Select Classical Concerts, March 20-25
Georgia's main musical story this weekend, and for several to come, is the Savannah Music Festival, which gets underway Thursday.
- Thursday Chinese pianist Yundi Li plays Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Mussorgsky. Savannah's Lucas Theater for the Arts, 6 p.m.
- Friday the festival's "Sensations" chamber music series, directed by and featuring violinist Daniel Hope, kicks off. (Read a recent profile of Daniel Hope. Interesting guy!) Sensations I features works by Mozart, Schumann, Bach, Debussy and Bruch, for variously combined clarinet, viola, piano and cello. 12:30 p.m. at Savannah's Temple Mickve Israel.
- Also Friday, mezzo-soprano opera star and Georgia native Jennifer Larmore gives a recital. Savannah's Telfair Academy, 6 p.m.
- Saturday violinist Daniel Hope joins pianist Sebastian Knauer for pieces by Falla, Mendelssohn and Greig, and Knauer plays Schubert on his own. Savannah's St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church, 3 p.m.
- Sunday: Sensations II. Daniel Hope and friends perform chamber music by Dvorak, Bartok and Brahms (his quintet for clarinet and strings).
- Monday twenty-something pianist Jonathan Biss plays Beethoven, Schoenberg and Schubert. Telfair Academy, 6 p.m.
- Tuesday: Sensations III. Chamber music by Brahms (C minor piano quartet), Prokofiev (Overture on Hebrew themes) and Dvorak (Quintet in G, with double bass), performed by Daniel Hope and friends. At the rate of one new concert per day, where has Mr. Hope found time to rehearse? 'Tis not for us mere mortals to ask.
- On Friday, March 21 the Augusta Choral Society (chorus, soloists and orchestra) presents "Music for Good Friday" from across the centuries: Rutter, Lotti, Monteverdi and Bach. Sacred Heart Cultural Center, 7:30.
- The Augusta Opera presents La Tragedie de Carmen, 1983 Broadway hit based on (condensing) Bizet's Carmen, about love among Spanish Gypsies, March 21-22 at Augusta's Imperial Theater, 8 p.m. both nights.
- American pianist Nicholas Angelich and guest conductor Hugh Wolff join the Atlanta Symphony for Schumann's Piano Concerto and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, Thursday through Saturday at Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta (not touched by tornadoes!).
- Czech Opera Prague brings Franz Lehar's comic opera The Merry Widow to the Fox Theatre in midtown Atlanta, Sunday (yep, Easter!) at 8 p.m.
- Tuesday, March 25, soloists from the Augusta Collegium Musicum present "An Evening of Gilbert and Sullivan" at the Augusta Museum of History.
