If you’ve heard Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, you know it’s full of gorgeous moments and sweeping feeling, but have you ever wondered what, specifically, makes it great and keeps avid listeners coming back again and again?  

Rob Kapilow, with the assistance of A Far Cry, explores the work in the context of Tchaikovsky’s life and career. He unpacks and illustrates some of Tchaikovsky’s compositional choices and provides illuminating biographical and historical context about the composer, and how he negotiated the various political and artistic movements of his time.  

Boston’s A Far Cry chamber orchestra returns for their second performance alongside Kapilow. The self-conducted, democratically governed, and adventurous ensemble was praised by The Boston Musical Intelligencer for its “top-drawer playing.”