Coming up in Philly music: Three fours by five with Astral Artists

Astral Artists is a Philadelphia organization that selects promising young musicians and gives them performance opportunities and career guidance. Winning an Astral audition has become so prestigious it’s a career boost all by itself. For Astral’s last Center City concert of the season, five of its stars-in-the-making will demonstrate their prowess with three peaks of the quartet literature. They’ll open with Schubert’s compact one-movement Quartettsaz and follow it with Schumann’s lushly romantic quartet for piano and string trio. For their finale, they’ll take on the moving string quartet “Requiem for Fanny,” which Mendelssohn composed just after the death of his sister, in the last months of his own life.

Astral Artists will present The Art of the Quartet on Saturday, May 6, at 7:30pm at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square. Tickets ($20; $18 for seniors and $5 for students age 30 and under, with ID) are available online, by calling 215-735-6999, and at the door.