SPCO 2008-09 season

SPCO announces 2008-09 season The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra has announced a 50th-anniversary season that includes a new chorale by Dale Warland, a quick trip to Scandinavia and an international chamber orchestra festival with performances throughout the Twin Cities area.

Four groups -- the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (based in London), the London Sinfonietta, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (a British period-instrument group) and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco) -- will join the SPCO in January 2009.

Warland will conduct auditions and then lead the SPCO Anniversary Chorale for three concert weeks during the season, including the September opener.

The season will feature five artistic partners, including soprano Dawn Upshaw with Minnesota-bred jazz conductor/composer Maria Schneider. Pianist Stephen Prutsman and conductor Roberto Abbado will be on a program featuring the U.S. premiere of the string orchestra version of Alban Berg's complete, six-movement "Lyric Suite." French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard will perform Beethoven's 1st, 2nd and 4th Piano Concertos, and English conductor Nicholas McGegan will celebrate 20 years with the SPCO. Scottish conductor Douglas Boyd will take the podium for Handel's "Ode" and programs in the international festival.

The SPCO will spend five days in Scandinavia and northern Germany in December, with Nikolaj Znaider as conductor and violin soloist.

Other highlights in the season include an appearance by violinist Leila Josefowicz and a world premiere of a commission from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky.

More information at 651-291-1144 or www.thespco.org.

GRAYDON ROYCE

Examining architects As an architectural icon, the Minneapolis Central Library is a great site for a new series of talks by professors from the University of Minnesota's School of Architecture. At 7 p.m. on Tuesday nights starting this month, the talks will spotlight the work of transformative figures from the past 500 years of European and American building design. The series will focus on architects who "rethought something fundamental to the field" but may not be so widely recognized, said Tom Fisher, dean of the College of Design.

Topics include: The Michelangelo of Ottoman Turkey: Koca Mimar Sinan (Feb. 19), Cass Gilbert and the Western landscape (Feb. 26), Vienna modernist Adolf Loos (March 4), architectural photographer Balthazar Korab (March 11), Belgian ecologist Lucien Kroll (March 25), architectural phenomenologist Peter Zumthor (April 1), modern medievalist Frank Gehry (April 8), playful modernist Ralph Rapson (April 15).

(Free. Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Mpls. 612-630-6174, friendsofmpl.org.)

MARY ABBE