.” The Toronto Globe and Mail wrote, “Mr. Goode has so thoroughly entered into the spirit of the compositions he performs that you’d swear the composer himself was at the keyboard.” Lafayette is pleased to have Goode as soloist in Robert Schumann’s passionate A-minor Piano Concerto on this afternoon when we toast Orpheus’s 40th anniversary season in a gala post-performance Williams Center reception. Two splendid symphonies complete the program: Felix Mendelssohn’s joyful and dance-filled Symphony No. 4, called “The Italian,” and Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 2, known also as the “Short” Symphony.