Also this issue:

Staying Alive
The rumors of Joan of Arc’s demise were true for a while.
-Brian Howard

Ben Allison's Peace Pipe
-Kyle Parker

Cat Power
-Nicole Pensiero

Kindred
-Ainé Ardron-Doley

Solas
-Mary Armstrong

Television
-Sam Adams

Beat Box
-Ainé Ardron-Doley

March 20-26, 2003

musicpicks

Piffaro

Here is a concert that affords an opportunity to discover at least two hidden treasures. Piffaro is a Philadelphia-based early music ensemble that has gained an international reputation for their vivid and joyful renditions of music from the late medieval period to the early baroque. They have enjoyed a core audience of avid fans over the years, but deserve wider recognition on their home turf. This weekend they will present a concert of the music of the 17th-century master Heinrich Schütz and his contemporaries in works for winds, strings and voices. "This is such incredibly wonderful music, and rarely heard, especially the settings with voices and wind instruments," reports Joan Kimball, Piffaro co-director. The music may be a revelation, "especially for all those folks who think that Bach was the only great German composer of the baroque." They perform on period instruments, including some that have been meticulously reconstructed from various artistic representations, such as the famous Breugel depictions of everyday life in Renaissance Europe. For this concert, Piffaro will be joined by vocalists, including the delightful early music specialist Laura Heimes, soprano, who has enchanted audiences of Philomel and the Philadelphia Classical Symphony in recent seasons.

Fri., March 21, 8 p.m., St. Mary’s Hall, Villanova University, Villanova; Sat., March 22, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Church, 1625 Locust St., $15-$25, 215-235-8469.

—Peter Burwasser