When the calendar page turns to February, you can count on two things, chocolate hearts and Andover Chamber Music's annual Valentine concert.
This year artistic director Julie Scolnik offers "Heartstrings from Saint Petersburg," a program of all-Russian, Romantic music on Sunday, Feb. 7 at 4 p.m., at the West Parish Church. There will be an additional performance on Saturday Feb. 6, in Beverly Farms.
"Our Valentine concert is one of our most popular. January can seem long and bleak after the holidays, and people are ready to be warmed by beautiful chamber works in the midst of the long cold New England winter," said Scolnik in a release.
For this concert ACM welcomes back the well-known pianist Randall Hodgkinson, and two new faces: young string virtuosos and natives of Saint Petersburg cellist Adrian Daurov and violinist Galina Zhadnova.
Daurov and Hodgkinson will perform a beautiful, little known cello sonata by Myascovsky, and Zhadnova joins them for Rachmaninoff's Elegiac Piano Trio #1. Scolnik will play the formidable and rich Prokofiev Flute Sonata with Hodgkinson, and clarinetist Todd Palmer and violist Dimitri Murrath return to bring the concert to an exuberant conclusion with Prokofiev's colorful Overture on Hebrew Themes.
One-hundred percent of the proceeds from CD sales will benefit Haiti, and in particular, help to rebuild The New Victorian School in Port au Prince, a music school of 600 students, destroyed by the recent earthquake, according to Andover Chamber Music.
Visit AndoverChamberMusic.org to order tickets directly, or call the office at 978-474-6222.
