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Spoleto Festival regulars the Westminster Choir return for a performance of Howells’s requiem

ChiCago Chicago Symphony Orchestra Beethoven: Symphony No 7 (May 15 & 17) The tuba is the unlikely soloist in these concerts, with CSO brass ringleader Gene Pokorny playing the meat of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Concerto in F minor. Despite the minor key, it’s actually a very wide-ranging and enlivened work worthy of every performance it can get. Dallas Symphony Orchestra maestro Jaap van Zweden also conducts the orchestra in Haydn’s Oxford Symphony (No 92) and Beethoven’s Symphony No 7. cso.org toroNto Toronto Symphony Orchestra Kissin plays Grieg (May 17 & 19) Brahms & Shostakovich (May 24 & 26) Noted interpreter of the Romantic repertoire Yevgeny Kissin performs Grieg’s Piano Concerto under Andrew Davis. The programme is complemented by Nielsen’s Overture to Maskarade and two works by Richard Strauss: Don Juan and the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier. The following week, recent MacArthur 'Genius' Fellow Alisa Weilerstein continues her tour of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 1, playing it here under Thomas Dausgaard. Paired with that is Brahms’s Symphony No 2. tso.ca kaNsas CitY Kansas City Symphony Bach, Mendelssohn & Haydn (May 18–20) Bernard Labadie conducts JC Bach’s Symphony in G minor and Haydn’s Clock Symphony. A rare treat will be the Symphony in F major of 'Swedish Mozart' Joseph Martin Kraus. In contrast with Mozart, however, many of Kraus’s symphonies are lost or attributed to another composer, and this is one of only a dozen (one of which is dedicated to Haydn) that remain. Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen plays Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No 1. kcsymphony.org

MoNtreaL Montreal Opera Gounod: Faust (May 19, 22, 24 & 26) Father-and-son tenor team Guy and Antoine Bélanger are Faust the elder and the younger in this take on Gounod’s opera. Soprano Mary

Dunleavy presumably pairs with the younger as Marguerite, while bass Alexander Vinogradov rounds out the devil’s love triangle as Méphistophélès. Baritone and Montreal Opera regular Etienne Dupuis sings Valentin, and young mezzo Emma Parkinson is the boyish Siébel. Emmanuel Plasson conducts a new production directed by Alain Gauthier. operademontreal.com

MoNtreaL Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Deborah Voigt (May 22 & 23) The vast majority of the OSM’s May concerts are already sold out, all of them conducted by Kent Nagano, including a centennial celebration of the premiere of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire featuring soloists from the Bavarian State Orchestra (May 7), a daring partnership with Cirque Éloize for Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé to fete the ballet’s own 100th birthday (28), and Dvořák's New World Symphony (3, 5 and 6; mostly sold out); also a recital by Lang Lang of Bach, Schubert and Chopin is sold out (15). What non-ticketholders still have a prayer of catching this month is Deborah Voigt, fresh off the Met’s new Ring cycle and singing arias by Wagner, Beethoven and Strauss under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who also conducts the Overture to Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. osm.ca atLaNta Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Bruch & Mendelssohn (May 24–26) Young Polish violinist Stefan Jackiw can stun audiences with his energetic performance style. Here he plays Bruch’s ebullient Scottish Fantasy. In addition, Baroque expert Nicholas McGegan leads the orchestra in a programme that includes Mendelssohn’s equally boisterous Italian Symphony No 4, the more refined 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits' from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G. atlantasymphony.org

CharLestoN Spoleto Festival USA Glass: Kepler (May 26, 28 & 31, June 2) Wenjing: Feng Yi Ting (May 27 & 29, June 1, 4 & 7) Howells: Requiem (May 30) Director Sam Helfrich and conductor John Kennedy give the first American staged production of Philip Glass’s Kepler, based on the life and moral conflicts of 17th-century astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler. A libretto comprised mainly of Kepler’s own writings is sung in Latin and English. Another American premiere comes from composer Guo Wenjing, and it's also based on a true-life story – about the Han Dynasty’s dangerous beauty Diao Chan. Armenian-Canadian film director Atom Egoyan directs a production that includes costumes by noted fashion designer Han Feng and video by Tsang Kin-wah. Finally, the Westminster Choir sings Herbert Howells’s 1936 Requiem, written in response to the death of the composer’s only son. Joe Miller leads his singers, who also perform Tarik O’Regan’s The Ecstasies Above. spoletousa.org

Previews by Olivia Giovetti

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Léo DELIBES SYLVIA & COPPELIA MARTIN WEST: CND/SAN FRANCISCO BALLET ORCHESTRA Under the direction of Martin West, the San Francisco Ballet (the oldest professional ballet company in the US) presents two works by Léo Delibes; the delightful comedy “Coppélia” and “Sylvia,” a romance filled with sighs of longing and the thrill of infatuation.

NADJA SALERNO-SONNENBERG ON OUR WAY: THE JOURNEY OF NADJA SALERNO-SONNENBERG AND THE NEW CENTURY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA A film that weaves a live tour concert, on-camera anecdotes, rehearsal, and behind-the-scenes footage of world-renowned violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg in her new dynamic role as music director of the San Francisco-based New Century Chamber Orchestra.

MARIA CALLAS, VOLUME 2 LEGENDARY PERFORMANCES MARIA CALLAS: SOPRANO Superstar Maria Callas (1923–1977) in her greatest roles, including the tempestuous Aida, Armida in one of Rossini’s rarest operas, and the 1956 recording of Il Barbiere Di Siviglia, simply one of the greatest live performances ever recorded!

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Julian von Karolyi TCHAIKOVSKY & SCHUMANN: PIANO CONCERTOS JULIAN VON KAROLYI: PIANO Julian von Karolyi was one of the leading pianists of the 20 th century, but has now unjustly faded into obscurity. Both of the pieces are with the famed Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and both are appearing on CD for the first time!

August DE BOECK PIANO CONCERTO/PRELUDE THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT JOZEF DE BEENHOUWER: PIANO The suite from the opera Francesca finally rescues this accomplished musical drama by the late romantic Belgian composer August De Boeck from obscurity. His piano concerto is a highly original, fresh and effervescent, yet solidly constructed composition.

THE SIXTEEN ROYAL MANUSCRIPTS: THE GENIUS OF ILLUMINATION HARRY CHRISTOPHERS: CND/THE SIXTEEN This disc celebrates the British Library’s first major exhibition to bring together their Royal collection, a treasure trove of illuminated manuscripts from between the 9 th and 16 th centuries collected by the kings and queens of England.

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THE ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET IN FRIENDSHIP ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET/JOAN ENRIC LLUNA: CLARINET Also Available: With Strings Attached [Foghorn Classics 2006] Gershwin & Kern [Foghorn Classics 2008]

Max BRUCH & Felix MENDELSSOHN VIOLIN CONCERTOS [HYBRID SACD+DVD] PHILIPPE QUINT: VIOLIN For the first time, two-time Grammy Award nominee violinist Philippe Quint records warhorses of the 19 th century classical music repertoire.

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN BEETHOVEN COMPLETE SYMPHONIES JAN WILLEM DE VRIEND: CND/NETHERLANDS SO Over the past few years, Jan Willem de Vriend and the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra have made CD recordings of all the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven—and this box contains them all!

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