Audience-pleasing St. Petersburg returns to Benaroya Hall
They’re back: The St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra returns to Benaroya Hall on Tuesday, when the 7:30 p.m. program will undoubtedly draw long lines at the box office. With their respected maestro Yuri Temirkanov on the podium and Seattle favorite Nelson Freire as piano soloist, the concert of Schubert, Schumann and Prokofiev should be a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
The show opens with Schubert’s curtain-raiser, the “Entr’acte III” from the Incidental Music to “Rosamunde”; the piano concerto is Schumann’s arch-romantic and only offering in that genre; and the finale will be selections from Prokofiev’s colorful “Romeo and Juliet.”
Freire, whose Northwest associations go right back to his U.S. debut in Portland, says he has a special feeling for Seattle. Fans at his President’s Piano Series and Seattle Symphony appearances return the compliment. The Brazilian-born artist is always a pleasure to hear, and the big scope of the Schumann should find him stylistically at home.
Concert details: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; tickets (if any remain) $30-$114 (206-215-4747 or www.seattlesymphony.org).
Baroque opera
Lutenist Stephen Stubbs and his harpist wife, Maxine Eilander, are making impressive strides with their Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera - a genre for which there is a proven market in Seattle. Early Music Guild presentations of baroque operas have been among their most successful offerings in the past several seasons.
The Academy has scheduled a production of Cavalieri’s “Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo,” a 1600 work that technically belongs to the oratorio genre, of which it is said to be the first example. The work is a musical depiction of Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment,” complete with angels, demons, saints and sinners. Accompanying the singers will be a baroque orchestra with harp, chitarrone (bass lute), viola da gamba and regal (a small portable organ).
Stubbs directs the chorus, soloists and orchestra, with staging and baroque dance by Anna Mansbridge, in cooperation with Seattle Early Dance, Kaleidoscope Dance Company and Creative Dance Center; Jeff Robbins does the lighting. One particularly good sign: The production includes such early-music luminaries as Nancy Zylstra (assistant artistic director and vocal coach) and Margriet Tindemans (specialist in early bowed instruments).
Among the solo singers: Amanda Jane Kelly, Sarah Mattox, Susan Salas, Ross Hauck, Douglas Williams, Charles Robert Stephens and David Stutz.
Concert details: 8 p.m. Saturday, St. James Cathedral, 804 Ninth Ave., Seattle; $25 (students and seniors pay as able; www.brownpapertickets.com/event/16647; information, 206-355-3393 or www.seattleacademyofbaroqueopera.org).
SYSO’s 65th anniversary
The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra launches its 65th season on Sunday with a concert at Benaroya Hall, where Stephen Rogers Radcliffe conducts a concert of Rossini (”Semiramide” Overture), Tchaikovsky (the Symphony No. 6) and Jules Conus (the Violin Concerto in E Minor, with soloist Kouki Tanaka). The name Jules Conus may sound unfamiliar, but not to violinists, who frequently study the violin concerto he wrote for himself to play. Born in 1869 in Russia, Conus was a friend of Rachmaninoff, and he was still in his 20s at the time of the 1898 Moscow premiere. The concerto, an early hit among audiences, went on to a prominent place in the repertoire of both Kreisler and Heifetz.
The Youth Symphony concert soloist, Tanaka, is the winner of the orchestra’s 2007 Concerto Competition.
Concert details: 3 p.m. Sunday, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $8-$40 (206-362-2300). Also, the concert will be broadcast on KING-FM Radio at 8 p.m. Wednesday, with KING’s Steve Reeder and SYSO’s executive director Dan Petersen hosting the broadcast. Or hear it online by clicking on the KING-FM link at the SYSO Web site (www.syso.org).
“Bach Redux”
That’s the name of an enticing chamber program presented by Gallery Concerts this weekend. Boston pianist Shuann Chai will join three local string players - violinist Cecilia Archuleta, violist Laurel Wells and cellist Page Smith - in a program that explores how Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms were all inspired by Bach. Among the selections: the Schumann Piano Quartet.
Arrive early for the preconcert event: Smith playing Bach’s Suite No. 5 in C Minor for Unaccompanied Cello, one of the masterworks of the string literature.
Concert details: 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, Queen Anne Christian Church, 1316 Third Ave. W., Seattle; $10-$25 (206-726-6088 or www.galleryconcerts.org; children 7-14 attend free on a one-to-one basis with a ticketed adult).
Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com