So much rests on one person.
As Yannick Nézet-Séguin arrives to assume the music directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he promises to continue the ensemble's post-bankruptcy renewal of the international prominence it has often held and long deserved.
The rest of the city's music community stands to enjoy the spillover effect. When people are reminded what an exciting concert can be, other organizations are bound to benefit, and should. Most have been soldiering through years of economic challenges, yet few if any have retreated into safe repertoire. Even before Kevin Puts' Silent Night won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, Opera Company of Philadelphia had put it into its spring 2013 season at the Academy of Music, which has many more seats than the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater, the company's usual new-opera venue. Even the seemingly safe season-opening La Boheme (Sept. 28) employs video animation based on paintings in the Barnes Foundation's collection.
For fall, many other events break away from basic repertoire in a healthy variety of ways, from Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Carlos Chavez's Sinfonia india (Dec. 5) to the high modernism of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Violin Concerto (Nov. 17). Additionally, two composers having significant anniversaries - Claude Debussy and John Cage - tend not to inspire the typical celebrations.
Here's a large handful of events my colleague Peter Dobrin and I anticipate.
"Dancing Around the Bride" exhibit (opening Oct. 30), which deals with Cage, Merce Cunningham, and others. (215-893-1999 or www.philorch.org) - David Patrick Stearns
Kids in the Hall (Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall, Oct. 11, 215-893-1999, www.philorch.org) The Philadelphia Orchestra runs the risk of sending its Oct. 11 audience home under the impression that Saint-Saëns wrote a tuba concerto, but the college-student crowd probably will be smart enough to spot it as a transcription (of the Cello Concerto No. 1) remolded to show off its performer, principal tubist Carol Jantsch. The concert is free, but open only to the college crowd.
- Peter Dobrin
Ilya Poletaev (Trinity Center for Urban Life, Oct. 14, 215-735-6999, www.astralartists.org) Philadelphia has had glimpses of this rising pianist, and now he takes on a full Astral Artists recital in works of Bach, Nielsen, Medtner, and Schumann. The peeks so far point to a lively mind and highly original interpretive ideas.
- P.D.
Curtis Institute of Music (Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall, Oct. 15, 215-893-1999, www.curtis.edu) Curtis' family concerts deploy the school's youthful energy to spotlight sections of the orchestra. But they'll put it all together Oct. 15 when actor John de Lancie - whose father once ran the school - narrates Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra in a concert by the full student ensemble.
- P.D.
Philadelphia Orchestra (Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall, Oct. 19 to 21, 215-893-1999 www.philorch.org) Verdi Requiem performances aren't unusual, but the Philadelphia Orchestra performances have soloists of rare caliber with intriguingly controversial undertones. Soprano Marina Poplovskaya is a goddess in England but less celebrated at the Metropolitan Opera; tenor Rolando Villazon has taken long breaks from his career, but is back making highly praised recordings.
- D.P.S.
Honored guests (Temple University, throughout the season, 215-204-8301, www.temple.edu/boyer) Many artists performing with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society augment their visits to the city with master classes at Temple University. The impressive list this season starts with the Shanghai Quartet Oct. 19, and continues with pianists Jeremy Denk, Imogen Cooper, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn, violist Kim Kashkashian, flutist Marina Piccinini.
- P.D.
The Crossing (Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Oct. 20, www.crossingchoir.com) Did Cage have a folksy streak? So it seems in his 1979 Hymns and Variations, which the Crossing's director, Donald Nally, describes as a minimalist, "starkly beautiful" treatment of hymns by William Billings. David Lang's Statement to the Court (based on texts by Eugene Debs) will also be heard. - D.P.S.
Mendelssohn Club (Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, Oct. 21, 215-735-9922 www.mcchorus.org) Nothing high-concept here. Composer Robert Moran sought to soothe the living rather than rattle the bones of the dead in his Trinity Requiem, written for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and dominating the Oct. 21 concert by the Mendelssohn Club and Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
- D.P.S.
"The Tempest" (Movie theaters throughout the region, Nov. 10 and 28, www.metoperafamily.org) Thomas Adès composes sparingly but potently, making almost everything he has published worthy of close examination; he's probably the most important composer of our time. Adès leads the Metropolitan Opera premiere of The Tempest this season, with the Met making it one of a dozen productions that can be seen in movie houses nationwide.
- P.D.
Borromeo Quartet (Field Concert Hall, Curtis Institute, Nov. 11, 215-893-7902 or www.curtis.edu) This resident group at the Curtis Institute of Music is running one of the great artistic marathons of its kind: all six Bartok string quartets played in the same concert on Nov. 11. With Borromeo's distinctive sonic sheen, aural fatigue will likely be minimal.
- D.P.S.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater, Nov. 13, 215-569-8080 or pcmsconcerts.org) In the 150th anniversary year of his birth, Claude Debussy has been treated with care: Interlopers don't take him on blithely. But if anybody can bring both authority and dramatic new perspective to the composer, it's Aimard, who plays Debussy's Preludes Book II Nov. 13 at the Perelman, presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.
- D.P.S.
Symphony in C (Gordon Theater, Rutgers Camden, Nov. 17, 856-963-6683 or www.symphonyinc.org.) The Camden-based Symphony in C attracts top concerto soloists with opportunities to play modern repertoire many American orchestras either won't touch or don't play very well. On Nov. 17 , Leila Josefowicz plays the rarely heard Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by the modernist cult composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-70), best known for the dark, uncompromising opera Die Soldaten.
- D.P.S.
Pamela Frank (American Philosophical Society, Dec. 16, 215-569-8080, www.pcmsconcerts.org) After injuring her hand more than a decade ago, violinist Pamela Frank became more a teacher and less a performer. Happily, she's playing again, and even in a crowded field of wonderful talent, stands out as something special. Not a note passes under her bow without benefit of her humanizing effect. She is joined Dec. 16 by longtime members of the Guarneri Quartet in Mozart and Dvorák.
- P.D.
La Bohème (Academy of Music, Sept. 28 to Oct. 7) It's a friendly hand to newbies, a reliably sentimental mode of transport for aficionados: La Bohème, in an original Davide Livermore production for the Opera Company of Philadelphia. (215-732-8400, operaphila.org) - Peter Dobrin
Choral Arts Society (Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, Sept. 29) Rachmaninoff's Vespers is among the great choral works but is rarely heard because of its distinctly Russian language and deep-voiced-basses requirements. It's unlikely that Choral Arts director Matt Glandorf would have programmed the piece if he didn't have the goods. (215-240-6417 or www.choralarts.com) - David Patrick Stearns
Curtis Opera Theatre (Curtis Opera Studio, Oct. 4 to 7) What do Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Berio's Sequenza III, and Weill's Berlin Requiem have to do with one another? That may be a trick question, but we won't know until Oct. 4, when conductor Matt Glandorf and director Jordan Fein reveal this unlikely juxtaposition. (215-893-7902 or www.curtis.edu)
- D.P.S.
Network for New Music (Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Oct. 12) Art songs with voices and electronics - in addition to the usual hardware - occupy Network's fall concert, titled "The Voice Electric" and featuring new works by a raft of young composers. (215-898-3900 or www. annenbergcenter.org)
- D.P.S.
Warsaw Philharmonic (State Theatre, New Brunswick, N.J., Oct. 21) The Kimmel Center has cut its visiting orchestra series to one concert this season, but a craving for imports can be satisfied to some extent in New Brunswick, about a 70-minute trek up the New Jersey Turnpike from Philadelphia. On Oct. 21, the center hosts the Warsaw Philharmonic with conductor Antoni Wit in Brahms, and, with pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, in Beethoven. (732-246-7469, www.statetheatrenj.org)
- D.P.S.
Bernarda Fink (Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater, Nov. 9) How many singers use Dvorak's Five Biblical Songs as a signature piece? Fink, who is one of the best recitalists out there, never stays away from them long, and sings them in her Nov. 9 recital, along with lots of Mahler. (215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org)
- D.P.S.
Imani Winds (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Nov. 11) With programs blending established masters and works by ensemble members, concerts by Imani Winds reliably expand the scope of a woodwind quintet beyond what you might expect. (215-569-8080, www.pcmsconcerts.org.)
- P.D.
Michael Ludwig (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Dec. 9) The former Philadelphia Orchestra member decamped to the Buffalo Philharmonic concertmaster position as well as a solo career playing concertos and making recordings. Now he returns for a Brahms/Debussy recital with Orli Shaham. (215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts. org)
- D.P.S.
Garden music (Longwood Gardens, through the season) Longwood Gardens continues to develop its ambitious role as presenter this season, with performances by Barbara Cooke (Nov. 1), organists, a world music series, jazz, and the appearance Jan. 20 of Daniil Trifonov, gold medal winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. (610-388-1000, www.longwoodgardens.org) - P.D.