[...] Mostly, this festival was a piano-centric view of the composer (not a single Rachmaninoff symphony in sight). The four piano concertos and Variations on a Theme of Paganini were split between Lugansky and Haochen Zhang. The Curtis-trained Zhang had the harder assignment with the two more rare concertos, the first and fourth, and he proved a pianist with an ear for introspection and a range of colors. In the fourth concerto, which is less emotionally direct than the other concertos, Zhang ventured some dramatically convincing opinions.

[...] The postlude concerts were studded with some wonderful surprises. The third night’s coda was especially revelatory, containing Rachmaninoff's last work, the Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky’s Lullaby, played by Zhang.[...]