Upcoming Concerts & Performances
17 upcoming concerts and performances from Rockport Music, with dates, venues and ticket links taken from the organization’s own pages and refreshed weekly. All classical in Greater Boston →
Sat Oct 10 · 7:30pm
Chanticleer traces the American choral tradition from shape-note singing and Black gospel quartets through barbershop to vocal jazz, marking the country's 250th year. At its centre is a new commission from Trevor Weston drawing the line between traditional American hymnody and African American spirituals.
Sat Oct 17 · 1:00pm
Verdi's Shakespeare, in a new Met staging by Louisa Proske, screened on Cape Ann as it is transmitted. Quinn Kelsey is the Scottish king and Lise Davidsen the Lady whose ambition damns them both, with Freddie De Tommaso as Macduff and Ryan Speedo Green as Banquo. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts. Rockport Music's Live in HD series runs through June.
$30, $27
Sun Nov 1 · 3:00pm
The Colombian cellist plays Debussy's D minor Sonata, Ginastera's Op. 49, Pärt's Fratres and Shostakovich's Cello Sonata, with one of his own compositions, Ad Noctem, among them. The Strad called him "technically flawless… totally under the skin of the composers' idioms."
Wed Nov 18 · 7:00pm
The Phoenix-based Driftwood Quintet plays chamber arrangements made by its own members, ranging across orchestral and piano repertoire and into the soundtracks of films and video games. The group describes its remit as crossing genres and bending boundaries in classical music. Admission is free, with reservations encouraged.
Mon Dec 7 – Tue Dec 8 · 7:30pm
Mon Dec 7 / Tue Dec 8 · 7:30pm
The Vienna Boys Choir brings Austrian folk songs, Christmas hymns and carols alongside classical repertoire. The institution is six centuries old and sends out several touring choirs at a time; this one sings on two consecutive evenings, both beginning at 7:30.
Thu Dec 10 · 7:00pm
The Handel and Haydn Society performs Messiah in a reduced scoring for chamber orchestra and chorus, led by its associate conductor Ian Watson. It is a different account from the full-scale performances the period-instrument orchestra gives at Symphony Hall in late November.
Sat Dec 19 · 11:00am
Saint-Saëns's biblical spectacle in Darko Tresnjak's outsized production, shown at the Shalin Liu two weeks after the Met's December 5 transmission. Mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina is the Philistine seductress and tenor Clay Hilley the hero whose strength she undoes; Quinn Kelsey sings the High Priest of Dagon. Giacomo Sagripanti conducts the full Met orchestra and chorus.
$30, $27
Sat Jan 23 · 1:00pm
Puccini's Gold Rush opera in the Met's first new production of it in over thirty years, staged by Richard Jones and transmitted live to the Shalin Liu. Vida Miknevičiūtė makes her company debut as Minnie, the saloon keeper who gambles for a bandit's life; SeokJong Baek is Dick Johnson and Christopher Maltman the sheriff Jack Rance. Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts.
$30, $27
Wed Feb 10 · 7:00pm
C Street Brass, a brass quintet founded in 2008 and now based in Pittsburgh, plays a programme spanning Baroque works, Broadway numbers and contemporary music. The group was ensemble in residence at Carnegie Mellon University from 2012 to 2015 and at Colorado’s Strings Music Festival from 2013 to 2018, and its members also formed Beauty Slap, a band pairing brass with electronic dance music.
Sat Feb 13 · 7:30pm
The King's Singers take the Romantic part-song as their subject — Lieder, chansons and partsongs from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The group has sung a cappella for more than fifty years, its six voices replaced one at a time across that span.
Wed Mar 10 · 7:00pm
The Ivalas Quartet pairs standard quartet repertoire with works by BIPOC composers, a programming line the Juilliard-trained ensemble has built its reputation on. The Strad praised its playing for "tremendous heart and beauty". Admission is free, with reservations encouraged. The quartet formed at the University of Michigan and takes its name from a contraction of the members' initials.
Fri Mar 19 · 7:30pm
An all-Beethoven recital of the last three piano sonatas — Op. 109, Op. 110 and Op. 111 — written between 1820 and 1822 and often played as a set. The last of them ends not with a fast finale but with a long set of variations. Leif Ove Andsnes plays.
Sat Mar 20 · 1:00pm
Kevin Puts's Pulitzer-winning opera about the 1914 Christmas truce reaches the Met for the first time, in James Robinson's staging, transmitted live to Rockport. Mark Campbell's libretto moves between English, French and German as soldiers cross the trenches to sing together. Elza van den Heever, Ben Bliss and Rolando Villazón lead the cast; Dalia Stasevska conducts in her Met debut.
$30, $27
Sun Apr 11 · 12:00pm
Massenet's Belle Époque tragedy of a girl who chooses pleasure over love, in Laurent Pelly's staging, screened at the Shalin Liu a week after the Met's April 3 transmission. Nadine Sierra sings the title role opposite Matthew Polenzani as her devoted Chevalier des Grieux, with Andrzej Filończyk as her cousin Lescaut. Yves Abel conducts. Note the date change from Rockport's original listing.
$30, $27
Sun Apr 18 · 4:00pm
Orpheus plays without a conductor, rotating its leadership among the players as it has since 1972. Paul Huang is the soloist in Richard Tognetti's orchestration of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, alongside Elena Ruehr's Shimmer and Dvořák. Elena Ruehr taught composition at MIT for three decades, and Shimmer is hers.
Sat Apr 24 · 1:00pm
Verdi's late Shakespearean tragedy in Bartlett Sher's production, transmitted live from the Met to the Shalin Liu. Brian Jagde takes on the punishing title role, Ailyn Pérez makes her role debut as Desdemona, and Artur Ruciński is the Iago who poisons the marriage. Michele Mariotti conducts the full Met orchestra and chorus in Boito's tightly wound adaptation.
$30, $27
Sat Jun 5 · 12:00pm
Wagner's last opera, a five-hour meditation on compassion and the knights of the Grail, returns in François Girard's stark modern staging, transmitted live to Rockport. Piotr Beczała sings the innocent fool, Elīna Garanča the shape-shifting Kundry, Peter Mattei the wounded Amfortas and Jongmin Park the old knight Gurnemanz. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts; expect intermissions and a long afternoon.
$30, $27
