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I was unprepared for the easy, peaceful opening of the Park Avenue's Ninth, with its blended, coolly lyrical violins and focused lead horn. Within clear textures, Bernard shapes and tapers the short motifs to fine effect, and the clarinet makes a point of phrasing its countertheme "across the bars." The brief transitional passage unexpectedly injects an off-kilter dance lilt.

In the…

If you saw Michel Petrucciani live, you came away changed. To witness this tiny, severely disabled person (who had to be carried to the piano bench) unleashing torrents of brilliant piano extravagance and grinning with joy was to believe anew in the invincibility of the human spirit. Osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare…