Charles Reid, left, and Toni Marie Palmertree
It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and there is plenty of music celebrating love in both Berks County and Lehigh Valley.
The Reading Symphony Orchestra will present “Valentines with Romeo & Juliet” at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Santander Performing Arts Center, which is located at 136 N. Sixth St. in downtown Reading.
The audience is invited to step into a world of swelling emotion and timeless storytelling with an evening of operatic and symphonic masterpieces, featuring dramatic selections from Puccini’s “La Bohème,” “Turandot,” “Gianni Schicchi,” “Le Villi,” and “Edgar,” alongside the lush romanticism of Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty” and “Eugene Onegin.”
In collaboration with Berks Opera Company, this program culminates in the stirring intensity of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo & Juliet.” From tender arias to orchestral grandeur, this concert will bring together the heart and soul of two musical giants in a celebration of love, loss, and passion.
Featured will be Toni Marie Palmertree, soprano, and Charles Reid, tenor.
Andrew Constantine conducts the RSO.
Tickets start at $25.
Jane Austen playlist
Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University in Bethlehem will allow an audience to step into the world of Jane Austen with “The Jane Austen Playlist: Love and Music of Regency England” at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
This unique program will explore the music Austen played, cherished, and wrote about throughout her life.
Founded in 2019, “The Jane Austen Playlist” is an innovative historical music project that brings to life the music of the Austen family through digitized notation, companion recordings, and dramatically narrated performance. While Austen is celebrated for her novels and unforgettable characters, she was also deeply passionate about music. Her letters and stories are filled with references to musical accomplishment, social gatherings, and the role music played in the daily life of Regency England.
This concert offers audiences a glimpse into the drawing rooms and salons of Austen’s novels, from the elegance of Netherfield to the lively gatherings at Sir John Middleton’s home, where young ladies’ musical skill was both an art and a social expectation. Through music and narration, The Jane Austen Playlist paints a vivid portrait of romance, culture, and creativity in Austen’s era.
Tickets cost $20 and are available online.
Alias Brass
Alias Brass will take the stage at Williams Center for the Arts in Easton with “Prism” at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.
The performances are composed of standards and original compositions along with concepts that blend virtuosic musicianship with a high level of entertainment.
Founded in 2013, the ensemble is a collaboration of five talented artists and educators from across the nation. From Baroque and classical to jazz and pop, Alias Brass is a surefire hit.
The quintet will perform its 2023 album PRISM, which showcases stunning versatility in terms of style, mood, and genre. Whether it’s a film soundtrack (“Gabriel’s Oboe,” “Over the Rainbow”), an obelisk of Baroque music (J.S. Bach’s “Little Fugue in G Minor”), a Christian hymn (“Amazing Grace”), or a blues standard (“St. James Infirmary”), Alias Brass navigates the territory with mesmerizing panache.
Tickets cost $33 for adults and $6 for students.
Reed quintet
Grammy Award-winning Akropolis Reed Quintet will present its bold sounds at Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University in Bethlehem at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Now celebrating its 16th season, Akropolis Reed Quintet has earned international acclaim for performances that combine charisma, virtuosity, and artistic integrity. Praised by BBC Music Magazine as “a sonically daring ensemble who specializes in performing new works with charisma and integrity,” Akropolis brings unmatched energy and imagination to contemporary classical music.
Comprised of five reed players and entrepreneurs, the group transcends traditional genre boundaries. The Wire describes Akropolis as a “collective voice driven by real excitement and a sense of adventure,” reflecting the ensemble’s bold approach to commissioning, premiering, and championing new music.
Akropolis has appeared on the classical Billboard charts with each of its last three albums, including a remarkable #2 ranking in April 2024. Since its founding in 2009, the ensemble has remained together with the same five members, performing more than 120 concerts and educational events worldwide each year. With more than 150 commissioned and premiered works by living composers, Akropolis continues to shape the future of chamber music through innovation and collaboration.
Tickets cost $25 and are available online.
Grammy-winning pianist
The Allentown Symphony Orchestra will present “Emanuel Ax Plays Beethoven” at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown.
Grammy Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax will share an evening of sheer musical brilliance. Known for his masterful artistry and celebrated collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma and Isaac Stern, Ax was recently named Musical America’s 2026 artist of the year. Ax applies his significant talents to Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 3,” acclaimed for the deviation from the conventional forms of the classical concerto, introducing greater complexity and depth and heralding the dawn of the Romantic era.
The concert will continue with Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony No. 2,” a lush and emotionally charged masterpiece overflowing with unforgettable melodies and rich orchestration. Ax and the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Diane Wittry, will weave these iconic works into an unforgettable concert event.
Tickets cost $30 to $81.
At noon on Friday, Wittry will lead a free meet-the-artist discussion, sharing her thoughts when putting the concert together, as well as biographical information about the composers. She will share brief recordings from the program and also allow Ax to contribute to the conversation. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions.
New musical
The Shawnee Playhouse in Monroe County will premiere the musical “Madison Square Park” on Saturday.
The musical was written by Michael DeMaio and Michael F. Bruk. DeMaio also directs.
Clara is a young but old-world woman in her early 30s who makes her living as a New York City walking-tour guide. She is fascinated by the city’s rich history. Ever the romantic, she begins her workday each morning with a walk to Madison Square Park, where she sits on the bench that she once shared with her late husband. There, she pours over her notes before setting off to conduct her various walking tours around the city. One summer morning, she encounters Joey, an Italian-American from Brooklyn. Joey is gruff, edgy and streetwise, coming from the rough neighborhood where he grew up. He and Clara have no common interests. Through sharing some personal experiences and feelings, however, they soon find an attraction for each other.
The cast includes Matthew Amori, Natalie Gilbert, and Stephen Hellman.
Tickets cost $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, and $15 for students.
Performances will be at 7 p.m. on Saturday and Feb 21, at 3 p.m. on Sunday and Feb. 22, and at 2 p.m. on Feb. 20.
The Shawnee Playhouse is located at 552 River Rd. in Smithfield Township.
PYT
Pennsylvania Youth Theatre’s senior conservancy will present “Peter and the Starcatcher” at the Charles A. Brown Ice House, which is located at 56 River St. in Bethlehem.
Students in grades 5 to 12 are featured in the play, which was written by Rick Elice, with music by Wayne Barker.
From marauding pirates and jungle tyrants to unwilling comrades and unlikely heroes, “Peter and the Starcatcher” playfully explores the depths of greed and despair, and the bonds of friendship, duty and love. A young orphan and his mates are shipped off from Victorian England to a distant island ruled by the evil King Zarboff. They know nothing of the mysterious trunk in the captain’s cabin, which contains a precious, otherworldly cargo. At sea, the boys are discovered by a precocious girl named Molly, a starcatcher-in-training who realizes that the trunk’s precious cargo is starstuff, a celestial substance so powerful that it must never fall into the wrong hands. When the ship is taken over by pirates, led by the fearsome Black Stache, the journey quickly becomes a thrilling adventure.
Performances will be at 7 p.m. on Friday and at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Guest youth chorus
Mosaic Youth Chorus will host VocalEssence Singers Of This Age, a youth chorus from Minneapolis, for a joint concert at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Resurrected Life Community Church, which is located at 620 Hamilton St. in Allentown.
The concert will feature both choirs singing separately and together in a variety of styles, from gospel to contemporary.
“We are thrilled to perform with a youth choir that has a mission so close to ours, to empower diverse youth to create community, build empathy, and effect positive social change through artistic and expressive choral singing,” said Joy Hirokawa, Mosaic’s artistic director.
Mosaic Youth Chorus has received awards for the creativity, musicality, and authenticity of its performances and national recognition for its education and community engagement programs.
The VocalEssence Singers Of This Age is a community of Twin Cities teenagers engaged in expanding what it means to be a choir and encouraging a wider circle of participation in the artform. Under the leadership of G. Phillip Shoultz III, the singers present music ranging from classical to hip-hop, they use creativity and collaboration to build an accepting community, equipped with the skills to lead social change in our society.
A free-will offering will support the James Lawson Freedom School, a program of Resurrected Life Community Development Corp. that provides children and youth in grades K-12 within the Allentown School District a unique educational opportunity to address summer learning loss experienced by many inner-city children.
For information, email info@mosaicyouthchorus.org.
West Reading love
West Reading Community Revitalization Foundation will present “Love Is in the Air” for West Reading’s 2nd Friday on the Avenue from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday.
For $5, visitors can pick up a beautifully decorated Valentine’s surprise bag and stroll through town as 47 participating shops and restaurants fill it with sweet surprises along the way.
Each bag includes a map of participating locations, so you can wander, explore, and collect delightful treats, goodies, and little moments of love from every stop.
Backs can be picked up at Tinsel & Twig, which is located at 643 Penn Ave., or The American Diner, which is located at 411 Penn Ave.