Musicians from Marlboro I

Musicians from Marlboro play the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center on Sunday, November 1, at 2 PM. It's the first of three touring ensembles coming out of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont this season, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society is the one bringing them to the city.

The program is a mix of the old and the new, with a Philadelphia premiere in the middle. They open with Haydn's String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 33, No. 1, and then move into Brett Dean's String Quartet No. 3 'Hidden Agendas', which hasn't been played here before. From there it's Kaija Saariaho's Aure, and the afternoon closes with Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581.

Both Dean and Saariaho were former composers in residence at Marlboro, so their work sits at the center of the set. The ensemble itself is built around clarinetist Jonathan Leibovitz—who BBC Music Magazine has described as having an ability to mesmerize the listener—and violinist Alex Redington, the founding and former first violinist of the Doric Quartet. Joining them are Leo Appel on violin, Samuel Rosenthal on viola, and Elena Ariza on cello.

For context, Musicians from Marlboro is the touring arm of the Marlboro Music Festival, which has spent more than 60 years bringing performances from its school and festival to national audiences. Every year, more than 25 artists step away from their regular work to present concerts of rarely heard pieces alongside established masterpieces. This is the first of three touring ensembles they're sending out this season.

The concert runs about an hour and 40 minutes, including the intermission. It's a Sunday matinee at the Kimmel Center, 300 South Broad Street, starting at 2 PM.