The Music of Prince

Go grab your raspberry beret: To kick off its 2017-18 pops series, the Sacramento Philharmonic will salute Prince with an orchestral concert on Nov. 25 riffing on the greatest hits of the prolific pop icon, who died last year at 57.

The seven-time Grammy winner from Minneapolis was a brilliant polymath who played nearly every instrument on every track of his early albums, the first of which he released at the tender age of 19. Over the next three decades he cranked out sexy, funk-tinged dance-pop—with enough forays into experimentalism that he’d no doubt appreciate conductor-arranger Brent Havens’ genre-bending take on the Purple One’s oeuvre for this concert.

“Adding an orchestra, it’s another color from the palette of music,” says Havens. “I’m not trying to reinterpret it, I’m trying to add richness and some additional color.”

The audience can expect to hear hits like “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry,” as well as a few lesser-known tunes, with the symphonic instruments layering nuance and depth onto already indelible songs.

Add a full rock band and vocalist Marshall Charloff, decked out in full Prince regalia, to round out the spectacle, and this performance should have you partying like it’s 1999.

$15-$78. Nov. 25. 8 p.m. Community Center Theater. 1301 L St. 808-2000. sacphilopera.org

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