Orchestra

Now it's l'Orchestre Yannick. Thursday night at the Kimmel Center, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the spirited 37-year-old Canadian conductor, opened his tenure as the Philadelphia Orchestra's eighth music director with a black-tie reception, concert, and dinner. Mayor Nutter urged the concert crowd to "keep the orchestra strong," and then introduced the maestro to his new city, asking for a welcome in "fine Philadelphia style. " The man of the hour never put down his baton for a microphone, didn't speak a word from stage all evening.

School's been in session just weeks, so a few eyebrows arched at the appearance of Ein Heldenleben on the Curtis Institute of Music's first orchestra concert of the season. The score, treacherous and sophisticated, should come with skull and crossbones and the words nicht fur Kinder on the cover. When Carlos Miguel Prieto led the ensemble in the Strauss workout Monday night in Verizon Hall, eyebrows were raised - not in doubt, but with awe. The work features intermittent but extended violin solos, played here by concertmaster Nigel Armstrong.

The Philadelphia Orchestra had a lovely Ingmar Bergman moment Saturday night. Verizon Hall was filled with the most representative-of-the-city audience you could hope to see at an orchestra concert. Asian American fathers lent laps and shoulders to children two or three deep. Chic Center City couples made it a date night. College students and seniors rubbed elbows in the third tier. If a camera had panned across the crowd, it might have captured an undeclared contest to see who could smile the widest at 12-year-old Alexander Liu's remarkably assured performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, first movement.

Drexel Hill will be alive with the sound of music once again. The Philadelphia Orchestra has stepped in to offer a replacement trombone to 9-year-old Aidan Milligan, whose instrument was taken from the curb outside his house Thursday morning. Because it was a trash day, his mother, Helen, said, it was unclear whether the trombone was stolen or mistakenly thrown into the garbage truck. Milligan, a special-needs student in fourth grade at Manoa Elementary in Haverford, took the trombone to the bus stop at the end of his driveway because he was so excited for his Thursday trombone lesson, his mother said.

After a young boy had his trombone taken from the curb in front of his house, the Philadelphia Orchestra has decided to step in to help. Aidan Milligan, a fourth-grade special needs student at Manoa Elementary in Haverford, left his trombone outside Thursday morning before school; when he went back out, the instrument was gone. The Philadelphia Orchestra has offered to replace his trombone, spokesperson Katherin E. Blodgett wrote by email Saturday, and is working to schedule a meeting between Aidan and the orchestra's trombone players.

When an orchestra plays live to film, as the Philadelphia Orchestra increasingly does, you might find yourself consciously sorting out the essence of the experience. Are you in a movie house or a concert hall? In West Side Story , with the orchestra playing beneath a large-screen showing of the 1961 film, Philadelphians Friday night easily out-rumbled the balletic thugs from the Sharks and Jets. But when the audience applauded at the end of songs, were they showering Natalie Wood with praise, or the orchestra's alternately luscious and trenchant handling of Leonard Bernstein's score?

Knives are drawn. Police sirens wail. The Jets and the Sharks are at war again on the mean streets of New York City - this time at the Kimmel Center, as the Philadelphia Orchestra plays live accompaniment to the 1961 film classic West Side Story . On a wide screen over the Verizon Hall stage, images of gang warfare - and Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer declaring their love on a rusty fire escape - unfold, supported by state-of-the-art soundboards...

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has long been a window on young European talent: With post-9/11 security, many such 21st-century artists are not heard here with much frequency on anything other than recordings. So although violinist Lorenzo Gatto was introduced Monday at the Kimmel Center as a rising name in Europe (he placed second in the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition), one can safely say that, artistically, he has risen. His encore alone - Paganini's Caprice No. 5 , played with an effortlessness that showed you the piece isn't just fireworks but an interestingly quirky piece of music - reflected an inordinate level of accomplishment and intelligence.

How much money is a principal oboist worth? A section violinist? What about the president of a struggling symphony orchestra? Or a third-grade teacher, for that matter? Not long ago, I found myself explaining to my tween son why certain things he covets - a trendy brand of ear phones, in this case - command a high price, and why price tags are often divorced from justice and logic. It has always been true and always will be: Nothing has intrinsic value; something fetches only what someone is willing to pay for it. What someone is willing to pay for orchestral musicians in this country has changed radically in recent weeks.