The BSR Classical Interludes, September 2024

Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia: All-Philly Big Sing
Sunday, September 8, 3pm
Rodeph Shalom, 615 North Broad Street, Philadelphia

This Philly choral stalwart kicks off its 150th anniversary season with the All-Philly Big Sing, a city-wide celebration of music and community. The event brings together choral leaders from throughout the region: Miraim Davidson (ANNA Crusis Feminist Choir), Rollo Dilworth (Singing City and Temple Singing Owls), Mitos Andaya Hart (PhilHarmonia), Elizabeth Parker (Commonwealth Youth Choir), Paul Rardin (Temple University), Julia Zadavsky (Nashirah: Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia), and Ariel Alvarado (Mendelssohn Chorus)—all led by singer, composer and song collector Moira Smiley. All songs in this accessible experience will be taught on the spot, so everyone can sing, and the concert is pay-what-you-will.

The Publick Pleasure: Stop the Bells Tolling
Saturday, September 14, 7pm
Gloria Dei/Old Swedes Church, 916 South Swanson Street, Philadelphia

Not many classical music organizations take part in the Philadelphia Fringe. But this year there are several, and one is the Publick Pleasure, an early music collective led by cellist Eve Miller. The ensemble generally ties together music and the history of the times when it was written, and for this concert they’ll explore changes in Philadelphia's musical landscape during the city's Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. Life ground to a halt, as music and even the city’s church bells were silenced. This concert will include texts from period newspapers and personal accounts of 1793, and the musicians—Miller, Edmond Chan (violin), Amy Leonard (viola), Jean Bernard Cerin (voice and narration), Steven Zohn (flute), and John Walthausen (harpsichord)—will play on historic instruments to re-create the sounds of the 1790s.

Delaware Symphony: Brunet Conducts Tchaikovsky
Friday, September 20, 7:30pm
Copeland Hall at the Grand Opera House, 818 North Market Street, Wilmington

This season, the DSO is putting the spotlight on its four music director finalists, picked from a pool of 150 applicants. Each guest conductor will lead the orchestra in one masterwork, one orchestral work with soloist, and one contemporary composition. First up is French native Mélisse Brunet, currently living in Philadelphia and one of the five conductors featured in the film Maestra (by Maggie Contreras) that’s currently making the rounds of festivals and film houses. She’ll conduct Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 1 (with soloist Melissa White), and The Midnight Hour (2015) by Anna Clyne. The DSO plans to solicit audience feedback about each of the four candidates.

Philadelphia Orchestra: Night after Night: Music of James Newton Howard
Friday, September 20, 8pm
Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center, 300 South Broad Street, Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Orchestra is having a movie music night! Ensemble Arts Philly presents a concert that recreates the cinematic world of M. Night Shyamalan via the music of James Newton Howard, who’s scored many of Night’s films. There’s music from The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, Lady in the Water, The Village, After Earth, and The Last Airbender. The composer will conduct some starry names playing in this concert: Maya Beiser (cello), Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), and Gil Shaham (violin), with the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir (Ryan Brandau, director). Shyamalan hosts the concert but expect only music—no films will be shown!

News from Opera Philadelphia, and The Listeners
Wednesday, September 25, 7pm
Friday, September 27, 8pm
Sunday, September 29, 2pm
Academy of Music, 240 South Broad Street, Philadelphia

Opera Philadelphia has really been on the move! They made national cultural news with the appointment this summer of star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanza as their new general director, his first such assignment. Last month, the company’s Ten Days in a Madhouse was named the Best New Opera of the 2023-24 season by the Music Critics Association of North America.

Also, the company recently announced that all tickets this season will be priced at $11 (though you can of course pay more), causing a box office storm. And you can use those tickets at their first production of the season, the world premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners (libretto by Royce Vavrek), conducted by Corrado Rovaris and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. Performed in English, it too is one of the offerings on this year’s Fringe roster. Mazzoli and Vavrek also created the acclaimed 2016 opera Breaking the Waves.