Yannick! (Solution No. 3,268)

TODM and I went to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra Saturday, with new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting.  Anthony Tomassini of the Times raved about the performance at Carnegie Hall and the enthusiasm that the players had for their new leader.

They did a splendid job, especially with Shostakovich's Symphony #5, written after Stalin and the Soviet régime denounced his previous works and the composer feared he and his family would be sent to the gulag or worse: the piece epitomizes the tension between the artistic and political imperatives Shostakovich faced.  While Philadelphia is legendary for its string sound, I think their winds are a murderers' row: Woodhams, Khaner, Morales, and Matzukawa go from strength to strength.  Jennifer Montone and the horns were fabulous as well, and the celesta (which I presume was Kiyoko Takeuti) slowed just enough in her solo to build more emotional tension.   Important small bits for all the different instruments through this piece, and every single player connected perfectly with Yannick and his overall statement.

During the ovation, you could see concertmaster David Kim silently cheering so hard that he broke a visible sweat.  We were seated in the front row, right next to the basses' feet, and afterwards had a chat with Joe Conyers and Mary Javian, the youngest performers in that section, who were still revved up five minutes after the finish.

On to the puzzle.  As Hot and Trazom mentioned, this puzzle featured homonyms, in several different forms.

Theme entries: 16a, 21a, 5d, 14d

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): mostly easy, I went from bottom to top this time

Musical reference: 15d

solution and explanations below the fold

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” first letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters

Across

1a	EAVESDROPPING	Pun
9a	*VOLUNTEER	*TO REVEL UN (anagram indicated by “orgiastically”)
10a	CHIN | A	CHIN (caricature of “Jay Leno”) + A (“high grade”)
11a	*STRANGE	*GARNETS (anagram indicated by “unusual”)
12a	REST | ATE	REST (“those who remained”) + ATE (“had”)
13a	ABYSMALLY	A BY SMALL Y (visual pun on “Ay”)
16a	~FIND	~FINED (“subject to a penalty,” homonym indicated by “at a hearing”)
18a	C(L)UE	L (“left”) contained in (“within”) CUE (“signal”).  The definition refers to the literal words of the clue.
19a	RED B(A)ITER	RED BITER (“fire ant”) containing (“consuming”) ^A^ndrew (first letter indicated by “head”)
21a	~PHARAOH	~FARROW (Mia Farrow, actress)
22a	CH(ELSE)A_	CHA_p_ (“Bloke”, omission of last letter indicated by “largely”) containing (“gets around”) ELSE (“other”) Fair of Hot and Trazom to use “bloke” to cue us to a British idiom)
25a	_ELDER	_w_ELDER (“metalworker,” omission of first letter indicated by “starts late”)
26a	*TABLE TAL | K	^K^irkland (first letter indicated by “at first”) + *AT BALLET (anagram indicated by “dancing”) “Kirkland” presumably refers to Gelsey Kirkland, ballet star of the 1970s.
27a	*TO BE OR NOT TO BE	Sort of an anagram: all the letters of the phrase are contained in “BRONTË” Very obvious from the enumeration.  How many of you made the effort to figure out the wordplay?

Down

1d	ELVES	Pun (plural of “ELVIS”
2d	VA | (_L) | OR	VA (“Virginia”) + OR (“Oregon”) following (“past”) trai^L^ (last letter indicated by “end”)
3d	*(S(YN)ONO) MY	*SONY (†) containing NY (“New York”), anagram of the whole thing indicated by “after reorganization” + MY (†) Never heard of that word, but it’s legit, and not too hard to figure out from the wordplay.
4d	<REESE<	<E (“online”) + SEER (“prophet”)<, reversal of the whole thing indicated by “looking up”
5d	~PORTRAYED	~POOR TRADE (“unsatisfactory deal”, homonym indicated by “for speakers”
6d	IN C | *ASE	INC (“incorporated”) + *SEA (anagram indicated by “change”)
7d	*GUITARIST	*TAUT RIG IS (anagram indicated by “disassembled”)
8d	LAVENDER	Pun (“LAV ENDER”)
13d	AC(<_CEP<)TED	ACTED (“pretended”) containing (“to hold”) <PEC_k_< (“kiss”, omission of last letter indicated by “for the most part” and reversal indicated by “up”)
14d	~YOU SAID IT	~USE (“application”) + ~EDIT (“amend”), homonym of combination indicated by “audio”
15d	LAR_ | GHETTO	LAR_d_ (“fat,” omission of last letter indicated by “three quarters”) + GHETTO (“needy”)
17d	BASEMEN | T	BASEMEN (“infielders”) + ^T^eam (first letter indicated by “originally”)
20d	ZAG | REB	ZAG (“alter course”) + REB (“southern fighter” or rebel) Second puzzle this week to include this answer: Cinephile clued it in FT 14,206 as “Capital goes to extremes with tailless [bird]”: Z and A are “extremes” while the GREB_e_ is tailless.  That was a theme puzzle where Cinephile included a flock of birds in the clues, referencing them as “B.”  Where you saw a B, you had to figure out what kind of bird.  I didn't get terribly far with it, but it's worth having a go at.
22d	CAB | IN	CAB (“red wine”: cabernet) + IN (†)
23d	_SHAKO_	“embelli_SH A KO_rean,” hidden word indicated by “internally” Never heard of this one either, but the wordplay was made real obvious.  A shako is the kind of hat that looks like a stovepipe with a plume on it, as typically worn by Big Ten marching bands.
24d	AN <KLE<	AN (†) + <ELK< (“lodge member”, as in BPOE, reversal indicated by “getting high”)