The Swedes stayed home, but the Minnesota Orchestra drummed on

Perhaps an astrologer could explain the rash of cancellations lately suffered by the Twin Cities' professional orchestras. For last week's concerts, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra scrambled to replace artistic partner Pierre-Laurent Aimard, ordered by his doctors to rest. Just days later, the Minnesota Orchestra had to revamp its current program on similarly short notice after learning that the Stockholm-based percussion ensemble Kroumata, its fiscal health in jeopardy, would be staying in Sweden to lobby that country's cash-dispensing politicians. (Oh, the indignity!)

Led by Osmo Vänskä, this week's program, as amended, falls into Russian and American halves. It opened, a bit inauspiciously, with a disciplined, meticulous reading of Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" Fantasy-Overture that, by forswearing all romantic lingering, seemed to magnify the awkwardness of the composer's writing.

After this came a fleet, spiky reading of Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," probably his most durable piece. Returning to the "Rhapsody" after a decade-long, self-imposed hiatus, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet was as swashbuckling as ever yet managed to find islands of inwardness in this brashly extrovert music (though even he couldn't do much for some of the later variations). I missed only the sly wit one hears in an old recording by Benno Moiseiwitsch -- a pianist Rachmaninoff admired.

Percussionist Colin Currie, already on tap for next week's concerts, rescued the orchestra from the no-show Swedes with his theatrical account -- ovation guaranteed -- of Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto, which he premiered in 2005. (Shod in black tennies, the athletic Scot shuttled between four percussion "stations" throughout the 25-minute piece.) The prolific Higdon, who teaches in Philadelphia, is an accomplished composer, with a keen ear for instrumental color. But this disjointed concerto doesn't represent her well: It's too eager to please, with an energy that feels artificial.

The closer, Gershwin's "An American in Paris," was easily the best thing on the program. Gershwin's Paris is as unrecoverable as his America, but the sparkle of his score (which turns 80 this year) hasn't dimmed. Vänskä and the orchestra played it like the great American tone poem it is. Their performance Thursday, a few strange moments notwithstanding, was simply wonderful -- a tonic for tired ears. Douglas C. Carlsen was in top form in the bluesy, nostalgic trumpet solo; taxi horns have never sounded better. I half-expected to see Gene Kelly saunter onstage.

Larry Fuchsberg writes frequently about music.