Winter warmth awaits, courtesy of a cornucopia of upcoming classical concerts
To paraphrase the great singer-songwriter Gordon Bok, New England in winter can be as comforting as a cold crowbar. Eventually, most of us will clock out of work while the sun is still up, but there’s a significant amount of winter — and its friends, fool’s spring and second winter — to get through before we’re out of the slush. Fortunately for local classical music listeners, the first months of 2024 are somewhat uncommonly flush with reasons to leave the house.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s lineup is stacked with intriguing offerings through the end of the Symphony Hall season in May. To name a few coming attractions: the Music of the Midnight Sun concert series boasts a program conducted by John Storgårds with violinist Pekka Kuusisto playing the first BSO performance of Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto, and Bill Barclay’s condensed staging of Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt,” featuring Grieg’s memorable music (Feb. 29-March 9). Later, the BSO teams up with jazz royalty, including vocalist/ bassist esperanza spalding and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington for an evening-length tribute to the late Wayne Shorter (March 21 and 23), and music director Andris Nelsons leads two programs of ecstatically colorful pieces, including Scriabin’s “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire” (April 4-6) and Messiaen’s “Turangalîla-Symphonie” (April 11-13).
Jamaica Plain-based string orchestra A Far Cry offers up three themed concerts with the whole ensemble and two chamber series installments; programatically, there’s no weak links in the bunch, but the season-ending performance of Bartók’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” — sans conductor, as per usual for this orchestra — should be an event to remember (May 10).
Handel and Haydn Society’s spring repertoire spans the Baroque through Romantic periods, including a British Baroque slate co-curated by guest director/violinist Rachel Podger and H+H programming consultant (and recent Grammy nominee) countertenor Reginald Mobley (Feb. 2 and 4), an allBrahms program led by Bernard Labadie (April 19 and 21), and a return appearance by conductor laureate Harry Christophers (Feb. 23 and 25). And if there’s any chance you’re interested in the performance of all six Brandenburg concertos co-directed by concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky and keyboardist Ian Watson, get your tickets ASAP; if last time they did this is any indication, it’ll sell out. (May 2-4).
The Bach, Beethoven and Brahms Society continues its season of eclectic double concertos with dates at Faneuil Hall (March 3 and April 28). Lastly, the Orchestre de Paris visits Symphony Hall with conducting wunderkind Klaus Mäkelä and rising piano star Yunchan Lim in tow (March 17).
In the local opera department, Boston Lyric Opera’s remaining productions arrive in quick succession. First comes Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s 18th-century rom-com “The Anonymous Lover” (Feb. 16-18); then comes “Eurydice” (March 1-10) based on the play of the same name by Sarah Ruhl, with music by locally grown composer Matthew Aucoin (and son of Globe theater critic Don Aucoin). Enigma Chamber Opera concludes its triptych of Benjamin Britten’s rarely performed “church parables” with “The Burning Fiery Furnace” (Feb. 16 and 17), and Boston Baroque lands at the Huntington Theatre for Mozart’s classic “Don Giovanni,” stage directed by Chuck Hudson with American baritone Sidney Outlaw making his role debut as the title character amid a cast including Susanna Phillips as Donna Anna and Nicholas Phan as Don Ottavio (April 2528).
The BSO gets in on the opera action, too, with both the highly anticipated concert production of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” led by Nelsons (Jan. 25 and 27) and Karina Canellakis leading Bartok’s haunting one-act
“Bluebeard’s Castle” (Feb. 8-10). And at City Winery, Opera on Tap offers a brunchtime program of Harlem Renaissance-inspired opera excerpts and art songs (Feb. 24)
Chamber music in and around town runs the gamut from traditional to experimental, and there’s undoubtedly something to suit every taste. The biggest names on the Celebrity Series of Boston classical lineup are Renée Fleming (Feb. 4) and Yo-Yo Ma with pianist Kathryn Stott (April 9). I’m marking my own calendar for Celebrity Series-presented performances by the fledgling Isidore String Quartet (March 27 and 28) and the duo of violinist Christian Tetzlaff and Kirill Gerstein (April 7), as well as the perpetually adventurous Stave Sessions at Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom (March 20-23).
Boston Early Music Festival brings Italian ensemble Opera Prima to Cambridge for a 17th-century program featuring local gem soprano Amanda Forsythe (Feb. 3), and later presents perennial favorite guests Hesperion XXI (April 5) and Stile Antico (April 19).
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Hall remains the venue most likely to sell out before you even hear about the concert, but seats are still available for Sphinx Virtuosi’s poetry-inspired program (March 3) and the final concert in Jonathan Biss’s series focusing on the final piano sonatas of Schubert (April 28). But if you can’t land that ticket, don’t fret; head to WBUR CitySpace instead for the final date in a collaborative tour between Portland’s Palaver Strings and the Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet (April 28).
Local ensembles are also staying busy; to name a few, Winsor Music collaborates with bass clarinet choir Improbable Beasts (May 5), Cambridgebased Radius Ensemble sends off its silver anniversary season with callingcard pieces by George Crumb and Steve Reich as well as a new commission by Elena Ruehr (May 16), and Chameleon Arts Ensemble offers four composers’ visions of water (May 18 and 19).
Most events after Memorial Day are yet to be announced, but it shouldn’t be too long before the first 2024-25 season announcements start releasing. Now if only anything stayed open at night after the concerts let out…