Celebrate Valentine's Day with love songs in Barnes

Two-piano jazz returns to Barnes Hall tonight, Feb. 14, at 8, when David Borden and Blaise Bryski present an evening of love songs to celebrate Valentine's Day. The two pianists will perform solos and duos of their own arrangements of tunes, including The Sunshine of Your Love, My Funny Valentine, It's All Right with Me, Someone to Watch Over Me, Love Me or Leave Me, And I Love Her and more. They will be joined by some surprise guest artists.

Borden is the director of Cornell's Digital Music Program, and Bryski is completing his doctorate in 18th-century performance practice at Cornell.

Also slated for this week are performances by Philadelphia's internationally traveled Baroque music ensemble, Tempesta di Mare; the Cornell Symphony Orchestra; and cellist Heidi Hoffman with Richard Faria, clarinet, and Xak Bjerken, paino.

Tempesta di Mare, named after Vivaldi's famous concerto by the same name, performs chamber music of the 17th and 18th centuries "with nothing less than breathtaking results," according to the American Record Guide. The ensemble comes to Barnes Hall Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. to perform one of its signature programs, "Invisible Bach," a concert of transformations by J.S. Bach of his own and others' works, played on flute, recorder, violin, cello, lute and harpsichord.

Tempesta di Mare's artistic directors, the husband-and-wife team of Gwyn Roberts, flute and recorder, and Richard Stone, lute, perform with Cynthia Roberts, violin; Vivian Barton Dozor, cello; and Barbara Weiss, harpsichord.

The group's CD, Francesco Maria Veracini: The Recorder Sonatas, earned BBC Music Magazine's top award of Five Stars. Tempesta di Mare has been featured at the Prague Spring Festival in the Czech Republic and the Amherst Early Music Festival at home. Their concerts have received national broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, Sunday Baroque, Classical Guitar Alive! and Harmonia at home, and on Czech Radio abroad. Early Music America, the national advocacy organization for Renaissance and Baroque music, has twice recognized Tempesta di Mare for its achievement.

On Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall, the Cornell Symphony Orchestra, led by John Hsu, presents Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 77, with soloist Kia-Hui Tan, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, op. 64.

On Monday, Feb. 18, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall, Heidi Hoffman presents a cello recital of works by Bach, Beethoven, Janácek and Brahms. She opens her program with J.S. Bach's Suite No. 5 in C Minor for unaccompanied cello. Clarinetist Richard Faria and pianist Xak Bjerken then join her for Beethoven's Trio in B-flat Major, op. 11. Following intermission, Leos Janácek's Pohadka ("A Tale") and Brahms' Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major will be performed by Hoffman and Bjerken.