Yes, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, but it’s never too early to give a loved one — or yourself! — the gift of music. This week’s Fanfare opens a musical box of chocolates: delectable, diverse, and delightful no matter what you choose!
Spotlight: Opera Philadelphia: Complications In Sue — Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, The Academy of Music
A Pulitzer-winning playwright, MacArthur Genius cabaret singer, and 10 composers walk into a bar. What sounds like the setup for a joke is the real-life conceit behind Complications in Sue, the intensely collaborative new chamber opera being premiered by Opera Philadelphia this week.
Helmed by vocalist Justin Vivian Bond with a libretto by Michael R. Jackson, each scene of Complications portrays a different decade in the life of Sue, a woman with a split personality, and is scored by a different composer. Given the roster involved — a who’s who of contemporary voices including Andy Akiho, Nathalie Joachim, Missy Mazzoli, Nico Muhly, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Errollyn Wallen — expect a sonic smorgasbord unlike anything the company has presented in its 51-year run.
Feb. 4 and 5 at 7 p.m., Feb 6 at 8 p.m., and Feb. 8 at 2 p.m., The Academy of Music, 240 S Broad Street, $11 (donations encouraged); tickets and information.
Curtis Institute: Schoenberg Project — Wednesday, Gould Rehearsal Hall
To commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg in 2024, guitarist and Curtis Institute professor David Starobin produced String Trio, Los Angeles 1946, a documentary about a harrowing heart attack the composer suffered and the late masterpiece it inspired. As a prologue to this screening of Starobin’s film, a group of Curtis students offer a free performance of two earlier (and far more lighthearted) Schoenberg works: Serenade, Op. 24 and Pierrot Lunaire.
Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m., Gould Rehearsal Hall, 1616 Locust Street; tickets and information.
PCMS: Jennifer Johnson Cano/Beth Guterman Chu/Christopher Cano — Wednesday, Benjamin Franklin Hall, American Philosophical Society
In 1884, Johannes Brahms composed two songs for voice, viola, and piano. The unusual scoring of his Op. 91 stemmed from its dedicatees: Joseph Joachim, a world-famous violinist and violist, and his wife Amalie, a contralto. A different married couple, mezzo Jennifer Johnson Cano and pianist Christopher Cano, are joined by violist Beth Guterman Chu for this Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital framed by Brahms’s amorous work and spanning a varied range of composers from Franz Liszt to Jonathan Dove.
Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m., American Philosophical Society: Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut Street, $30; tickets and information.
The Philadelphia Orchestra: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto — Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Marian Anderson Hall
Few musicians have shaped the current sound of The Philadelphia Orchestra more than David Kim. As concertmaster since 1999, Kim’s lyricism and warmth set the tone for the Orchestra’s vaunted string section and, as a soloist, perfectly match the passion of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Conductor Rafael Payare, the Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, also leads Manuel de Falla’s fiery ballet El amor brujo, premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1922, and the 1973 work Devil’s Promenade by Cherokee-Quapaw composer Lewis Ballard.
Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 6 at 2 p.m., and Feb. 7 at 8 p.m., Marian Anderson Hall, 300 S Broad Street, $29-$230; tickets and information.
Emanuel Ax — Friday, McCarter Theatre
If, like me, you missed Emanuel Ax’s Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital last month, Princeton’s McCarter Theatre offers a second chance to see the masterful pianist play the same program on Friday. Centered around Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Robert Schumann’s Fantasie, Ax explores the lurid dreamscapes of the early Romantic piano repertoire.
Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m., McCarter Theatre, 91 University Pl, Princeton, NJ, $71-$91; tickets and information.
PCMS: Richard Goode — Friday, Perelman Theater
Richard Goode, another piano titan of Ax’s generation, makes his annual Philadelphia Chamber Music Society appearance with a project he’s titled Fancies and Goodnights. Bookended by Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960 and two sonatas by Haydn, Goode fills the middle of the program with an array of short works that have “caught his ear with their beauty, strangeness, and unpredictability.” The concert is currently sold out, but it’ll be worth your while to email or call the PCMS box office to join the waitlist.
Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m., Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S Broad Street; tickets and information.
Princeton Symphony: Beethoven and Grieg — Saturday and Sunday, Richardson Auditorium
Michelle Cann, the Eleanor Sokoloff Chair of Piano Studies at the Curtis Institute and one of the finest pianists currently calling Philadelphia home, joins the Princeton Symphony Orchestra for Edvard Grieg’s cinematic Piano Concerto. Conducted by Kenneth Bean, the concert also features Beethoven’s Second Symphony and Records from a Vanishing City, a 2016 tone poem by Jessie Montgomery based on her memories of growing up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s.
Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 8 at 4 p.m., Richardson Auditorium, 68 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ, $10-$124; tickets and information.
