Critic’s Picks: Classical

The Schubert Club’s International Artist Series opens with an exciting pianist from Montreal, Marc–Andre Hamelin. Although the concert program was not published at presstime, it’s probably irrelevant in this case; Hamelin is known as a pianist who can play anything. He has managed to captivate the crustiest, most jaded critics in the business and has inspired hyperbolic reviews. Expect this one to surprise and delight you. Oct. 21. Ordway Center, 345 Washington St., St. Paul, 651-224-4222

Sara Daneshpour opens the Frederic Chopin Society piano recital season. The twenty-one-year-old American Curtis Institute of Music grad is a protege of Leon Fleisher and no stranger to Carnegie Hall or the Kennedy Center—and she’s making a name for herself in the competition circuit. She performs works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev—and, yes, Chopin. Sept. 28. Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul, 612-822-0123

Simone Dinnerstein has burst onto the scene in the last couple of years, thanks to a triumphant debut recital at Carnegie Hall in 2005 and a much-lauded recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations that topped the 2007 charts in Billboard, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. She’ll lend her Bach chops to the Chopin Society, playing Bach’s French Suite in G Major, along with a set of variations on Bach by Philip Lasser, a Beethoven sonata, and Schubert’s Four Impromptus Op. 90. Nov. 16. Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, St. Paul

In 2004, Jie Chen made waves at Orchestra Hall by winning the second International Piano e-Competition only three years after making her precocious Philadelphia Orchestra debut at age sixteen. She has since graced the stages of Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Kennedy and Kimmel Centers, and has won prizes at major international competitions. She returns next month to play Saint–Saen’s glittering Piano Concerto no. 2. Oct. 9–11. Orchestra Hall, Mpls.

The Minnesota Orchestra describes its conductor laureate, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, as a “force of nature,” so it’s fitting that he celebrates his eighty-fifth birthday by premiering one of his new compositions and conducting Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, better known as the theme music for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The concert also showcases the debut of pianist Ewa Kupiec on Chopin’s Piano Concerto no. 1. Oct. 30–Nov. 1. Orchestra Hall, Mpls.

Lyra Baroque Orchestra opens its season with a tribute to Marin Marais. The composer, depicted by Girard Depardieu in the 1991 film Tous les Matins du Monde, was a major musical figure in the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Lyra’s concert features his Symphonies d’Alcione plus chamber music for two violins, viola da gamba, and more. Sept. 27. Sundin Hall, 1536 Hewitt Ave., St. Paul, 651-523-2800