ArtsWatch

Chanced upon Gary Graffman in Rittenhouse Square this morning. I never did think Graffman was putting aside the director's chair at the Curtis Institute of Music for a quiet retirement, but even I was surprised (and exhausted) as we practically ran down Walnut Street and Graffman recounted his summer: Moscow, Bolzano, Ischia (the volcanic island in the Gulf of Naples where William Walton had an estate). Graffman still teaches at Curtis; he has four students this semester (all Chinese-born, he says). He's been hearing Yuja Wang play a lot lately, and he had dinner with Lang Lang, who is to be the subject - at the age of 25 - of a biography. Actually, it's his second. A previous biography was published in China some years ago, even before his career took off. If Graffman is this busy at 78, another Curtis professor has him beat in a way. Legendary Curtis piano pedagogue Eleanor Sokoloff has two students this semester. She's 93. Must be something about that Curtis air.