The new-music community in Philadelphia is as collegial as ever, so you'd think there would be better communication about concert planning. This weekend is packed with three major events that will roll out five world premieres, and all feature superb, world-class performers. Two of them will be repeated in New York, but if you want to attend them all here in Philly, you'll need a time machine, because Saturday is double-booked.
The fun begins Friday night, at Curtis (8 p.m., $20, 1726 Locust St.), where pianists Mikhail Yanovitsky and Michal Schmidt and violinist Diane Monroe will give life to four sonatas by Robert Capanna and Philip Maneval. The esteemed local composers make for an intriguing contrast: Capanna's music tends to be taut, chiseled and introspective; Maneval is also a fine craftsman, but exhibits a more extroverted style. The two have been paired in concert before, and the mix is highly stimulating. If their names sound familiar outside of the context of new-music composition, it is because Maneval is the longtime executive director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Capanna was the executive director of the sprawling Settlement Music School system for 27 years.
Saturday night features an unusual tribute to American minimalism, the transformational movement that had its roots in Asian and pop music and turned academic classical music on its pointy head. The terrific Prism Saxophone Quartet will present music by four of the big boys of that world — Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Adams and Michael Torke — and a premiere by an emerging young composer, Samuel Phillips-Corwin (7 p.m., $20, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St.).
And up in Chestnut Hill, also on Saturday (8 p.m., $30, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Ave.), there's the final concert of the Network for New Music season, which has focused on music and words. The remarkable Pulitzer Prize-winning Lewis Spratlan will have his Hesperus Is Phosphorus performed for the first time, courtesy of chamber chorus The Crossing. Spratlan is considered a kind of musical philosopher; this is a rather lofty way to step into the sweet balm of the summer months.
