Guerilla Opera’s artistic director Aliana de la Guardia sings the role of Ada Lovelace in Elena Ruehr’s new opera The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Feb. 3–5 in the MIT Theater Arts Building. Timothy Gurzack photograph
By Keith Powers
The intrepid Guerilla Opera artists present the world premiere of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage in four performances opening Feb. 3 at the MIT Theater Arts Building. Aliana de la Guardia (Lovelace) and Aaron Engebreth (Babbage) star in a staging of Sydney Padua’s graphic novel about the idiosyncratic 19c. British computer pioneers. Music by Elena Ruehr, libretto by Royce Vavrek. Giselle Ty directs.
The blind and visually impaired community is welcome to a tactile tour of the production, preceding the Saturday matinee performance.
Chamber Music Events, Feb. 1–8
A Far Cry’s busy season continues with the string ensemble joining soprano Katharine Dain for “Unrequited”—two works by Saariaho, an arrangement of Brahms’s second string sextet, and lieder by Clara Schumann. Feb. 3 at Jordan Hall, it’s a love tribute for Clara and Johannes. Palaver Strings travels New England Feb. 2–5, including a stop Feb. 2 in Club Passim, for an inviting program linking music of Riley, Still, Vrebalov and others.
BoCo’s chamber series continues with Feb. 3 in Seully Hall. Lots of good players with interesting rep: Kay, Wolfgang, Brahms, Stravinsky. The BSO performs a community concert in the Fenway Center Feb. 3, clarinet trios of Reinecke and Mozart. The mysterious Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts brings pianist Kate Liu to Jordan Hall Feb. 4, with a daunting program of Chopin and Prokofiev.
Just catching up to the Musicians from the Old Post Road’s online series “Delving Deeper.” Episode 5, available Feb. 4 for 72 hours, takes place in Worcester’s Salisbury Mansion, and explores the discovery of an unperformed quartet by Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
Winsor Music hosts a fundraiser/Craig Smith tribute—“Craig’s Schubertiade”—Feb. 5 in Brookline. Claremont Trio continues the outstanding Gardner Museum series Sunday, Feb. 5 with three 19th c. trios—Brahms, Mayer, Chaminade. A quartet from Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra presents Janacek, Osuna, Bunch, and Tsintsadze on Feb. 5 in the Allen Center in West Newton.
Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage is in residence at NEC this semester, and the premiere of his percussion sextet—“New England Etudes”— takes place in Jordan Hall on Feb. 6. NEC percussion chair and BSO member Will Hudgins, the dedicatee, conducts. Free concert also includes music of Richardson, Agócs and Peyton.
Chamber Music Events, Feb. 9 through 15
Composer/pianist Ketty Nez’s music is the sole focus in a chamber ensemble concert Feb. 9 in the CFA concert hall at BU. Seven Times Salt leads a dance party—English Country Dance, with caller and instructions, Feb. 10 at Harvard-Epworth Church. The Chamber Orchestra of Boston presents a wide-ranging program Feb. 10 at First Church in the Back Bay. Laura Kaminsky’s chamber opera As One gets two stagings at BoCo, Feb. 10 and 12.
Bach Collegium Japan returns with founder/director Masaaki Suzuki, and they should not be missed. Music of Bach and Telemann, with baritone Roderick Williams. Feb. 10 at St. Paul’s Church in Cambridge, a presentation of the Boston Early Music Festival. Lynn Chang’s Hemenway Strings at BoCo play Vivaldi, Still, Montgomery and Bunch Feb. 10 in Seully Hall. Klangforum Wien—an international ensemble of up to 24—comes to Sanders Theatre, Feb. 10, performing large-scale works each by Poppe and Czernowin. Wu Man (pipa) joins cellist Mike Block’s Global Journeys series Feb. 10 in Rockport Music’s Shalin Liu Performance Center.
Julie Scolnik’s Mistral Music welcomes mezzo Kara Dugan on Feb. 11 (No. Andover) and Feb. 12 (Brookline). Vocal settings from Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Weill and Korngold are spiced by instrumental works as well. This program looks like one of those perfectly complementary musical groupings.
Blue Heron sings a Josquin mass, and early works based on Dido’s last words, Feb. 11 at First Church in Cambridge. Boston Baroque’s X-tet—mostly BB’s principals—plays Lusitano, Haydn (Op. 20, 2) and Brahms (first string sextet) at Lyman Estate in Waltham Feb. 11. “Bach” and “funk” are not usually linked, but let’s see what flutist Emi Ferguson (H&H principal, AMOC) and her Baroque improv band, Ruckus, do with the notion. Looks like fun Feb. 11 in the WGBH Calderwood studios, part of the Celebrity Series.
Parker String Quartet, celebrating its 20th anniversary, plays two Beethoven quartets (95, 131) and the Ligeti 2nd quartet (five deeply linked movements) Feb. 12 on the Harvard campus in Paine Hall. The busy Horszowski Trio moves to the Gardner Museum Feb. 12, with trios by Farrenc, Chen Yi, and a premiere by Stewart Goodyear. The Needham Concert Society presents harpist Ida Zdorovetchi Feb. 12 at Carter Memorial United Methodist Church, a 20th c./Euro program: Ravel, Hindemith, Bax, Françaix, Debussy, Grandjany.
Pianist Randall Hodgkinson plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Chopin’s Op. 58 sonata on Wednesday, Feb. 15 in the BrickBox Theatre in the Jean McDonough Arts Center, part of the Worcester Chamber Music Series.