One of the greatest living pianists is coming to Kansas City. His program is a secret

András Schiff is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest living pianists and a foremost interpreter of the heavyweights of classical music: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann.

Kansas City will have a rare opportunity to hear this genius when the Friends of Chamber Music presents Schiff in recital Nov. 14 at Helzberg Hall.

Schiff rarely announces his programs in advance, and that’s the case with his recital in Kansas City. But in an email interview, Schiff said not to worry. He’s planning to serve a musical feast.

“Imagine going to a favorite restaurant,” Schiff said. “You know the chef and trust him. There is no menu, but he knows what is good and fresh and will make the best of it. It’s full of surprises. In Japan this is called ‘omakase,’ — ‘I’ll leave it up to you.’”

Schiff’s audience knows what to expect from him, and it isn’t Karlheinz Stockhausen. They know that Schiff favors classical red meat.

“There will always be Bach, and yes, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert,” Schiff said. “Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, occasionally Janacek and Bartók. Which pieces exactly, I don’t know. Announcing the works from the stage gives me a chance to speak to the listeners and also to say something personal about the music. It breaks the ice and brings us closer together.”

Schiff was born in Hungary in 1953, and when he was 5, he began taking piano lessons at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.

“My mother was trained as a pianist although her ambitions were interrupted by the war and deportation,” Schiff said. “However there was an upright piano in the house and as an only child I was attracted to it. Hearing music on the radio I tried to pick out those tunes from the piano. Thus my musicality was discovered and piano lessons followed. Luckily my mother never forced me to practice and I could have a perfectly normal childhood.”

In 1974, Schiff won fourth place in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, and would go on to win many other prizes and awards. Most recently, in 2022, he was awarded the Bach medal by the city of Leipzig.

If one composer could be considered central to Schiff’s career, it would have to be Bach. He’s recorded vast swaths of the composer’s œuvre, including the English and French Suites, the partitas and the complete Well-Tempered Clavier.

“In Bach we have the unique combination of the sacred and the secular, the intellectual and the spiritual,” Schiff said. “His art is totally free of ego. As a deeply religious person he is not writing for his own fame or posterity but for us, for the community. His music gives me fulfillment and joy, it touches me profoundly. His successors all knew this, they — Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert — come close but never quite get there.”

Schiff says that he is next planning to record Bach’s “Art of the Fugue.” It would not be surprising if Bach makes an appearance on his Folly program. Whatever Schiff decides to perform, you can be sure he will play it with intelligence, passion and devotion.

Schiff says that recently he has become an even more devoted champion of classical music, which he feels is under threat.

“Unfortunately we live in strange times when everyone and everything is being questioned,” Schiff said. “Some people are trying to rewrite history and redefine the cultural canon for political correctness. For them Bach, Beethoven, Dante, Shakespeare, Leonardo and Rembrandt are useless. So I do feel responsible to stand up and defend this culture because it’s under attack. If it’s gone, humankind will be all the poorer.”

7:30 p.m. Nov. 14. Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. $53-$68. 816-561-9999 or chambermusic.org.

Mark Morris Dance Group

“What the world needs now is love sweet love.” Boy, doesn’t it. The Harriman-Jewell Series will fill the Muriel Kauffman Theatre with those much-needed love vibes when it presents the “The Look of Love” performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group on Nov. 17. “The Look of Love” is based on the songs of Burt Bacharach, which will be performed live with a combo and acclaimed Broadway singer Marcy Harriell.

Bacharach, who died in February at the age of 94, is one of Kansas City’s most illustrious native sons. His family’s home was on Warwick Boulevard, and Bacharach once mentioned at a concert in Kansas City how ironic it was that the singer Dionne Warwick would become the foremost interpreter of his songs.

Morris has a special way of taking pop music and turning it into brilliant dance, as he did with The Beatles in “Pepperland.” One anticipates he’ll do the same with Bacharach’s witty and poignant love songs.

7:30 p.m. Nov. 17. Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. $12.50-$90. 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org.

Juan Diego Flórez

Tickets to this concert are going to be a hot item. The Harriman-Jewell Series presents Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez on Nov. 26 at the Folly Theater. The opera superstar made his American recital debut on the Harriman-Jewell Series, which has presented him several times. Along the way, Flórez developed a deep friendship with the founder of the series, Richard Harriman. In fact, Harriman accepted Flórez’s invitation to attend his wedding in Peru.

Flórez will sing a program of opera arias and art songs, and there will be some surprises, too.

3 p.m. Nov. 26. Folly Theater, 300 W. 12th St. $12.50-$90. 816-415-5025 or hjseries.org.

Kansas City Symphony

It’s always a special event when the Kansas City Symphony Chorus directed by Charles Bruffy gets to join the Kansas City Symphony in a concert. The chorus will join the orchestra under guest conductor Eduardo Strausser for “Music Illuminates the Soul” Nov. 17 to 19 at Helzberg Hall.

This sounds like an especially beautifully program. The chorus will sing Arvo Pärt’s trance-like “Salve Regina” and two sacred works by Verdi, his emotional Stabat Mater and the Te Deum, a beautiful hymn of praise. The second half of the program is devoted to Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2.

After dealing with a bout of symptoms resulting from a syphilitic infection, Schumann was starting to feel better when he wrote his Symphony No. 2. It was also written at a time when Schumann was steeped in the music of Bach. The symphony depicts Schumann’s soul at one of the most difficult periods of his life, but after all of the struggle, the work concludes with an uplifting finale.

8 p.m. Nov. 17 and 18 and 2 p.m. Nov. 19. Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. $25-$99. 816-471-0400 or kcsymphony.org.

Ensemble Ibérica with Nilko Andreas

Many thanks to Ensemble Ibérica for bringing to Kansas City some extraordinary Latin American artists who otherwise we would never be exposed to. On Nov. 17, Ensemble Ibérica presents Nilko Andreas, a classical guitarist from Colombia, at the 1900 Building. He’ll be accompanied by Amado Espinoza, who plays a battery of Latin American instruments, and guitarist Beau Bledsoe, founder and artistic director of Ensemble Ibérica.

7 p.m. Nov. 17. 1900 Building, 1900 Shawnee Mission Parkway, Mission Woods. $40. ensembleiberica.org.

Kansas City Wind Symphony

Langston Hemenway will lead the Kansas City Wind Symphony in “Hidden Gems” Nov. 19 at Village Presbyterian Church. Some of the most beautiful music has been composed for wind ensemble, and “Hidden Gems” will unearth rare works that are almost never heard.

7 p.m. Nov. 19. Village Presbyterian Church, 6641 Mission Road, Prairie Village. Free. villagepres.org.

You can reach Patrick Neas at patrickneas@kcartsbeat.com and follow his Facebook page, KC Arts Beat, at www.facebook.com/kcartsbeat.