From the intimate drama of a new chamber opera to the full-throated spectacle of Carmina burana, the expressive potential of the human voice is on full display in this week’s Fanfare. Sing (or listen) to your heart’s content! And if you aren’t yet receiving this free concert guide in your inbox, subscribe now.
Spotlight: Suddenly Last Summer — Thursday, Friday, and Oct. 25, Forrest Theatre
“In memory everything seems to happen to music,” wrote Tennessee Williams in The Glass Menagerie. Memory — and the fight over who gets to control it — is at the center of Suddenly Last Summer, his 1958 one-act play about Catherine Holly, who returns to New Orleans haunted by the mysterious death of her cousin Sebastian. In her first opera, composer Courtney Bryan sets Williams’ play with a striking conceit: Catherine (soprano Mikaela Bennett) is the only principal character who sings, while the other principal characters speak. This divide throws the play’s central conflict — who gets to tell the story and whose version will be believed — into sharp relief.
A 2023 MacArthur Fellow and former Opera Philadelphia Composer-in-Residence, Bryan began developing the work during her tenure with the company. Following its world premiere at Bard College earlier this year, Suddenly Last Summer receives its Philadelphia premiere at the Forrest Theatre under conductor Nathan Koci. (Our Editorial Director, Nate Chinen, recently had an illuminating conversation with Bryan; watch out for it this week at WRTI.org.)
Oct. 22 at 7 p.m., Oct. 23 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 25 at 2 p.m., Forrest Theatre, 1114 Walnut Street, $11-$250; tickets and information.
Steve Reich at 90: Electric Counterpoint and Beyond — Monday, Parkway Central Library
The pioneering and hugely influential American composer Steve Reich turned 90 earlier this month. To celebrate, the Free Library of Philadelphia presents a free recital by guitarist and composer Thomas Schuttenhelm. At the center of the program is Reich’s landmark 1987 work Electric Counterpoint; Schuttenhelm, who also serves as Artistic Director of Network for New Music, will perform music by Philadelphia composer Quinn Collins that pays homage to Reich’s innovations.
Oct. 19 at 6 p.m., Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, Free; more information.
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society — Various Dates, Various Locations
The 2026-27 PCMS season gets off to a fast start with three concerts this week. On Friday, Sphinx Virtuosi, an ensemble of top Black and Latinx string players, is joined by mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges for a program exploring the notion of American identity. Anchored by the Philadelphia premiere of Damien Geter’s song cycle Declaration (with a libretto by Sphinx founder Aaron Dworkin), the program also includes works by Jessie Montgomery, Roberto Sierra, Ravel, and Stravinsky.
Both of this week’s other programs are sold out, but you can email the PCMS box office to add your name to the waitlist. On Monday, Don Liuzzi, The Philadelphia Orchestra’s longtime principal timpanist, gathers friends and colleagues for a farewell concert featuring Takemitsu, Debussy, and some of his own compositions as he marks his final season with the Orchestra. And next Sunday, violinist Carmit Zori leads a formidable group of chamber music veterans through a program of Schubert, Dvořák, and Brahms.
Don Liuzzi & Friends: Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m., Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S Broad Street, sold out (waitlist: contact 215-569-8080 or boxoffice@pcmsconcerts.org); tickets and information.
Sphinx Virtuosi: Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m., Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S Broad Street, $32; tickets and information.
Carmit Zori: Oct. 25 at 2 p.m., American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street, sold out (waitlist: contact 215-569-8080 or boxoffice@pcmsconcerts.org); tickets and information.
The Philadelphia Orchestra: Carmina burana — Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Oct. 25, Marian Anderson Hall
Even if you don’t know Carmina burana by name, chances are you’ve heard its thunderous opening chorus, “O Fortuna,” in a movie trailer or TV commercial. Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads Carl Orff’s sprawling celebration of fate, springtime, drinking, and love with soprano Janai Brugger, tenor Jonah Hoskins, baritone Will Liverman, the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, and three local youth choruses. It’s preceded by two vivid curtain-raisers: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor and Gabriela Ortiz’s Clara, a musical portrait of Clara and Robert Schumann’s turbulent marriage.
Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 23 at 2 p.m., Oct. 24 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 25 at 2 p.m., Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 South Broad Street, $80-$254; tickets and information.
BlackBox Ensemble — Saturday, The Perch
Two American anniversaries converge in this program from New York’s BlackBox Ensemble: the centennial of composer Morton Feldman and the nation’s 250th birthday. Feldman’s Four Songs to e.e. cummings shares the bill with Elliott Carter’s A Mirror on Which to Dwell, composed for the 1976 Bicentennial, and Tania León’s In the Field, a song cycle on poems by Carlos Pintado reflecting on Philadelphia’s historical landmarks.
Oct. 24 at 8 p.m., The Perch, 2321 Emerald Street, $15-$25; tickets and information.
The Crossing: Time — Oct. 25, The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
The Crossing opens its 2026-27 season by contemplating time on both a geological and distinctly local scale. The program is headlined by the East Coast premiere of Nicholas Cline’s The Sea Came Up and Drowned, which sets poems by Rachel Jamison Webster drawn from John McPhee’s monumental geological history Annals of the Former World. It’s paired with Joshua Stamper’s 2017 ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, with a found-text libretto fashioned from “objects that have been moved, gathered, and discarded by the wind” on the streets of Philadelphia.
Oct. 25 at 5 p.m., The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Avenue, $42 ($32 for seniors and $21 for students); tickets and information.
