MONDAY

• Cecilia String Quartet and U of T faculty with pianist Menahem Pressler at Walter Hall, University of Toronto, 7 p.m.

Just a couple of weeks shy of his 89th birthday, what he may now lack in technical accuracy pianist Menahem Presser makes up for in a lifetime of insight. Tonight’s programme of mid-19th century chamber music should be very special: Pressler, Toronto Symphony associate principal viola Eric Nowlin and Gryphon Trio violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon and cellist Roman Borys perform Robert Schumann’s Op. 47 Piano Quartet; the pianist then teams up with the Cecilia String Quartet for the Op. 34 Piano Quintet by Johannes Brahms.

For concert details, click here. (Note that Presser is offering chamber music masterclasses on Tuesday starting at 10 a.m. at Walter Hall that are open — and free — to the public.) Here is Pressler with the late Emerson String Quartet in the “Andante cantabile” movement:

TUESDAY

• Adam Sherkin CD launch at the Academy of Spherical Arts, 5 p.m. Free.

Toronto pianist Adam Sherkin is releasing his début album as a solo pianist-composer on the Canadian Music Centre’s Centrediscs label. It collects nine pieces he has created over the past decade. The launch is probably more of a social gathering than anything else, but Sherkin is supposed to play something from the album at 6 p.m. at the billiards-table factory-turned restaurant-bar in Liberty Village (at the corner of Hanna and Snooker — just a block from the streetcar stop at King and Atlantic).

Here is Sherkin with the oldest pieces on the album, his Three Preludes, from 2003:

WED., THU. & SATURDAY

• Pianist Jan Lisiecki and conductor Sir Andrew Davis join the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, 6:30 p.m. Wed., 8 p.m. Thu & 7:30 p.m. Sat.

Sir Andrew Davis brings his special touch with the music of Richard Strauss to bear on the composer’s colourful depiction of the adventures of Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote in music, with the help of principal cellist Joseph Johnson in the role of the deluded knight.

Wednesday’s short, early-evening programme puts Don Quixote front and centre, introduced by Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. CBC Radio’s Tom Allen animates the spoken introductions. Wednesday concert details here.

Young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki joins the gang on stage on Thursday and Saturday nights as Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto is added to the programme. For all the concert details for Thu. & Sat., click here.

THURSDAY

• Duo Concertante at Walter Hall, for the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto, 1:30 p.m.

St John’s-based pianist Timothy Steeves and violinist Nancy Dahn bring a hefty programme to this venerable Thursday-afternoon concert series: Sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, as well as R Murray Schafer’s Wild Bird, from last year’s Juno-winning album.

You’ll find all the details here.

FRIDAY & SAT.

• Art of Time Ensemble at the Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront, 8 p.m.

Andrew Burashko guides his ever-inventive collaborations in a jazzy direction for Art of Time Ensemble’s new project, The Big Band Show. A who’s who of Toronto jazz performers joins Burashko’s choice versatile classical players to make up a 26-piece band that perform Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite, Igor Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto (with James Campbell as clarinet soloist) and the Jazz Suite No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich.

You’ll find all the details here.

SAT. & SUNDAY

• Pax Christi Chorale at Grace Church-on-the-Hill, 7:30 p.m. Sat. & 3 p.m. Sun.

There are many excellent seasonal concerts on offer this weekend, but only one place to hear Josef Rheinberger cantata The Star of Bethlehem. If you love Elgar, Rheinberger is the German composer for you. The programme is rounded out by magi-guided favourites. You’ll find all the details here.

Here is the closing of Rheinberger’s cantata, performed by the Monteverdi Choir of Würzburg under Matthias Beckert, five years ago:

SUNDAY

• Baritone Brett Polegato and soprano Nathalie Paulin with the Aldeburgh Connection at Walter Hall, 2:30 p.m.

Geneviève Halévy (1849-1926), daughter of one opera composer and wife of another (Georges Bizet), became one of the most sough-after salonnières in Paris. Her letters and reminiscences, which touch on the heart of Parisian artistic life before the mess of World War I, are the perfect excuse for an afternoon of mélodies by Bizet, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Reynaldo Hahn. Actors Fiona Reid and Mike Shara will be on hand to add colour to the words, while two great singers interpret the songs with the help of Aldeburgh co-artistic directors Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata. Details here.

• Pianist Denis Matsuev at Koerner Hall, 7 p.m.

Young Russian powerhouse pianist Denis Matsuev brings an all-Russian solo programme that is a mix of the intimate and extroverted, including pieces by Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninov and a transcription of three movements from Igor Stravinsky ballet score Petrouchka. Details here (note that there were no more than three-dozen tickets still available on Monday morning).

John Terauds

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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