Music: Hard Sell in Seattle

When he steps from the podium next season after leading the Seattle Symphony in the premiere of a piano concerto by Leon Kirchner, Conductor Milton Katims will stop at' the Orpheum movie theater. There, before an audience of symphony patrons, he will engage the soloist of the evening, Pianist Leon Fleisher, in a three-game pingpong match. Katims may lose, for Fleisher has a widely feared forehand slam, but he expects to collect about $10,000 from spectators for the symphony's sustaining fund.

In the European tradition of Fritz Reiner or Bruno Walter, a pingpong postlude to a concerto would seem outrageous. Katims is...

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