Coming up in Philly music: ECCOs of Hiroshima and the ‘Red Death’

ECCO is the East Coast Chamber Orchestra. Seventeen leading soloists and chamber musicians have formed a conductorless string orchestra noted for its musicianship and unusual programming. They’ve become one of the most popular visitors on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society calendar. For their latest appearance with PCMS, they’ll be joined by Israeli harp star Sivan Magen in a program featuring two storytelling works for harp and strings.

Christopher Theofanidis’s 2015 piece A Thousand Cranes is based on the story of a young girl trying to survive the effects of Hiroshima. André Caplet’s 1922 Conte fantastique recreates the shocks of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. The program will end with two Central European bonbons: Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s Five Folk Melodies and Czech composer Josef Suk’s Serenade in E-flat Major.

The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society will present the East Coast Chamber Orchestra on April 21 at 8pm at the Kimmel’s Perelman Theater (Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia). Tickets are $25 and they’re available online and at the door.