Rob Utterback's return

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and individualistic player, but his penchant for improvisation was what truly set him apart as a classically trained musician.

During his recitals, Utterback would regularly invite members of the audience to suggest a theme, any theme, from Bach to Cobain. After pausing a few seconds to invoke his muse, Utterback would take the theme through counterpoints, developments,

and modulations to the sun, the moon, the stars, and beyond. Though Utterback would sometimes stumble over a progression or hesitate over an inversion, he would more often soar — and the results were often breathtaking. After audiences became acclimated to the novelty of hearing freely composed music, they quickly learned to love improvisation. But by the end of the century, Utterback had turned away from the solitary life of a soloist to the greater security of ensemble work — he's been the Detroit Symphony's go-to continuo player for years.

"It's been a while since I've gone solo," says Utterback, "and I'm ready. Improvisation is one of the most fulfilling things I can do in front of an audience. With somebody else's music, there's a wall — the piece — between me and the audience. But with improvisation, the audience is right there with me." For his June 1 recital, Utterback says that he'll be playing keyboard music of English composer Peter Philips — an assortment of his best known fantasias, pavanes, galliards, and intabulations (stylized arrangements of songs for keyboard) — but that he's also "planning on improvising preludes to some of the dances, maybe three or four."