Coming up in Philly music: A blast of trumpets

We don’t think of the trumpet as a chamber instrument, but the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society has been pushing against some of the conventional images of chamber-music events. They’re opening their season with a program that should appeal to anyone who likes music — 10 trumpet pieces played by five master trumpeters.

The trumpet team will be headed by the principal trumpets of the Philadelphia and Boston orchestras, David Bilger and Thomas Rolfs. The program will feature solo works and pieces for various combinations of trumpets written since 1945. The composers on the menu include British composer Benjamin Britten, Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, and French composer Roger Boutry. The climax will be a world premiere, Skylight for Five Trumpets, by a Curtis student, Steven Franklin, who is already carving out a double career as a trumpeter and composer. Piano accompaniments will be provided, where needed, by Curtis pianist Susan Nowicki, who’s become a specialist in new music, playing with groups like Philadelphia’s Network for New Music.

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society is America’s largest presenter of chamber music outside of New York. It was founded a little more than 30 years ago, as an offshoot of the music festival in Marlboro, Vermont, and it’s become one of Philadelphia’s major musical institutions. The trumpets will inaugurate an eight-month season featuring fifty concerts. The PCMS schedule focuses on the timeless classics of the chamber-music repertoire, played by visiting international musicians, but it includes generous quantities of newer music, world premieres, and the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society will present Trumpets 5, Music of Our Time on Monday, October 15, at 7:30pm at the American Philosophical Society (427 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia). Tickets ($20) are available online and at the door.