For its local debut, the Peabody Trio–trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and now the resident ensemble of Baltimore’s Peabody Institute–will play a pair of recent works by transplanted Chicagoans. Shulamit Ran, last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner, is represented by Excursions (1980), a neo-romantic string trio tinged with the hothouse sensuality of her native Israel. Four Movements for Piano Trio by Bright Sheng, the Lyric Opera’s composer in residence, is an assured, almost dazzling homage to Bartok in its blending of the neoclassical style with folk idioms; “folk,” in Sheng’s case, is the tribal music of China’s northwestern frontier. Also on the program is Leonard Bernstein’s 1988 Arias and Barcarolles, eight songs in all, orchestrated by Sheng at the composer’s request. This is its Chicago premiere; mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle and baritone Kurt Ollman will sing, accompanied by Sheng himself–in his farewell concert before relocating to Seattle. Monday, 8 PM, Civic Theatre, 20 N. Wacker; 242-6237 or 663-1628.
