Each year, Sing for Hope enlists the help of visual artists. Together they paint, sculpt, découpage and gesso a gift for our city: 88 unique piano artworks (representing the 88 keys on a keyboard) that are placed throughout the public spaces of the 5 boroughs, for anyone and everyone to play.

Last week, a much-awaited musician came to Carnegie Hall to play -- Japanese-born British pianist Mitsuko Uchida. While she is no blazing personality, her fans are numerous and she has a very devout following.

After months of grueling rounds of the usual knuckle-grinding etudes and superhuman virtuoso showpieces, the last week began on Monday with the first of five free noontime concerts at Christ Church Cathedral across from Lilly Hall.

Van Cliburn's playing was neither "musically incorrect, nor too careful, pedantic or cerebral. On the contrary, it was often exciting, sometimes daring and nearly always infused with that most elusive of qualities: transportive power.

In banging a soundboard in an open piano, feeling both the power and energy, Bill Youse drove home the point that Steinway is the Rolls Royce of piano manufacturers. That makes the abstract artist Lynx the new hood ornament of that grand piano.

On February 5, twenty-one year old Daniil Trifonov had two monumental milestones in one day -- his Carnegie hall recital debut, and major classical label Deutsche Grammophon recording it live to release as an album later this year.

The New York Philharmonic is a strange creature. Often it is good but a bit bland. Sometimes it's downright boring. And sometimes it makes you sit up in your seat and think what a historical and good orchestra this is.

I asked my father to bring me to the local music store to buy the score of the Three Movements. I vividly remember the wide-eyed response of the shop attendant. With my small baby hands, I would not have been able to play even the first chord!

American pianist André Watts returned to Lincoln Center last week to play four concerts with the New York Philharmonic, performing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 with Slovakian conductor Juraj Valcuha.

Having studied piano at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music, Claudia Chan is continuing her piano studies in Cologne and traveling the world performing a repertoire of new music, with a particular interest in the work of composer Unsuk Chin.

French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed at Carnegie Hall last Thursday evening, presenting a program spanning impressionistic, romantic and modern periods.

This past week I had the pleasure of attending two very different performances that highlighted the diversity and richness of New York's dance culture.