Helene Grimaud

The French piano nonpareil Hélène Grimaud brings "gritty force and dark ecstasy" (The Arts Fuse) to Brahms's stormy powerhouse First Piano Concerto. A piece written to introduce its young composer/pianist to a picky audience who booed its premiere, even though it went on to become one of the world's most popular piano concertos. Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann then taps into the poetic nuances of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for the Third Symphony by the fervent Romantic Robert Schumann, hero and mentor to young Brahms. Nicknamed the Rhenish Symphony, Schumann's Third evokes sights and sounds along the storied Rhine.