First Unitarian Church, Shadyside
$10 at the door, reception to follow.

Billed as ”Modern American Art Songs….with a twist!”, highly versatile mezzo/composer Eva Rainforth will give a concert of her own compositions at Shadyside Unitarian Church on February 4. You won’t want to miss this!

Kresge Recital Hall
Free

Violinist Monique Meade and pianist Luz Manriquez will perform a recital that includes Lutoslawski’s Subito along with music by Mozart, Sarasate, and Prokofiev. The program will feature concert commentary by CMU Music Preparatory School students Tino Cardenes, Madeline Hilf, Maine Hoppo, Morgan Dufer, William Wang, and Gabrielle Faetini.

Chatham University, James Laughlin Center for Music
Tickets 

Alia Musica’s winter program features music for percussion by living Pittsburgh composers. The program features the premieres of works by Michael Purdue and Scott Steele, in addition to works by Ivan Jiminez, Michael Culligan, Elliott Carter and Eric Satie.

Alia Musica composer (and a percussionist himself) Scott Steele’s “Music for three percussionists” will be premiered, along with a new composition, written especially for the occasion, by percussionist Mike Perdue. Perdue’s piece, Words, is based on the rhythm of spoken text and scored for a variable number of players and instruments. Exploring elements of improvisation and formal indeterminacy, the piece follows on the lead of his Meta-Concerto, premiered in 2011 to good reviews at the Manhattan School of Music (with the composer as percussion soloist).

Alia Musica regular percussionists, Elliot Beck and Marcus Kim, will be featured in their respective specialities, with Mr. Beck performing Elliott Carter’s Pieces for Four Timpani, and Mr. Kim presenting his own vibraphone arrangement of Eric Satie’s Gymnopedies. The program is completed by a version of Ivan Jimenez’s 10 Intermittent Lights Dancing, reworked for three percussionists, and a “Trio” by percussionist-composer Michael Culligan, featuring Pittsburgh percussionists Austin Allen, Maryalice Ryan, and David Zawodniak.

Featuring percussionists:

Austin Allen
Elliot Beck
Michael Culligan
Marcus Kim
Michael Purdue
Maryalice Ryan
Scott Steele
Daniel Zawodniak

If you’ve been to any Music on the Edge concerts this year, you’ve probably already seen this picture and perhaps thought to yourself, “if these guys hang out on hip urban rooftops with their instruments, then they must deliver great concerts.” Well, you’d be right.

Violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland first met while attending the Eastman School of Music, and have been making music together ever since. In recent years, JACK Quartet has made a lasting impression on audiences and critics around the world. The Washington Post commented, “The string quartet may be a 250-year-old contraption, but young, brilliant groups like the JACK Quartet are keeping it thrillingly vital.” The Boston Globe described the group’s playing as “explosive virtuosity” and Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times) called their sold-out performances of Georg Friedrich Haas’ String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct. ”mind-blowingly good.”

JACK Quartet is committed both to commissioning new works and playing some of the most challenging repertoire of the 20^th Century. This passion for new music has led them to work closely with outstanding composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, György Kurtág, Matthias Pintscher, Georg Friedrich Haas, James Dillon, Toshio Hosokawa, Wolfgang Rihm, Elliott Sharp, Beat Furrer, Caleb Burhans, and Aaron Cassidy.

Music on the Edge and The Andy Warhol Museum will be co-presenting JACK Quartet at the Warhol’s Museum Theater on Saturday, February 25 at 8 p.m. The program exemplifies the kind of innovative approach for which JACK Quartet has become known. Michael Gordon’s Potassium calls for amplified instruments (including use of a distortion effects), Jason Eckardt’s Subject tackles the issue of torture with complex lighting effects integrated into the score and Philip Glass’s exquisite String Quartet No. 5 contributes to this adventurous and stylistically wide-ranging program. The centerpiece of the concert though, is the premiere of Pitt faculty composer Amy Williams’ Richter Textures, completed with a Fromm Music Foundation Commission. Williams describes her composition as being “loosely inspired by paintings by Gerhard Richter,” with each of the seven brief movements inspired by a different painting. This will be JACK’s first collaboration with Williams, and a recording of Richter Textures is planned for the future.

Order tickets in advance through ProArtsTickets: $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors. Visit www.proartstickets.org or call 412-394-3353.

At the door: general admission is $20 and student/senior admission is $15.