Concert

When gospel composer Carol Antrom wondered how her songs were being received several years ago, she resorted to a little marketing. She handed out a pack of three-by-five index cards during her much-anticipated annual concert of songs here. Many cards came back ringing with testimonials. One man wrote that he had come to the concert filled with thoughts of suicide. But the music had magically dispelled them. It had given him hope, if only for a time. Antrom's songs - many are rich ballads taken from her personal experiences - have been banishing negativities for years.

What inspires a Broadway and Hollywood great to return to concert performing after an eight-year absence? "It was now or never," said Julie Andrews of the concert tour bringing her to Valley Forge Music Fair tonight through Sunday. "I reckoned that in another five or 10 years, I might regret not having done it. If I could say, 'I had the chance and I didn't take it,' I'd feel a bit of a fool. " Andrews is one of the most versatile and charming women ever to grace the stage, screen and telly.

SHANGHAI, China - The heat was on. Having landed a spectacularly high-profile concert in the first week of Shanghai's Expo 2010 on Friday, the Philadelphia Orchestra and various partner organizations sweated bullets to get maximum mileage out of the situation, under the kind of inexplicably restrictive circumstances that prompt an oh-well-that's-China shrug. To prepare for Friday's rehearsals, news conference, lavish reception, and concert - tailored for the expansive, architecturally spectacular Expo Culture Center - the orchestra's staff pulled all-night work sessions and improvised last-minute remedies for potentially fatal problems.

Rock-and-roll musicians joined movie stars Monday night in a "Welcome Home" benefit concert for Vietnam veterans. "Love to you, my fellow man, for your patriotism and your suffering must not be forgotten," said actor Jon Voight, who played an injured vet in the 1978 film Coming Home. Voight and actor Peter Fonda were co-hosts of the concert at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., which featured performances by Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, Richie Havens, Bonnie Raitt, Herbie Hancock, Hoyt Axton, Joe Walsh, Nils Lofgren, Sha Na Na and former members of The Doors, The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield.

Now that Maestro Riccardo Muti is the music director of La Scala, will he strive to replace Milan's beautiful opera house with a modern facility? Mr. Muti has, on several occasions, expressed disdain for his Philadelphia audience and has made it very clear that Italy is his home. Why are we allowing him to convince us that we must replace the venerable Academy of Music for a contemporary music hall? I believe that the concert patrons of Philadelphia, if asked, would prefer to enjoy their orchestra in the academy's beautiful surroundings.

Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Church in North Wales will present a holiday concert featuring internationally known Irish tenor Mark Forrest at 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Forrest will be joined by the parish chorale and other musical ministries in a performance that will include traditional Christmas music, Irish songs and popular holiday music. Admission is $10 for adults. There is no charge for children younger than 12. For advance tickets, call 215-362-7400. The church is at 1325 Upper State Rd. Evening events The Norristown New Life Church of Nazarene, 115 W. Freedley St., will present a live Nativity program next Thursday.

Savvy marketers at Lincoln Center came up with Serious Fun as the title for a summer series of new music and performance art. That seems an appropriate caption for two of the weekend's more interesting offerings. The first, and hands down the more serious session of music, should be violinist Maria Bachman's recital tonight at the Ethical Society. Bachman, accompanied by pianist Jon Klibonoff, will give the premieres of three violin sonatas - by Paul Moravec, Sebastian Currier and George Rochberg.

NEW YORK - Billy Joel jokes about living out his own personal "The Godfather: Part III. " "Just when I thought I was out," he said, chuckling, "they pull me back in. " After all, Joel has been trying to lie low for a while, looking to stay out of the spotlight. Performing as part of "12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief," which is shaping up to be the biggest music event in history with a potential worldwide audience of 2 billion people, wasn't exactly part of his plans.

A couple of consultants, working with some big corporations, came up with the idea: A big rock and rap concert to kick off the July 4 week celebration of the return of the Desert Storm troops. They got permission from the Air Force officials and McGuire Air Force Base to stage the event. They engaged a New York promoter to organize it. They had some big acts - Run D.M.C., Cheap Trick, The Marshall Tucker Band - lined up to donate their talent. And they had sold tickets at $18.50 each for the concert, which was to be opened at 2 p.m. tomorrow by comedian George Burns.

The serene, floral surroundings of Longwood Gardens will explode with the sound of 16 booming cannons Saturday night when the Kennett Symphony Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture. " The artillery will be brought out for the "Overture," more often heard on recordings than in live performance. After the fleeting passages of "La Marseillaise" representing Napoleon's armies invading Moscow, the finale boils with nationalistic fervor as the enemy's defeat is announced by pealing bells, drum rolls and the final 16-gun outbursts of military celebration.

John Train John Train is the Philadelphia roots sextet that is the Americana outlet for skilled storytelling songwriter Jon Houlon (who also fronts garage band The Donuts). The band has just released A Wig and a Wonder (Chapter 7) , its first album of new material in six years. Produced by Dobro player Mike "Slo-Mo" Brenner and John Anthony, the accomplished 12-song set covers Kenn Kweder's "A Girl Like You Around" and Bob Dylan's "Born In Time. " The album finds Houlon drawing inspiration from John Updike ("Lord Baltimore")

In Concert 421 N. Seventh St.; 215-569-9400. www.livenation.com . Clutch. $20. 5/17. 8 pm. SOJA. $21.75. 5/18. 8:30 pm. Alkaline Trio. $23. 5/23. 8 pm. 2125 Chestnut St.; 267-765-5210. www.r5productions.com . Attack Attack! $13. 5/23. 7 pm. 818 N. Market St., Wilmington; 302-652-5577. www.TheGrandWilmington.org . Manhattan Transfer. $37-$45. 5/19. 7 pm. 801 Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-236-2543. www.hob.com/venues/clubvenues/atlanticcity . Chevelle. $40-$50.

If Wagner's music is as addictive as many say it is, the rehab centers are going to be jammed with Curtis Institute students after a Wagner-overdose concert Sunday at the Kimmel Center, aided by vocal performances from Heidi Melton and Eric Owens that the Metropolitan Opera's current Ring cycle would be lucky to have. Led by guest conductor Mark Russell Smith, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra excerpted five operas over 21/2 hours, playing with a muscularity that creating tsunamis of Wagnerian sound.

Beethoven's cello sonatas are not often done as a complete, chronological cycle: They run too long for a single concert, but not long enough to fill two concerts without adding some of the composer's non-sonata cello works, diluting the sense of progression in his musical thought. When performed in close to optimum, single-concert circumstances by cellist Efe Baltacigil and pianist Benjamin Hochman on Thursday at the American Philosophical Society, the sonatas came off as a motley collection - verbose in the early works, oblique in the later ones, and with a clear-cut masterpiece in the middle, the Cello Sonata No. 3 (Op. 69 )