ArtsWatch

Two of the three finalists in the William Kapell International Piano Competition have local ties: Sara Daneshpour studied with Leon Fleisher and Eleanor Sokoloff at The Curtis Institute of Music until graduating in May; and Spencer Myer has been on the roster of Astral Artistic Services since 2003. The competition's final round is tomorrow, Saturday, in College Park, Maryland, when the two face off with Russian Sofya Gulyak...An exhibition featuring paintings of German artists Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter (whose 180 Colors from 1971 is pictured) opens tomorrow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and runs through Nov. 25...The Philadelphia Orchestra plays its last free neighborhood concert of the summer tomorrow at 7 p.m. in West Philadelphia’s Clark Park. Associate conductor Rossen Milanov leads a Spanish-themed program including Chabrier’s España, Bizet’s Suite No. 2 from Carmen, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol...Philadelphia Orchestra principal hornist Jennifer Montone has joined the faculty of the Juilliard School...Gustavo Dudamel is not yet music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but you can hear what the fuss is about on iTunes with a new Deutsche Grammophon release of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra culled from two performances in January by the Philharmonic and the 26 year-old Venezuelan conductor...Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, leaders of the Manayunk-based internationally busy architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates, were honored Wednesday at the White House with a National Design Award (pictured with First Lady Laura Bush in an AP photo)...The Franklin Institute has announced a free Aug. 16th symposium with the peppy title of "The Peopling of Ancient Egypt: Indigenous African Civilization, Pharaoh Tutankhamun and His Family." Translation: what race were the peoples of Egypt before the time of King Tut? Discuss. Five experts help inform the dialogue...The Haddonfield Symphony emailed us to crow about New York Philharmonic music director-designate Alan Gilbert, who, we had forgotten, from 1992-97 directed the ensemble we like to call the Academy of St. Haddon in the Fields.