Symphony

Symphony in C might never evolve into an authoritative baroque-music orchestra, but you couldn't begrudge its right to the Pergolesi Stabat Mater on Saturday at Camden's Gordon Theater: Where else can one hear this showcase for two vocal soloists and orchestra? And though countertenors do seem to grow on trees these days, the young Anthony Roth Costanzo made an important local debut. In its rehabilitated state, the Stabat Mater allows such discoveries: Though known previously in a corrupt edition for amateur choruses, the Stabat Mater was written for two accomplished vocal soloists in 12 concise solo arias and duets that meditate on the grief of the Virgin Mary - in a distillation of baroque opera that goes to the heart of matters without recitatives or gratuitous vocal display.

A 21st-century micro-symphony? An extremely eventful fanfare? A soundtrack to a yet-to-be-made film? All such descriptions apply to Tan Dun's Internet Symphony No. 1 ("Eroica") , which, typical of this composer, is as interesting to explain as it is to hear. Tan conducted the local premiere Friday as part of the Philadelphia Orchestra's multimedia Sound Waves series, along with The Map, his 2002 concerto for cello, video, and orchestra, which has aged in curious ways since last heard here five years ago. The Internet Symphony warrants a reprieve from the unwritten rule that composers should never talk about a piece for longer than it takes to perform.

The three annual Curtis Symphony Orchestra concerts are always sizzling programs with talented young musicians giving their all in their big Kimmel Center outing. For this season's opener, British conductor James Judd leads these remarkable players in Edward Elgar's reminiscences of an Italian trip, "In the South" (subtitled "Alassio"), as well as Ravel's masterpiece of mood, the "Mother Goose" suite. Brahms' Fourth Symphony is the soaring finale. Before the concert, Curtis will bestow its 2010 alumni award to the members of the Guarneri Quartet, not only for their longtime supremacy but also for their leadership as Curtis faculty.

Conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi celebrated some high-profile 80th birthday concerts last year with all-Brahms programs, and now shows no signs of stopping. And by no means should he, to judge from his Saturday guest engagement with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The performances of Brahms' Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 were as satisfying as any I've heard, but not for immediately obvious reasons. You couldn't be sure how much your response came from a fresh hearing of the music or Dohnanyi's subtlety, so seamlessly does he disappear into the music he conducts.

Lightning struck (musically speaking) for the second consecutive weekend under similar circumstances: The symphony was Tchaikovsky's and the conductor was Rossen Milanov. Last week, he conducted the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in a Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 that was memorable not just for its animal energy but for a sense of underlying logic that heightened the music's tension. On Saturday at Rutgers-Camden's Gordon Theater, his other orchestra, Symphony in C, took on Symphony No. 4 in a performance that was equally penetrating for different reasons.

PRINCETON - Great Tchaikovsky playing, an East Coast premiere by a major composer and an A-list soloist wouldn't be taken for granted in a major city. But here? Where people usually spend autumn weekends shopping and escaping urban overstimulation? The Princeton Symphony Orchestra's season-opening concert Sunday at sold-out Richardson Auditorium delivered a hugely promising manifesto under new music director Rossen Milanov, so much that even those who think they know his music profile from his years as associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra (which will end in 2011)

Even by the motley standards of Shostakovich's 15 symphonies, the long-suppressed Symphony No. 4 is a work of such originality that its performance remains a special, fasten-your-seatbelt occasion - more so than usual Thursday at the Kimmel Center, in one of the Philadelphia Orchestra's best outings ever with chief conductor Charles Dutoit. The staggeringly dense, hour-long piece challenges the orchestra on virtually every front, but Dutoit's cool, Gallic strategy made the wild orchestration all the more powerful for never slipping into sensory overload.

IN THE HOLLYWOOD movie "The Bucket List," two terminally ill men set out to fulfill a wish list of all the things they want to do before they "kick the bucket. " In East Norriton, 20-year-old Kristen D'Antonio is in a race against a different impending demise: She has a genetic disorder that will make her deaf. Before the silence descends, she's determined to hear - live - every musician and rock band she has ever loved. Her "deaf bucket list," as she calls it, is fabulously eclectic.

After a season without a president, the Camden-based orchestra Symphony in C named Krishna Thiagarajan to its top executive position Wednesday. The German-born Thiagarajan previously was at the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was senior director of artistic operations and education, and known for his innovative ideas. "We think that we have found that rare combination of a musically talented business leader who can lead the symphony to new levels of community involvement and economic stability," said Symphony in C board chairman Robert Kugler.

OTTAWA - Since he's neither tall nor old, conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin jokes that he sometimes feels like a kid trying to tame 100 lions onstage. On Wednesday at the National Arts Centre here, the Philadelphia Orchestra's new music director-designate had nearly 500 such musical beasts for Mahler's Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand") positioned in balconies, in boxes, and onstage, with an adoring audience that included Canada's governor-general (the surrogate for the queen of England)