Jordan Hall

Piano man EMANUEL AX The estimable pianist returns to Boston with a variation-themed program featuring Copland's "Piano Variations," and Schumann's "Symphonic Etudes" alongside works by Beethoven and Haydn. 8 p.m., May 11. Jordan Hall. 617-482-6661, www.celebrityseries.org JEREMY EICHLER POP & ROCK DOM "Pride" might be a strong word, so let's call Dom the spastic spawn of Worcester. On the strength of the fuzzed-out "Living in America," the electro-rock band became an indie-rock hit with the 2010 EP "Sun Bronzed Greek Gods.

BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT BMOP and conductor Gil Rose (pictured) close their season with a program of 20th-century works — by Elliott Carter, Nikos Skalkottas, Lewis Spratlan, and Stravinsky — each with a connection to Greek mythology. 8 p.m., May 18. Jordan Hall. 781-324-0396, www.bmop.org CHORAL BOSTON Choral options abound on Saturday, with Musica Sacra's nocturnal-themed program "To Sleep Perchance to Dream"; Cappella Clausura performing music by Chiara Cozzolani, Raffaella Aleotti, and others; and Coro Allegro offering Rachmaninoff's "Liturgy of St. John...

Music’s trouble and glory is its insubstantiality: insistently communicative yet only vaguely meaningful, powerful and fleeting all at once. The program presented last weekend by the Boston Philharmonic and conductor Benjamin Zander consistently teased the imagination with the various ways it made that elusiveness paradoxically assertive. The centerpiece was Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2, written in 1933, the composer’s last major work. Szymanowski’s music has always hovered just outside the classical canon, bearing the hallmarks of cult status: rich but esoteric, vibrant yet...

Variations suit Emanuel Ax. The pianist's Celebrity Series recital on Friday — four sets of variations — played to one of the core strengths of his pianism: not so much based around cultivating a distinctive sound or interpretive posture, but rather, a mastery of musical taste, approaching each piece with proper etiquette, and more than enough technique to back it up. Ax might not push many boundaries, but he hits traditional marks with easy flair....

MASSACHUSETTS REMEMBERS: Concert to mark the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 Boston Pops Brass Ensemble, Boston Children's Chorus, and other performers At: Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, Sunday, 3 p.m., Free ILLUMINESSENCE: Prayers for Peace Oratorio by Silvio Amato; works by Barber, Beethoven, and others New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic Orchestra with assorted choruses and soloists. Benjamin Zander, conductor At: Jordan Hall, NEC, Sunday, 2 p.m., Free, but tickets required www.necmusic.edu/ illuminessence-prayers-peace Moments like the...

The human desire to produce a loud noise by striking one object with another must be as old as communication itself, and like all histories, it has its high points and lows. The period between the two world wars, for instance, was a very good time for the art and science of banging. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project reminded us of this fact on Friday night with a memorable concert that was in equal parts ambitious musical event, cultural time warp, and sonic magical mystery tour. The night began and ended with landmarks of that period: Varese’s...

Variations suit Emanuel Ax. The pianist's Celebrity Series recital on Friday — four sets of variations — played to one of the core strengths of his pianism: not so much based around cultivating a distinctive sound or interpretive posture, but rather, a mastery of musical taste, approaching each piece with proper etiquette, and more than enough technique to back it up. Ax might not push many boundaries, but he hits traditional marks with easy flair....

THE BOSTON CECILIA and MUSICA SACRA In Bach"s "St. Matthew Passion"" At: Jordan Hall, Sunday With its double orchestra, double chorus, and half-dozen or more vocal soloists, J.S. Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" is not an oratorio so much as a monumental passion play in which the soloists and choruses, in recitatives, arias, and chorales, agonize over the Gospel narrative as related by singers representing the Evangelist, Jesus,...

Last weekend, Boston Baroque offered its annual rendition of Handel’s “Messiah,’’ that perennial buffet of concert-hall theology, and it had all the hallmarks of the group’s style: a lean period orchestra, a compact chorus of lucid, conversationally clear transparency, and music director Martin Pearlman’s customary swiftness of tempo. But on Friday, normally reliable fuel failed to catch fire, and the proclaimed blessings were curiously mixed. On the one hand, the familiarity produced a reading of expert clarity and refinement,...

For pianists, repertoire choice is at least partial self-advertisement, and Haochen Zhang’s program for his Friday Celebrity Series recital at Jordan Hall signaled poetic temperament as much as technical prowess. The first half, after all, was devoted to all four Ballades of Frédéric Chopin — hard to play, harder to elucidate. Zhang opened the G-minor first Ballade in unusually ruminative territory, the 6/4 theme played as a slow, searching waltz — which then gave way to torrents of impetuous momentum.

Piano man EMANUEL AX The estimable pianist returns to Boston with a variation-themed program featuring Copland's "Piano Variations," and Schumann's "Symphonic Etudes" alongside works by Beethoven and Haydn. 8 p.m., May 11. Jordan Hall. 617-482-6661, www.celebrityseries.org JEREMY EICHLER POP & ROCK DOM "Pride" might be a strong word, so let's call Dom the spastic spawn of Worcester. On the strength of the fuzzed-out "Living in America," the electro-rock band became an indie-rock hit with the 2010 EP "Sun Bronzed Greek Gods.

PICK OF THE DAY Jazzy Jane The program will be announced from the stage, and even if Jane Monheit sings the bar menu, you won't be disappointed. "Never Never Land" took up residence on the Billboard Jazz chart for more than a year, and if Monheit sings "Over the Rainbow" you'll never want to click your heels and go home. 8 p.m. $40 and up. Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St., Cambridge. 617-482-6661. www.celebrityseries.org FRIDAY Hay ride The latest album by the former frontman for Men at Work is titled "Gathering Mercury," and Colin Hay has said that while the subject matter is serious, the songs...

Sometimes consistency is an obstacle; sometimes resourcefulness is a temptation. The French soprano Sandrine Piau, in her Celebrity Series debut on Saturday at Jordan Hall, proved a compelling performer, but one who offset a uniform sound with an extensive interpretive toolbox, sometimes applied to excess. Piau is a Baroque specialist (though her program, drawn from her 2011 album, "Après un rêve," was all 19th century and later), and her sound fits that historically-informed style: light, tightly focused, very controlled.

April 27 Pauly Shore at the Wilbur Theatre. www.thewilbur.com April 28 Tom Chapin at Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport. www.rockportmusic.org May 3 Boston LGBT Film Festival opens at Institute of Contemporary Art. www.bostonlgbtfilmfest.org May 4 and 5 Boston Baroque's "Orfeo ed Euridice" at Jordan Hall. www.bostonbaroque.org May 5 American Repertory Theater's "Woody Sez"starts at Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. www.amrep.org Cambridge Poetry Jam at Cambridge Public Library.www.cambridgeartscouncil.org May 6 David...

April 22 "Voices of Boys & Men" at Scullers Jazz Club. www.boystomennewengland.org April 26 Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans' "Mary Poppers" opens at Machine. www.brownpapertickets.com April 27 Harmonicist Charlie Musselwhite at the Regattabar in Cambridge. www.regattabarjazz.com Madeleine Albright discusses her book "Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948" at UpStairs on the Square in Cambridge. www.harvard.com/event/madeleine_albright Emerson String Quartet at Jordan Hall.

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Christoph von Dohnanyi returns to the BSO podium. April 6-7. Symphony Hall. 617-266-1200, www.bso.org BMOP Gil Rose leads his Boston Modern Orchestra Project and guest singers in a performance of Arvo Pärt's "Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem. " 8 p.m., April 6. Jordan Hall. 781-324-0396, www.bmop.org Jeremy Eichler

They are not household names, but the three musicians who joined together fruitfully on Saturday night at Jordan Hall — violinist Nai-Yuan Hu, cellist Bion Tsang, and pianist Ning An — are all well-established US-based performers with belts notched by career prizes and competition victories. The program, presented by the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts, seemed designed to showcase them individually and collectively, and did so with the help of chamber works — by Kodaly and Arensky — a shade more unusual than one finds on your typical recital program.

The Siberian violinist Vadim Repin and the Muscovite pianist Nikolai Lugansky left their Jordan Hall audience cheering Saturday night after every piece, and even in the middle of the Cesar Franck Sonata. Repin is a relatively familiar figure, having appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra here and at Tanglewood, as well as with several visiting orchestras. Lugansky made his American debut at the Newport Festival a decade ago, and not long afterward played a recital in Weston, but this was his official Boston debut.

It's not unusual to hear Bach's Cantata No. 4, "Christ lag in Todesbanden," in the week leading up to Easter. It is unusual to hear that cantata paired with a suite for brass composed by a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. And with excerpts from an opera based on the novel "Henderson the Rain King. " Bach and Saul Bellow on the same program? In the April edition of New England Conservatory's "First Monday at Jordan Hall" series, which is now in its 27th season, the idea didn't just work, it worked brilliantly.