Without a doubt, the most important event in classical music this week is the opening of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra‘s season. It will be the occasion of the official installation of Marin Alsop as the group’s music director, the first woman to hold that position with a major American symphony orchestra. A celebrated champion of contemporary music, particularly by American composers, Maestra Alsop has come into her new job with a full head of steam, putting together a more exciting program of concerts for this season than we have seen from either of the Washington-Baltimore area’s major orchestras in years. Those who attend one of her four opening weekend appearances will be witnessing history in the making.
KEEP IT CONTEMPORARY:
>> Alsop’s program this weekend is a daring combination of Gustav Mahler’s bombastic yet dancing Fifth Symphony with Fearful Symmetries by neo-Romantic minimalist John Adams (from 1988, with synthesizer and saxophone quartet). The absolute premiere will be on Thursday when the BSO opens the season here at Strathmore (September 27, 8 p.m.), for which a few tickets remain at the time of writing. The group will also give three performances at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, on Friday (September 28, 8 p.m.), Saturday (September 29, 8 p.m.), and Sunday (September 30, 3 p.m.).
>> If you know nothing about Adams or Fearful Symmetries, hear about it directly from the source. John Adams will inaugurate the new Composers in Conversation series sponsored by the BSO, when he appears on Wednesday (September 26, 7:30 p.m.) at Baltimore Theater Project. That means two trips up to Baltimore this week. Tickets: $10.
>> The striking young mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke will give the opening recital of the Young Concert Artists Series on Sunday (September 30, 2 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Judging by her luscious voice and engaging stage presence at Wolf Trap last month, this is a recital not to be missed, especially since the program is an exquisite selection of late 19th- and 20th-century art song. The list of composers includes Barber, Poulenc, Mahler, Debussy, Musto, and Rachmaninoff, and not a chestnut among them. Tickets: $30.
