From Bach to Tchaikovsky: Favourite classical concerts for October

Cooler days and longer nights make October concert prime time, and this year fans of classical music are offered a plethora of choices.

On Oct. 4, 3 p.m. at The Annex, classical guitarist Kanahi Yamashita begins the Vancouver Classic Guitar Society’s 29th season. Her program, Hommage à Bach, matches works by the baroque master with 20th century pieces created in his spirit.

In the days to come, a trio of piano recitals graces the Vancouver Playhouse. Taking advantage of the Thanksgiving weekend, the Vancouver Chopin Society presents William Yang in a rare Monday recital, Oct. 12, 3 p.m. Yang, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and a Kovner Fellow at the Juilliard School of Music, offers a multi-era program stretching from J.S. Bach to Ravel, with Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Scriabin added for good measure.

Sunday, Oct. 18, 3 p.m., young Italian pianist Filippo Gorini makes a long anticipated return to the Vancouver Recital Society. Gorini is known for big projects and extended residences. His October program is ultraserious stuff: exquisite, heartbreaking late Schubert pieces plus Beethoven’s formidable Diabelli Variations, a towering monument of keyboard literature.

The pianist trio ends Oct. 25, 3 p.m., again at the Vancouver Playhouse, with Paul Lewis, a favourite of the Vancouver Recital Society. This is the official launch of Lewis’s Mozart+ project, which juxtaposes important works by the classical master with complementary pieces by later composers Chopin and Schubert.

October also brings a pair of violinists to town to perform concertos with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Oct. 9 and 10, 7:30 p.m. at the Orpheum, it’s the great Augustin Hadelich featured in Brahms’s magisterial violin concerto, with John Estacio’s sparkler Frenergy as a curtain raiser. Clemens Schuldt, Music Director of Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, conducts.

Then in mid-month the VSO welcomes a return visit from guest conductor Gemma New, Oct. 17, 7 p.m. at the Orpheum, and Oct. 19, 4 p.m. at Surrey’s Bell Performing Arts Centre. New’s program is particularly strong: Ravel’s enchanting Le tombeau de Couperin and Elgar’s grand, glorious Nimrod Variations bookend a concert anchored by violinist Blake Pouliot in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

This is a season of change for the Vancouver Cantata Singers, but retiring music director Paula Kremer offers a broad selection of choral repertoire with Beatitude, Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m., Christ Church Cathedral. “A special evening of chosen movements from favourite mass settings, interspersed with works that reflect, comment, and illuminate the journey from the Kyrie to the Agnus Dei — a cry for mercy and eternal peace.”

Opera rounds out the month. Aficionados understand these are especially difficult times for opera companies in North America. Vancouver Opera confidently launches an all-hits season with a three-performance run of Puccini’s Tosca, Oct. 24 and 29, 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 1, 2 p.m. at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tosca has its detractors — it was termed “that shabby little shocker” by combative musicologist Joseph Kerman — but many disagree; while not a subtle show, it’s still great fun in the tradition of over the top melodrama amplified by brilliant music.