Carmina burana

The Philadelphia Orchestra performs Carmina burana at Marian Anderson Hall, The Kimmel Center, with the first performance on Thursday, October 22. It's a multi-night run that continues through October 25, so you've got a few dates to choose from.

Carmina burana is the big draw here. Carl Orff assembled it from medieval texts, and it's been a choral favorite since it came out nearly a century ago. You've probably heard it without even knowing it—it's been used as a backdrop for films like Star Wars and Glory. Orff set out to write an "elemental music" that brought together dance, poetry, and image, and that's exactly what it is: a massive, driving work that needs a full orchestra and a huge choir to do it justice.

That's where the scale of this production comes in. The orchestra is led by music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with soprano Janai Brugger, tenor Jonah Hoskins, and baritone Will Liverman on the solos. The choral side is just as big: the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir under Joe Miller, the Commonwealth Youth Choir under Dominique DeSilva, the Philadelphia Boys Choir under Jeffrey R. Smith, and the Philadelphia Girls Choir under Nathan Wadley. When they all come together, it's a lot of voices on stage at once.

The program doesn't stop at Orff. It opens with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Ballade in A minor, a thirteen-minute orchestral ride by the composer once called "the Black Mahler," who died of pneumonia at 37. Then there's Clara by Gabriela Ortiz, her imagining of the love story between Clara and Robert Schumann. Between the two, you get a glimpse of a composer who left far too early and a modern take on one of music's most famous couples, all before the main event.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the world's great classical ensembles, performing year-round from Verizon Hall to community venues across the city. Yannick Nézet-Séguin is their eighth music director, following in the footsteps of names like Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. You can find Carmina burana at Marian Anderson Hall, 300 S Broad St, starting October 22.