The Philadelphia Orchestra has wrapped up its first subscription season under the leadership of its eighth music director. WRTI’s Susan Lewis has more from Yannick Nezet-Seguin on the musical and non-musical achievements of the season. In September, Yannick will open the next season with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony - the start of a two-year cycle during which the orchestra will perform all of Beethoven’s symphonies. Information about subscriptions to the upcoming Philadelphia Orchestra season.

For the eighth time in its history, The Philadelphia Orchestra is performing in China. Like last year, the focus is on residencies where the Orchestra becomes part of the community playing impromptu concerts in public places, and having joint rehearsals and concerts with the local orchestras. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns is traveling with the Philadelphians and files this report.

The term "outsider art" came into use in the early 1970s from a French description for unrefined art. As WRTI’s Jim Cotter reports, the preferred term today is “self-taught,” and a single collection of such work is the focus of a major exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that runs through June 9th.

This Sunday it's Symphony in C with the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia in a performance of Haydn’s masterpiece, The Creation. This was the grand closing concert of the ensemble's 60th anniversary season. Rossen Milanov conducts. Join us! Sunday, May 26, 4 to 6 pm.

Program notes here.

Violinist Nicola Benedetti's latest CD on the Decca label is "The Silver Violin."  The CD contains Ms. Benedetti's take on music used in film by Korngold, Shostakovich, Marianelli, Shore, Mahler and more.

The reaction upon first seeing the CD when it arrived at the station: "Yawn...OK...another film music disc." But! When the disc actually made it into the CD player, the scales fell from both the eyes and the ears, and all one could say was, "Wow."  We have no doubt you'll have the same final reaction we did. "Wow."

When it comes to romances that tear at the heartstrings, this one ranks among the best. Goethe’s novel on which it’s based made him the toast of Europe. And Jules Massenet’s emotionally vivid music - sometimes grandiose, sometimes achingly fragile - brilliantly illuminates the complex psychology of its troubled protagonists.

It's three views of mythology on Now Is the Time, Sunday, May 26th at 10 pm. Robert Lombardo brings the sound of the mandolin to the string orchestra with a fascinating result in Orpheus and the Maenads, and Richard Stoltzman brings his clarinet to the music of Jonathan Sacks, whose Portals re-imagines Bacchus and ancient rituals.

Maurice Wright's Mythology is a cycle of songs considering the myths of Orpheus, Lethe, Tantalus, and Medusa, the music swimming in poignant lyricism.