Arts Agenda: Classical music

Each week, ArtsATL delivers a critic’s short list of the shows, exhibitions, concerts and events we recommend for the coming weeks within one area in the kaleidoscope of Atlanta arts and culture.

::

April 18

An Evening With Yo-Yo Ma: Reflections in Words and Music combines performance with the cellist’s reflections on how the music shaped his thinking about art, human nature and our search for meaning. He comes to the Fox Theatre on April 18.

April 19

The Choral Guild of Atlanta’s season concludes on April 19 with Of Sea, Sky and Stars, a program featuring treasured classics, contemporary gems and a tribute to America’s 250th anniversary. The performance happens at Peachtree Presbyterian Church.

April 25-May 3

The Atlanta Opera will perform a new Tomer Zvulun production of Puccini’s final work, Turandot, which opens exactly 100 years after its premiere. The story follows Prince Calaf’s obsessive quest to win the heart of the icy Princess Turandot, a woman whose cruelty masks a deeply troubled soul. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. April 25, April 28 and May 1; and 3 p.m. May 3 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

April 30-May 9

Music Director Laureate Robert Spano returns to Symphony Hall for a two-week run with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in late April and early May. In both weeks, he’ll be leading the orchestra in the music of Leonard Bernstein. On April 30 and May 2, they’ll perform the composer’s brass-heavy Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah). They will be joined by stellar pianist Stephen Hough for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The following weekend (May 7 and May 9), they’ll welcome pianist Conrad Tao in Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety), inspired by W.H. Auden’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poem. 

May 3

Lauda Musicam of Atlanta presents Such Nonsense!, a program of medieval and Renaissance music, at 3 p.m. on May 3 at Holy Trinity Parish Episcopal Church in Decatur.

Local contemporary classical ensemble Bent Frequency will wrap up its season on May 3 with a concert featuring winners of the fifth annual Underscore competition and a performance of the iconic, groundbreaking 1976 work Music for 18 Musicians (celebrating the work’s 50th anniversary and composer Steve Reich’s 90th birthday) in collaboration with the Atlanta Contemporary Music Collective, ensemble vim, Chamber Cartel and smol ensemble.

May 10

The Atlanta Chamber Players’ Spring Public Concert will feature works by Georg Philipp Telemann, Felix Mendelssohn an Paul Schoenfield. The free concert takes place at 3 p.m. on May 10 at Ahavath Achim Synagogue.

May 16

The Alpharetta Symphony wraps up its season with Tango for Two, as violinist Alice Hong joins for a Latin-inspired version of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. The evening also includes a new composition by pianist/composer Julio Cesar Barreto that combines dance elements from styles of Afro-Cuban, Afro-Peruvian, Argentinian, Mexican and Brazilian music. Conductor Michael Giel leads the orchestra for the concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m. on May 16 at Union Hill Park in Alpharetta. Pre-concert activities start at 6:30 p.m. 

May 19

DeKalb Symphony Orchestra’s season finale offers works by Respighi, Joel Thompson and Elgar. The performance takes place at First Baptist Church of Decatur in Decatur at 7:30 p.m. on May 19.

May 23

The Georgia Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 75th Anniversary with a performance at Symphony Hall on May 23. 

May 23

The Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra welcomes David Coucheron, concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Julie Coucheron, piano, for Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto in D minor.  The program also includes Mendelssohn’s “Scherzo” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his Symphony No. 4 under the direction of Henry Cheng. It happens at 7:30 p.m. on May 23 at Mount Pisgah Church in Johns Creek.

May 30-June 7

Beginning on May 30, the Atlanta Opera will conclude its ambitious mounting of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, when the epic struggle between good and evil reaches its climactic conclusion, Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung), as the battle for the ring of power brings about the destruction of the gods’ world. Performances are at 6 p.m. on May 30, June 2 and June 5; and at 2 p.m. on June 7 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

May 31

The Georgia Chamber Players’ season concludes at 3 p.m. on May 31 at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue. The concert will showcase the synagogue’s two grand pianos as Elizabeth Pridgen and Julie Coucheron perform Rachmaninoff’s magnificent Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos.

June 6

The Atlanta Contemporary Music Collective’s Outside the Lines spotlights two works for open ensemble that explore the space outside of the traditional rhythmic grid by Julius Eastman and Orynn Murphy. They’ll perform at Lost Druid Brewery in Avondale Estates on June 6.

June 6-7

Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann closes the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s season with one of orchestral music’s best-loved works. Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) probes themes of life and death and the struggle to find meaning. Performances are on June 4, June 6 and June 7.

June 12

Oscar-nominated composer Max Richter kicks off his North American tour at Symphony Hall on June 12, following his recent nomination for an Academy Award for the soundtrack to Hamnet. Richter and his ensemble will perform his 2004 release The Blue Notebooks and Richter’s most recent album, 2024’s In a Landscape.