Arts Briefs: Concerts

Concert

GOLD MEDAL PIANIST

JOINS PHILHARMONIC

Skating, shot-putting and javelin-throwing can win you the gold.

So can tickling the ivories.

No, it's not the Olympics, but still impressive when you grab the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as did 21-year-old Haochen Zhang. Originally from China, Zhang joins the Las Vegas Philharmonic at 8 p.m. Saturday for its final performance at the Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway.

After Saturday's performance, the Philharmonic, under the baton of music director David Itkin, will relocate to the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which opens next month. There, they will share Reynolds Hall as permanent co-tenants with Nevada Ballet Theatre.

Helping to usher them out of UNLV, Zhang will play Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor" at the Masterworks concert, which also will include Leonard Bernstein's "Three Dance Episodes" from the musical "On the Town," blending symphonic, jazz and pop styles. Belatedly celebrating Valentine's Day, the program also will include Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet Suite #2."

Acclaimed for his talent, Zhang has performed with numerous symphony orchestras and appeared in Germany, England, Poland, Turkey and Korea, as well as returning to his homeland to perform at the Beijing Music Festival in 2009.

Tickets are $78, $53 and $38 and can be purchased by calling the UNLV box office at 895-2787 or visiting www.lvphil.com.

Concert

LEGENDARY INK SPOTS

COMING TO LIBRARY

Faces changed. Songs didn't.

"If I Didn't Care," "Java Jive," "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," "We Three" and "Do I Worry?" is the music. The World Famous Ink Spots are the music-makers.

Though its personnel has shifted throughout the years, the current group remains true to the repertoire that catapulted the original Ink Spots to fame, which will be crooned at a free concert at 2 p.m. Saturday at the West Las Vegas Library, 951 W. Lake Mead Blvd.

Ensuring the group's continuation in some form just before his death, original Ink Spot Deek Watson asked his bass player/vocalist, George Holmes, to carry on their musical legacy, which led to their rechristening as The George Holmes Ink Spots. After Holmes' passing, his guitarist/vocalist, Lou Ragland, took over as the band was again renamed, this time as The World Famous Ink Spots.

With Ragland as lead singer, the group is rounded out by singers Eddie Coco, Fareed Braxton and Fleury Bursey, who also serves as arranger and conductor.

Call the West Las Vegas Library Theatre at 507-3989 or the West Las Vegas Arts Center at 229-4800 for more information.

-- By STEVE BORNFELD