SPCO presents "Ascending," with guests Joe Lovano and Ruggero Allifranchini

In an attempt to reach younger audiences, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra began offering Saturday morning children’s concerts at deep discounts. Progressive. Now it’s presenting a new work, commissioned along with other chamber orchestras, for violin, chamber orchestra, and jazz saxophone. Very progressive. In the scramble to be king of the tenor-sax hill, Joe Lovano is the schoolyard bully, possessing a mean tone combined with a nearly unparalleled sense of rhythm and chromatic harmony. He’s joined by guest violinist Ruggero Allifranchini, a founding member of the Borromeo Quartet. On the program are “A Man Descending,” by composer Mark Anthony Turnage, which was written to accompany Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Lark Ascending.” 651-291-1144; www.thespco.org