Arts

A busy weekend as classical season takes off

Nathalie Avila.

And suddenly, the season is full flower.

This weekend is one of the many overbooked ones between now and April, and here’s a look at the reasons why:

Miami Music Festival From Around the World: Newly renamed in its third season, Adolfo Vidal’s four-concert series opens Friday night at Florida International University’s Wertheim Concert Hall with music for two pianos and percussion. Vidal and Michael Linville will handle the piano duties, and two New World Symphony Fellows, Alex Wadner and Christopher Riggs, the percussion instruments, in the epic Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion of Bela Bartok. In addition to this rarely heard but masterful work, the four musicians will collaborate on a series of tangos by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla as arranged by Federico Bonacossa, a guitarist and teacher at FIU and Miami-Dade College. The performance begins at 8 p.m., and tickets are $25-$35.

On Saturday night, the South Florida-based women’s percussion and dance ensemble Venus Rising returns to the festival with an all-new show called One Pulse, Many Beats. This 18-member group, founded by Zeva Soroker, offers dance and traditional music from the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and Brazil, presented in forceful, hypnotic style. Besides the sheer color, verve and power of their performances, it’s interesting to see so many instruments we don’t often hear in everyday concerts, such as djembes and doumbeks. The performance begins at 8 p.m., and tickets $25-$45.

Two concerts on Sunday conclude the festival, beginning at 3 p.m. with Women in Opera, a concert by five sopranos and a mezzo-soprano, singing well-known arias, duets and trios from the operatic repertoire. The sopranos include Nathalie Avila, Marinel Cruz, Marcela Penaranda, Raquel Rubi and Kerry Walsh; the mezzo is Jennifer Zamorano. Tickets are $25-$35.

At 6 p.m., the women make way for a host of pianos in the Monster Piano Explosion, featuring 20 area pianists playing solos, duets and probably a good deal more than that. Featured will be some of the most familiar names in area pianism, including Marina Radiushina, Tao Lin, Milana Strezeva, Ciro Fodere, Asiya Korepanova, Roberto Berrocal, Catherine Lan and many more. If you want to get some idea of the strength of South Florida’s pianistic complement, this might be the concert to see. Tickets are $25-$45.

Oleksiy Kushnir and Ohla Chipak.

Oleksiy Kushnir and Ohla Chipak.

Dranoff International Two Piano Foundation: Speaking of pianos, the prizewinning Dranoff duo of Olha Chipak and Oleksiy Kushnir, Ukrainian pianists who live and work in Rostock, Germany, present a concert of music associated with the theater Friday night at the Coral Gables Congregational Church. They’ve chosen a very interesting program that includes Ned Rorem’s Four Dialogues for two pianos, soprano and tenor; the soprano will be Jennifer Voigt and the tenor is Tony Boutté. Abram Chasins’s Carmen Fantasy and Liszt’s paraphrase on Verdi’s Rigoletto (arranged by Adolph Gottlieb) represent the operatic world, while the ballet is represented in Argentine composer Sergio Calligaris’s paraphrase on a waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrouchka, and Ravel’s La Valse. And the snap of Broadway is reflected in the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story of Leonard Bernstein, arranged by John Musto. The performance begins at 8 p.m., and tickets are $35.

The Ehnes Quartet.

The Ehnes Quartet.

Friends of Chamber Music of Miami: Julian Kreeger’s series, now nearing its 60th year, opens on Monday night at the Coral Gables Congregational Church with the Ehnes Quartet, founded by the Canadian violinist James Ehnes and featuring violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti, violist Richard O’Neill and superstar cellist Robert deMaine (principal of the Los Angeles Philharmonic). The quartet will play the Schubert String Quartet No. 13 (in A minor, D. 804), and then will be joined by the legendary violist Michael Tree, one of the founders of the Guarneri Quartet, for the String Quintet No. 2 (in G, Op. 111) of Brahms. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better chamber music concert to start your season. The performance begins at 8 p.m., and tickets are $40.

Dave Eggar.

Dave Eggar.

Festival Miami: Also coming up this weekend is the Dawn Upshaw / Maria Schneider concert on Saturday night, featuring the jazz song cycle Winter Morning Walks (7 p.m., Gusman Hall, University of Miami, $30-$50). On Sunday night also in Gusman Hall, cellist Dave Eggar leads a YoungArts Foundation alumni concert featuring five dancers, percussionist Jake Goldbas and vocalist Kate Davis. Music by J.S. Bach, Debussy and Alberto Ginastera will be accompanied by dance in one of the multidisciplinary concerts that seem to be gaining in popularity with musicians and audiences. This concert begins at 6 p.m., and tickets are $20-$35.

It’s a full schedule even without the Master Chorale of South Florida, which opens its season this weekend with performances on Friday (8 p.m.) in Pompano Beach, Saturday night (8 p.m.) at Miami’s Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, and Sunday afternoon (4 p.m.) at the Roberts Theater in Boca Raton. Conductor Brett Karlin has planned a concert called Classical Hit Parade, featuring music such as the “O Fortuna” movement from Orff’s Carmina Burana, and the “Lacrymosa” from Mozart’s Requiem. Tickets for all performances are $30.