Pittsburgh Symphony: Heard here first

PentaTone Classics couldn't wait for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Brahms cycle -- its first commercial recording since 2001 -- to be issued as a three-disc set and will release one of the recordings on Aug. 28.

In turn, Curtain Call, the Pittsburgh Symphony store, couldn't wait until then to sell it and got permission from the label to offer the disc for sale now in its shop on Penn Avenue, Downtown.

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Recorded in March under the baton of Marek Janowski, the disc contains Brahms' Symphony No. 1 and his "Variations on a Theme of Haydn." It is a "super audio CD," recorded on five-channel surround sound, but can be played on traditional stereo CD players.

The disc also will be available on iTunes the week before the street date, says Naxos, PentaTone's distributor. The label will record the rest of the cycle with the PSO and Janowski in November at Heinz Hall.

(Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette classical music critic)

CMU team finalist in Disney competition

A team of Carnegie Mellon University graduate students was among the finalists in this year's Disney ImagiNations Competition.

The international ImagiNations program is designed and sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering to encourage students to go for careers in digital arts, engineering and architecture.

Brendan MacDonald, Richard Marmura, Andrew Moore and Evan Tahler are in the master's program in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon, and Marmura is currently working in the Imagineering creative department as an intern.

Competitors were asked to design a theme park attraction. The CMU team's concept was "Milliways" and was based on "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. Milliways is a theatrical dining experience that incorporates projections, sensory technology and interactive tables and menus.

The 11 finalist teams, who came from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Brazil, visited Imagineering headquarters in July to present their projects.

(Adrian McCoy, Post-Gazette staff writer)