Pianists Garrick Ohlsson and Craig Sheppard perform this week

If the concert world gave out "most valuable player" awards, Garrick Ohlsson should surely get one. The brilliant and wildly adaptable pianist, who does everything so well that a Boston reviewer called him "the most versatile of America's important pianists," is as convincing in a delicate Mozart flourish as in the thunder-power of a big Romantic-era concerto. Ohlsson, long a favorite among Seattle audiences at the President's Piano Series and the Seattle Symphony, returns to the latter for this weekend's concerts in Benaroya Hall, where he plays Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major. The program will also include Mozart's "Overture to 'Don Giovanni' " and Schubert's Symphony in C major, "The Great." Guest conductor is Günther Herbig.

The genial and good-natured Ohlsson, who also is a perennial favorite among his musical colleagues, has been at the top of his profession ever since a 1970 gold medal at the Chopin International Piano Competition. He's still a great Chopin interpreter, but now Ohlsson's repertoire includes more than 80 concertos from several centuries, which he plays with an array of top conductors and orchestras on several continents. A regular in the recording studio, Ohlsson recently won a 2008 Grammy for "Best Instrumental Soloist Performance" with the third of his recordings of Beethoven's complete piano sonatas for Bridge Records.

The German-born Herbig will stay in town for another program at Benaroya Hall (Thursday-April 26) featuring cello soloist Xavier Phillips. Among Herbig's major appointments during the course of his career: music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Berlin Symphony Orchestra; chief conductor of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra; and principal guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ohlsson will return to Seattle next season for performances with Mark Morris Dance Group and pianist Yoko Nozaki in the critically acclaimed "Mozart Dances," presented as part of the Seattle Symphony's 2008-09 season.

Craig Sheppard

Here in Seattle, the University of Washington faculty pianist Craig Sheppard has been responsible for some of the most galvanic evenings in Meany Theater — where he has presented all of Beethoven's piano sonatas in a 2004 series of recitals, as well as landmark works of other composers, including Bach. Sheppard's devotion to the latter master continues in a Wednesday recital, when he performs Book II of Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier," a set of works familiar to many generations of piano students and music lovers. If you want to know what the fugue is all about, and why Bach is so revered among keyboard aficionados, here's your chance.

And to get a taste beforehand of what Sheppard can do with the "WTC," as it's familiarly known, visit his Web site (www.craigsheppard.net) and click on his recording of Book I; there are sound clips that will give you a good idea of the intensity and excitement of Sheppard's playing, as well as the genius of Bach at work.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com