Sphinx Virtuosi with J'Nai Bridges: American Dialogues 250

Sphinx Virtuosi play the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center on Friday, October 23, with mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges. The program is titled American Dialogues 250, a nod to the nation's 250th anniversary, and it brings together a mix of contemporary voices and a familiar name from the 20th century. The set opens with Damien Geter's song cycle Declaration, with a libretto by Aaron Dworkin, and continues with works by Roberto Sierra and Jessie Montgomery, before closing with Stravinsky.

If you haven't come across them before, Sphinx Virtuosi is a self-conducted chamber orchestra made up of 18 professional string players from the Black and Latinx classical community. They're the flagship ensemble of the Sphinx Organization, a nonprofit that works to expand access to the arts. The New York Times has called them "vibrant" and "rhapsodic," and The Strad described their "elegant ascent into the upper ranks of string orchestras." Their debut album, Songs for Our Times on Deutsche Grammophon, was called a "knockout" by Gramophone.

They've played alongside the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and have collaborated with artists as varied as Terence Blanchard, Denyce Graves, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z, with appearances on The Tonight Show and the GRAMMY Awards. The October 23 performance is the Ann Hobson Pilot Fund Concert, endowed by Vivian and Mark Greenberg.

The concert starts at 7:30 PM at the Perelman Theater, 300 South Broad Street, and runs about an hour and a half including intermission. If you want to get a bit more context before the music starts, there's a pre-concert talk at 6:30 PM in Hamilton Garden.