One of the most popular and exciting programs in the Astral Artists season is the Rising Stars series of concerts. The performers are often reasonably well-known to regular concert goers by the time they make it to Astral. For example, the vocal soloist for this Friday night concert is soprano Karen Slack, a recent Curtis grad who already has a clutch of awards to her name and bowled over a Settlement audience (the Philly native also attended that school) earlier this season with her gorgeously expressive voice when she sang a Barber song cycle. It's Barber again this time, with his hauntingly elegiac "Knoxville: Summer of 1915."

The ensemble backing up Slack will be the Haddonfield Symphony Chamber Orchestra, who, along with their music director, Rossen Milanov, handily deserve the moniker of rising star. Milanov, who is also the associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra and was just named the music director of the Mann Music Center summer series, seems as full of promise as any young conductor on the international scene today. He is smart, charismatic and, most importantly, oozes a natural musicality from head to toe. His program also includes music by Mercadante, Piazzolla, Copland (the slyly jazzy clarinet concerto he wrote for Benny Goodman), and a world premiere by another Philly favorite, composer, pianist, salonista, teacher and chief cook and bottle washer, Andrea Clearfield. Karen Slack will be the soloist in Clearfield's "The Rim of Love."

Fri., March 31, 8 p.m., $23, Perelman Theater, 300 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999, www.kimmelcenter.org.