ArtsWatch

Lukas Foss, the composer, conductor and pianist, has died. He was 86. Foss was born in Berlin, educated at Curtis, and pursued an energetic career that expressed itself in a variety of music styles . Read the New York Times obit here.
Foss not only attended Curtis. He visited the school to lead the orchestra while Gary Graffman was director. He received an honorary degree from Curtis in 1988.
Here is what Graffman had to say about Foss this afternoon.
"He was one of those triple threats – when he was at Curtis he was studying piano and composition and conducting. I am told that when he auditioned he also wanted to audition as a flutist, but they thought enough was enough.
"He was an incredible sight-reader. I had the feeling that if you would turn a Strauss score upside down he would read it, which of course was the appeal for Koussevitzky, who relied on Lukas to read contemporary scores people sent to him."
About Foss' diversity as a composer, Graffman said:
"He was not doing it in my opinion because it was the style. He really wanted to experiment and see what he could do, what all of it could be."

(Foss is pictured with Leonard Bernstein at the keyboard in an AP photo.)

Inquirer music critic David Patrick Stearns is about to meet up with the Philadelphia Orchestra on tour in Europe, but in the meantime take a look at photos and a blog on the orchestra's own tour website. (Pictured: The Auditorio de Tenerife in Santa Cruz, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, designed by Santiago Calatrava.)

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