Our guide to the city’s best classical music and opera happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. (July 5-6, 8 p.m.; July 7, 2:30 p.m.). Opening weekend at the Boston Symphony’s summer home starts on Friday with the amiable pianism of Emanuel Ax, in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22, prefacing Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Andris Nelsons conducts, as he does on Saturday night, when attention turns to André Previn, who died this year. Previn’s former wife and longtime collaborator, Anne-Sophie Mutter, is on hand to perform the violin concerto that the pianist, conductor and composer wrote for her, “Anne-Sophie.” And there’s a special treat on Sunday afternoon, when Mutter returns for arrangements of music by John Williams, as on her forthcoming album, “Across the Stars.” Williams and David Newman conduct the Boston Pops Orchestra.
617-266-1200, bso.org
CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER at Alice Tully Hall (July 10, 7:30 p.m.). Schubert’s String Trio in B Flat, Dvorak’s Piano Quartet in D and Mendelssohn’s Piano Sextet make up this Chamber Music Society concert, the first in its Summer Evenings series. Among the artists playing are the violist Cynthia Phelps and the pianist Jon Kimura Parker; share a glass of wine with them and the other musicians at the postconcert reception.
212-875-5788, chambermusicsociety.org
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
EKMELES at the Met Breuer (July 5, 6:30 p.m.). Oliver Beer’s new “Vessel Orchestra” turns a collection of objects taken from the Met’s vast holdings into parts of a massive musical instrument, one played automatically during the day and in live concerts on Friday nights. The first features this excellent vocal ensemble, joined by the pianist Bruce Brubaker, performing medieval monophony and pieces by John Cage, Alvin Lucier and Philip Glass. The concert is free with museum admission.
212-731-1675, metmuseum.org
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S at Caramoor in Katonah, N.Y. (July 7, 4 p.m.). Four years ago, the pianist Jonathan Biss asked five composers to respond to a particular piano concerto by Beethoven, whose “voice” and “influence,” the pianist has written, remain too powerful “to be ignored.” Caroline Shaw, who won the Pulitzer Prize for “Partita for 8 Voices,” is the latest to take up the challenge, her “Watermark” a reaction to the Piano Concerto No. 3. Hear them both with Biss at the keyboard in this matinee upstate, conducted by Grant Llewellyn, who also leads Mozart’s Symphony No. 38.
914-232-1252, caramoor.org
VENICE BAROQUE ORCHESTRA at Temple Emanu-El (July 10, 7 p.m.). The Naumburg Bandshell might be closed for repairs, but the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts continue all the same, just across the street from Central Park. Vivaldi, Handel, Albinoni, Marcello and Geminiani are on the bill this week; tickets are free, but you need to register, either online or at the door.
naumburgconcerts.org
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