Oct. 25--EL PASO -- The beauty of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra's arrangement with the Van Cliburn Foundation is it allows them to host some of the world's top young piano talent every four years.

I haven't seen any of the other gold medal winners perform with the EPSO before, but I'll bet that few of them can come close to matching 19-year-old Haochen Zhang for both his mastery of the keyboard and the intensely spiritual nature of his performance.

I told you before, when I covered my first EPSO concert last month, that I'm no expert on classical music, or opera for that matter. I've been a pop music writer most of my life. That's why I offered my impressions of what I saw and heard, not a qualified opinion.

Same goes here, only I spent a lot more time studying both the Tchaikovsky Piano Concert No. 1, B-flat major, Op. 23, on which Zhang was featured, and Brahms' Symphony No. 4, E minor, op. 98, which filled up the second half of the program.

But the teenaged phenom from China (whose mom flew in for the gig), by way of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, was the star attraction. And he didn't disappoint. The concerto is one of the most popular piano concerto's there is. Even if you don't know Tchaikovsky from Tchai tea, you've probably heard the piece, with its dramatic, cascading piano runs and soaring, romantic melodies.

He's young, obviously, so he may very well be guilty of things that young players, no matter how in command of their instrument,

are guilty of. I couldn't tell. I was spellbound, maybe because he's more like a channeler than just a really gifted pianist.

Zhang (pronounced "johng") would lightly swing his hands over the keyboard before he played, like a martial artist coiling into position. Once his fingers hit the keys, the kid with the boyish face transformed into some otherworldly force, his head back slightly, eyes closed, mouth open as if he was receiving the notes directly from Tchaikovsky himself on some other spiritual plane we can only think about.

It was pretty amazing to watch, even more impressive to hear. He rarely looked at conductor Sarah Ioannides, who was tasked with keeping the orchestra on equal footing with the young master. He seemed to be in a world all his own, the classical music equivalent of a soul musician.

He's not a showy pianist, though he did pound the keyboard at times -- hey, he's a kid -- and bounced on his bench a couple of times, it was obvious even to these untrained ears (and those of many in the audience, which tended to applaud between movements) that Haochen Zhang is a special talent, a classical rock star, so to speak, a superstar in the making.

The crowd seemed to feel it. Its response was loud and immediate, bringing Zhang back for a well-deserved encore, a solo performance Ravel's Ondine that allowed him to show off the subtly and technique in his game without a conductor and orchestra to deal with.

The maestra and the orchestra had their hands full anyway. They opened the program with the overture from the relatively unknown opera "Colas Breugnon" by Russian composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. Originally planned for the season-opener in September, Ioannides has said it flowed better with this weekend's program.

The bright, lively piece was short and sweet, set up the Tchaikovsky nicely and allowed Ioannides to indulge her desire to expose audiences to music is doesn't often hear. This was more like a taste.

The orchestra closed out the second half of the program with the lush, romantic, often melancholic Brahms' Symphony No. 4, a four-movement episodic piece that seemed to challenge the orchestra in a good way.

The orchestra rose to the occasion, nailing the three movements, though the violins seemed to struggle a bit in the third, and the entire ensemble seemed a bit sluggish to start the fourth movement.

But the ever-attentive Ioannides, with her almost balletic and occasionally dramatic movements, got the EPSO quickly back on track in a program that should have appealed to the traditionalists who complain about her love of 20th century music. They didn't have much to complain about Saturday at the Plaza Theatre.

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