Was pianist Stephen Hough sporting green suede shoes at Mostly Mozart?

   
Pianist Stephen Hough with Osmo Vänskä and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra wowed the Festival crowd last Friday:

"Hough's cadenza for Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23," writes Marion Lignana Rosenberg in New York Newsday, "Was a wondrous thing, jagged and acidic, scooting off into unexpected harmonic realms and carrying more than a whiff of Gershwin and Ravel about it. The whoops and applause that greeted it even after the Festival Orchestra resumed playing is something that one hears all too seldom at classical concerts and, like Hough's natty bucks, a refreshing breach in decorum."

Stephen Hough is piano soloist with the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg and conductor Ivor Bolton for a March 5, 2006 Celebrity Series concert.

NOTE: The performance listed above has been changed. Due to funding cuts by the Austrian government, the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg was forced to cancel its North American tour. The venerable - and conductorless - Italian chamber group, I Musici, will replace the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg (and conductor Ivor Bolton) on March 5. We are happy to report that concert will still feature pianist Stephen Hough. The new program and link to purchase tickets are here.