5 performances to see at Rehearsing Philadelphia

“Rehearsing Philadelphia” is a city-wide arts show that starts Friday and runs through April 10. Musicians, dancers, poets, and other artists have been paired with people from other occupations, including doctors and lawyers. There are many events in the full schedule, so we tasked our critics with finding some highlights. Here’s what they recommend.

You’re walking through the city and someone pops a question: Would you like to sing? That’s the simple concept behind “Duet,” a series of aleatoric musical encounters planned for three Saturdays around town. Anyone answering in the affirmative is invited to stop for an impromptu rehearsal and performance — a duet between two strangers. Instigators of these vocal encounters will be posted March 26 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Baltimore Avenue from 40th to 48th Streets; April 2 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. around Independence National Historic Park; and April 9 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. along the Parkway from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

— Peter Dobrin

Newark, N.J.-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is a music professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a 2017 MacArthur Fellow. In 2019, Perle Noire: Meditations for Josephine, his song cycle inspired by Josephine Baker, premiered on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Last year, Sorey teamed with Philadelphia DJ King Britt for Tyshawn + King, an album of improvised jazz drumming and electronic programming. In Rehearsing Philadelphia’s Ensemble mode, Sorey will collaborate with students from Drexel University and the Curtis Institute. Free, no RSVP required. April 1, 5-9 p.m. and April 2, 1-5 p.m, Pearlstein Gallery, 3401 Filbert St.

— Dan DeLuca

Zoe Keating moves freely between classical, rock, and electronic music. The Canadian cellist, a member of the cello rock band Rasputina in the ‘00s, has toured with Amanda Palmer. year her atmospheric score for the HBO drama Oslo, written with Jeff Russo, was nominated for an Emmy. In performance she’s known for looping herself to create a symphonic sound from her lone instrument. In Rehearsing Philadelphia’s Ensemble mode, Keating will collaborate with Drexel University and Curtis Institute students. Free, no RSVP required. April 8, 2-6 p.m., April 9, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

— Dan DeLuca

Anthony Tidd is a jazz bassist and composer born in London and based in Philadelphia and Harlem who’s a longtime member of the Roots extended musical family. He cowrote songs for the new Off-Broadway musical Black No More with James Poyser and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter.

Tidd is director of Rehearsing Philadelphia’s Public Orchestra Project, which will close the festival with performances on the Race Street Pier with new commissions by Afro-Latina songwriter Xenia Rubinos, 97-year-old saxophonist and Sun Ra Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen with David Middleton, and Philadelphia hip-hop poet Ursula Rucker.

In the Rehearsing Philadelphia mission statement, Tidd says the Public Orchestra will include 50 musicians that “represent the cultural and sonic diversity of Philadelphia and challenge western concepts of what a symphony orchestra can be, look and sound like.”

April 8-9 at 8 p.m. and April 10 at 3 p.m. at Cherry Street Pier, 121 N. Christopher Columbus Boulevard. RSVP at RehearsingPhiladelphia.com.

— Dan DeLuca

» READ MORE: A retired lawyer will perform interpretive dance to poetry crafted from his old cases

Germaine Ingram’s instrument of choice is a pair of tap shoes, tap being percussion as well as dance. But she is also a choreographer, songwriter, oral historian — and just for good measure, a lawyer who studied at Penn and Harvard and the onetime chief of staff for the School District of Philadelphia.

In the tap world, she’s worked with so many of the greats: Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Brenda Bufalino, and her mentor, LaVaughn Robinson.

For Ingram’s solo, The Art of Repair, she will be paired with Andrea Apter, an allergist, professor emerita at Penn Medicine, and a flute and piccolo player.

March 25 and March 28 through April 8 (weekdays only) in a variety of locations. RSVP at RehearsingPhiladelphia.com.

— Ellen Dunkel