Concert Artists

Those heavenly sounds being heard in concert halls across the region aren't just ordinary trappings of the holiday season. Baltimore has a remarkable collection of choral ability - three organizations led by talented people who shaped or are molding some of the nation's finest choral ensembles. MELINDA O'NEAL One of Baltimore's longest-performing choral groups, The Handel Choir of Baltimore, which has been singing the Messiah and other classical pieces here for 72 years, is also one of its freshest, thanks to Melinda O'Neal, who made her debut as artistic director and conductor in the 2004-2005 season.

Autobiographical `tick, tick ... ' The lowdown -- The movie version of Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent opens next month, but you can get a look at Larson's earlier work beginning tomorrow when his autobiographical musical tick, tick ... BOOM! opens at Mobtown Theater. Larson performed tick, tick ... BOOM! as a solo show under a different title in 1990. After the young composer's death from an aortic aneurysm in 1996 - hours after the final dress rehearsal of Rent - tick, tick was expanded to a three-person musical under the guidance of playwright David Auburn (Proof)

"The Spitfire Grill" The Spitfire Grill -- a musical about a young, female ex-con who moves to a small town and helps redeem its spirit along with her own -- will make its Baltimore premiere at Fell's Point Corner Theatre tomorrow. Based on a 1996 movie directed by Lee David Zlotoff, The Spitfire Grill has a book by James Valcq and Fred Alley, who wrote the music and lyrics, respectively. Bill Kamberger, who previously directed the musicals Passion, Parade and Street Scene at Fell's Point Corner, returns to direct a cast headed by Claire Bowerman and also featuring Matthew Bowerman (Claire's husband)

Peabody Conservatory's admirable, roughly two-month exploration of the Second Viennese School - tradition-shredding composers Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern - is perhaps more about the Second Viennese Pre-School. The focus is not on the most radical works of these men, but those with one foot, or at least a toe, back in the romantic world of Wagner and Mahler. I found myself wishing for a total 12-tone blowout at the Peabody Symphony Orchestra's program Tuesday night, instead of the more conservative side of Schoenberg on display, the same side featured in the first exploration concert in January.

The big news of this music season is unquestionably the inauguration of the Music Center at Strathmore, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's new, $100 million home-away-from-home in Montgomery County. If the venue lives up to its potential, the BSO stands to reap financial and artistic benefits that would make many a future music season bright. Meanwhile, the Baltimore scene will hardly be devoid of ear-catching activity for '04-'05. It might be a stretch to call this a season of discovery - but not a big stretch.

As "one Hall of Famer to another," Brooks Robinson presented a collection of Orioles gear - bat, cap and T-shirt - to an obviously delighted Leon Fleisher Thursday night at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. It was the prelude to a celebration by the Concert Artists of Baltimore of the brilliant pianist's milestone season - he's 75. Fleisher, who a few years ago became the first living pianist to be inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame in Cincinnati, returned the favor by hitting one out of the hall.

If Antonio Salieri is ever to have another day in the sun, it may be thanks to irresistible Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, currently following up on her recent all-Salieri CD with a U.S. concert tour. Salieri, maligned by the popular play and film Amadeus as the mortal, insanely jealous enemy of Mozart, may not be top-drawer - most of his harmonic progressions are just too safe and predictable, many of his melodies too bland. But he was a genuine talent nonetheless. His music clearly deserves the occasional revival, and you couldn't get more vivid proponents than the brilliant Bartoli and her equally arresting backup band, England's Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

It's hardly news that the Concert Artists of Baltimore serves up interesting programs with panache. Still, Saturday night's performance at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts in Owings Mills commanded extra attention and seemed, in its own way, as notable as the lunar eclipse going on outside. The concert offered a rare alignment of repertoire - the boldly confident, sometimes almost cheeky Mass for chorus and orchestra written by a young Giacomo Puccini; and the exquisitely pastoral Symphony No. 5 written by Ralph Vaughan Williams at the height of his creative powers amid the darkness of World War II. Neither work turns up with the frequency it deserves.