Music

Juan-Carlos Formell participated in a multi-artist showcase at SOB's — home to Brazilian and Latin music in New York — a few years ago. Between a couple of amped-up bands, he took the stage alone (as I recall) and sang in Spanish, accompanying himself on guitar. His voice had urgency to it, and there was an irresistible engine inside that guitar. Ever since, I've wanted to hear and know more.

Saxophonist Jan Garbarek was a teenage protege of American composer George Russell in Norway in the 1960s and later played in Keith Jarrett's Scandinavian quartet. More recently, he has collaborated with the vocal quartet the Hilliard Ensemble, improvising as they sing medieval music.

Poor Jules Massenet. How could the most successful French opera composer of his generation fall so far out of fashion? Perhaps the new 23-CD box set of Massenet's music, marking the 100th anniversary of his death (yesterday), holds some clues.

Boston's Debo Band takes inspiration from a golden era of popular music in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the late '60s and early '70s. During a brief period of cultural freedom in Ethiopia, funk and soul music fused spectacularly with local traditions. Debo Band's debut album both honors and updates the sound of "swinging Addis."

PROGRAM:

• Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man
• Bernstein, Three Dances from On the Town
• "Over the Rainbow," "Shall We Dance" and "Old Man River" (with James Taylor)
• Tchaikovsky, Andante cantabile for cello and strings (with Yo-Yo Ma)
• Sarasate, Carmen Fantasy (with Anne-Sophie Mutter)
• Two movements from Haydn's Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major (with Emanuel Ax)
• Ravel, La valse