HOW AND WHY THE PIANO CAME TO BE, WHAT IT IS, AND HOW TO LEARN IT.

Each Wednesday, Ms. Shaham brings you an exclusive: a movement of a Mozart sonata from her forthcoming recording

Marvelous Mozart From Orli Shaham and David Robertson.

Pianist Orli Shaham's Bach Yard airs on WQXR-FM, Saturday mornings, Nov. 30-Dec. 21. Ms. Shaham hosts From the Top in a live radio taping in Portland, Maine. CD of Mozart concertos with St. Louis Symphony receives accolades worldwide

Orli Shaham’s interactive concert series for kids, Baby Got Bach has a new name - Orli Shaham's Bach Yard – and an expanded program. Bach Yard combines live ensemble performances with storytelling, costumed musicians, and a host of activities in which children can take part. The interactive concerts introduce musical concepts, instruments and the experience of concert-going to children age pre-Kindergarten to early elementary.

Coupling two such theatrical concertos as these, and ones that sport theme and variations in their finales, makes good sense. It also marks the first commercial recording in 16 years for the St Louis Symphony under David Robertson, then nearing the end of his 13-year stint as music director. Who better to accompany, then, than his wife, Orli Shaham playing on a New York Steinway.

Julia Figueras sat down in the WXXI studios to talk about the pieces, programming, and the power of music for the youngest listeners in Orli's Bach Yard.

"[An] outstanding disc of Mozart piano concertos from Canary Classics...Orli Shaham's affection is never in doubt in K453, making you fall in love all over again with this most radiant of concertos..."

"Orli Shaham revels in the theatrical richness and breathtaking invention of Mozart’s piano concertos..."

"...superbly recorded, well-judged balance between the piano and the ensemble ... Orli Shaham (sister of Gil) and David Robertson are at-one interpretatively (they are, as a secondary fact, married) and the SLS members are stylish and sympathetic confreres."

"Pianist Orli Shaham….delivers two ravishing, full-blooded Mozart concerti in a recording that I have come to love."

The ultimate test of performances for most listeners is not whether they are historically accurate but whether they are convincing – and these certainly are.

"As this new, superb live recording, with Orli Shaham and Marc-André Hamelin as the two swashbuckling pianists shows, "Grand Pianola Music" ... Thirty years on, it’s still enormous fun, tongue in cheek but serious, too."

"A treasurable album, which alternately soothes and tickles the ears."

...the lasting impress is of authentic affection and love.