A.Z. Madonna

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the filmmaker’s father, said that watching the film helped him "sit back more, and listen more."

She was joined in Schumann's Piano Concerto by soloist Jonathan Biss

The news arrived as a surprise to the quartet, which has resided at Brandeis since its founding in 1980.

"We’re there in case some last-minute disaster happens," said BSO principal librarian D. Wilson Ochoa. "Like, a player forgets their part, or, I did have a player once who said, 'My dog peed on my music.'"

The Handel and Haydn Society was originally founded as a large community chorus, and this year, over 50 additional teen and adult singers will join the performance.

Now that the season of pumpkin spice lattes and Halloween candy is in the rearview mirror, it's time to break out the eggnog and candy canes.

In Thursday’s program, led by BSO youth and family concerts conductor Thomas Wilkins, sometimes the music offered perspective from the past; sometimes it offered consolation; sometimes encouragement to keep dancing through the darkness.

Elephants? No. Acrobats? No. Excellent singing? Plenty.

S ALEM — Some 50 years ago, Alan DiStasio was planning his outfit for his high school prom in Norwell, and he peeked at the dress his date was going to wear.

Kevin Puts’s orchestral song cycle tells the love story of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz.