Chinese pianist Lang Lang, Americana artists open Symphony season

Classical music fans may want to stow the barbecue gear, because the concert season has arrived with a long weekend of its own. Blair School of Music opens its fall concert series on Thursday with a recital by guitarist John Johns and friends (see Critic's Pick, p. TK), and on Friday and Saturday nights, The Nashville Symphony starts large with big-name soloists in two contrasting programs.

This diverse opening weekend signals both the Symphony's broad mission and its intention to make a splash during conductor Giancarlo Guerrero's first year as official music director. The orchestra has enlisted 27-year-old superstar pianist Lang Lang as soloist in Friday's meat-and-potatoes all-Beethoven program, including the "Eroica" Symphony and Piano Concerto No. 3. Saturday's bill features a roster of notables from the world of Americana roots music, for a concert highlighting how traditional American repertoires have been echoed in the orchestral concert hall.

It would be hard to overstate the popular success Chinese pianist Lang Lang has achieved since his first major U.S. appearance at age 17. He was spotlighted in the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics; he was on Time magazine's list of the "100 most influential people"; he's even got a signature line of Adidas sneakers, for crying out loud.

Behind this hype, though, lies a string of artistic successes—he's given well-received concerts at Carnegie and Royal Albert halls and with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras. A London Times critic wrote, "I can think of no other classical artist who has achieved Lang Lang's broad appeal without dumbing down." (For those not inside the Schermerhorn Symphony Center for Friday's Beethoven concert, it will also be shown live and free of charge on a 9-by-16-foot video screen in the plaza outside the hall, with a drawing at 7:30 for two free tickets to the 8 p.m. concert.)

Saturday's concert is a collaboration between the Symphony and the Americana Music Association, pairing the orchestra with a cast of roots music all-stars. The visiting musicians will present traditional tunes from folk, blues and gospel worlds (with and without orchestra), interwoven with selections from the orchestral repertoire that incorporate some of these same tunes. The program is unannounced—after all, these artists may want room for some spontaneity—but it seems a safe bet in this context that we'll hear from Copland and Ives along the way.

The list of guest artists defies summary. Back in the early 1970s, mandolin player Sam Bush helped pioneer progressive bluegrass—in fact, his band at the time, New Grass Revival, gave birth to the genre's other label, "newgrass." Bush's frequent collaborator Jerry Douglas has redefined the technique of Dobro slide guitar, and bassist Byron House has worked with both Bush and Douglas as well as with Dolly Parton, The Dixie Chicks, Nickel Creek and others.

94-year-old Delta bluesman David "Honeyboy" Edwards is one of the last living links to classic blues artists like Robert Johnson. Guitarist/vocalist Buddy Miller, whose long list of credits includes Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Alison Krauss, was last year's Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year. Grammy-winning banjoist Alison Brown is notable both for her own music and for co-founding the vital independent label Compass Records. Genre-busting vocalist and clawhammer banjo player Abigail Washburn works with fellow banjoist Béla Fleck in the Sparrow Quartet. And operatic soprano Karen Parks recently released a recording of works by Harry T. Burleigh, the African-American composer who sang spirituals for Dvorák.