Classical music groups highlight variety in April

The main classical music season comes to a close this month with a number of interesting chamber music and orchestral events, along with another fun opera. Here are some highlights.

Chamber music

>> Ocean Music Action, a program sponsored by the Honolulu Chamber Music Series, features Shawn Conley, a Hawaii-born bassist who’s traveled the world touring with groups such as the Silkroad Ensemble, founded by Yo-Yo Ma, and the experimental orchestra The Knights. Ocean Music Action includes his wife, Megan, a harpist; violinist Colin Jacobsen of The Knights; and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh of the Silkroad Ensemble. Maile Okamura, who dances with several prominent mainland dance troupes, also performs.

“The music is all based on either environmentalism, nature or water,” Conley said, adding that the program features “beautiful pieces that either sound like water or have direct connections to water.” Conley himself composed one of the pieces, a work inspired by a friend’s hang-gliding session.

On the mainland, the group has sponsored beach cleanups in conjunction with their concerts, and here they’re partnering with the community group Malama Maunalua to remove invasive limu on the following Monday.

“The idea was, ‘Can we do more than just playing music, and can we harness the power of that feeling once you go to a great concert and it finishes, and you just want to hear more, or meet the artists,” said Conley, who is now principal bassist for the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Orvis Auditorium, sponsored by the Honolulu Chamber Music Series. Tickets are $15 to $45, available at honoluluchambermusicseries.org.

>> Also on the chamber music scene, Chamber Music Hawai‘i presents “Put Some Spring in Your Step” with its Spring Wind Quartet, at 7 p.m. Saturday at Doris Duke Theatre and 7 p.m. April 10 at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Kailua. Tickets are $35, available at chambermusichawaii.org.

Symphony

>> Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra will make four appearances at Hawaii Theatre this month. On April 15, John Kolivas and his Honolulu Jazz Quartet perform with the symphony, with guests Keola Beamer, the slack-key guitar master, and his wife, Moanalani. Kolivas said he has played with Beamer for more than 40 years, even recording a jazzy version of his “Real Old Style.” “We’re going to do that and a couple of other songs in his repertoire, so it will be kind of like a Hawaiian section of our concert,” Kolivas said.

The symphony also will perform a classical concert of 20th century music on April 16, featuring crossover violinist Charles Yang performing Philip Glass; an April 19 concert with two-time Grammy winner Mads Tolling, violinist with the experimental Turtle Island Quartet; and an April 29 pops concert with one of Hawaii’s favorite vocalists, Raiatea Helm. Tickets are $35 to $75 for the Mads Tolling concert; $18 to $99 for the others. Visit myhso.org for details.

Opera

>> Hawaii Opera Theatre closes out its season with “Gianni Schicchi” on April 28 and 30 at Blaisdell Concert Hall. It’s Giacomo Puccini’s only comic opera and touches on the familiar themes of squabbles over an inheritance and class conflict. It features a “greedy family, who all want their share even though they really don’t care about the guy that just died,” said Andrew Morgan, HOT general director.

Musically, the main attraction is the glorious aria “O Mio Babbino Caro,” (“Oh my dear Papa”). It was the signature song of the great Maori soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, who sang it at Blaisdell Concert Hall in 2011. Here it will be sung by Maria Valdes, returning after a lovely performance in last season’s “Carmen,” as Schicchi’s lovelorn daughter Lauretta.

Joshua Jeremiah makes his HOT debut as Gianni Schicchi, a working-class outsider who outwits the greedy family. He was supposed to sing in last year’s “Butterfly” but withdrew for paternity leave. The cast also features local singers Blythe Kelsey, Leslie Goldman, Robert Feng and Laurie Rubin.

“It is some of Puccini’s best music,” Morgan said. “But it’s also very funny. It’s typical comic opera — there’s so many twists and turns, and even in that 70-minute opera it’s amazing how much he packs into it.”

Tickets, which are $30 to $135, are available at ­hawaiiopera.org.