I can't escape Carnegie Hall. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra plays Tuesday night: soloist Jonathan Biss, a new piece by Daniel Schnyder, music by Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür (the Nordic invasion continües). On Wednesday, the gifted young Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski zeroes in on Zankel. Thursday is Michael Harrison's evening-length "just intonation" (funky tuning) work Revelation at Merkin. Because February is Crazy Month in classical music, I'll miss about eight hundred promising shows in the same three days: opening night of the Gotham Chamber Opera production of Handel's Arianna in Creta, William Bolcom's wildly polystylistic cabaret opera Casino Paradise at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Chris Taylor and the Yings playing Peter Lieberson's fab new Piano Quintet, Riccardo Chailly conducting the oceanic, ironic Mahler Seventh, a Paul Moravec premiere by the String Orchestra of New York, a Joshua Bell gig at Great Performers, and Morton Subotnick presenting his laptop tone-poem Until Spring Revisited at Symphony Space (I heard a gorgeous excerpt at La MaMa last fall). Over the weekend I'm off on another secret mission to Providence and will miss a bunch of other concerts. When you factor in new episodes of Lost, Alias, Desperate Housewives, and Missy Elliott's Road to Stardom, it's a heavy-duty week of culture.
