On June 24, in his last appearance with the Phil and conductor Alan Gilbert this season, soloist Yefim Bronfman takes on Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, plus the composer's Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello (an item that will also spotlight departing concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and Carter Brey). On July 2 and 3, guest conductor Bramwell Tovey steps in to lead the orchestra in a program of Russian audience favorites. Among the pieces on the bill are Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" (from The Nutcracker) and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, which will feature young phenom Joyce Yang as soloist. Appopriately, over the three-day holiday weekend, the orchestra and Tovey pivot to a program of crowd-pleasing works by Americans—including Copland's Clarinet Concerto and Fanfare for the Common Man, Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band," plus some marches by Sousa. On July 5, the Philharmonic bids farewell to its long-serving principal trumpeter, Phil Smith, who is retiring at the end of this season. Smith will play the solo parts in arrangements of Rimsky-Korsakov's Procession of the Nobles, Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" and Pollack's "That's a Plenty" before claiming the podium from Tovey (for performances of Tomasi's Liturgical Fanfares and a selection from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition).
