E-Mail This Article to a Friend Celebrities Another busy year for the FleetBoston (?) Series

What’s in a name? The FleetBoston Celebrity Series has announced the line-up for its 2004-2005 season, and there are the usual big names and new names and tantalizing questions about who’ll play what. There’s also the more pedestrian question of what the series will be called when the season starts. At some point soon, its title will likely morph into something involving Bank of America, which recently acquired Fleet in the latest megabank merger. But whatever title the Celebrity Series takes on next, its upcoming season is a fair reflection of its role as Boston’s principal presenter of non-local classical music.

Not that 2004-2005 doesn’t have its quirks. For starters, only two symphony orchestras will visit Symphony Hall: the Orchestre National de France, with music director Kurt Masur and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (February 27); and the Dresden Staatskapelle in a Brahms program, with old friend Bernard Haitink at the helm and pianist Emanuel Ax (April 17). Richard Dyer reported in the Boston Globe that Celebrity Series president Martha Jones had decided to cut back on orchestras "in order not to compete with James Levine’s first season as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra." Well, maybe, but there’s no better yardstick of an orchestra’s progress than hearing a decent selection of its peers, and I wonder whether the considerable expense involved in having visiting orchestras come didn’t play some role in the decision.

In any case, two chamber orchestras will also stop in at Jordan Hall: the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with the noted young pianist Jonathan Biss (January 29), and one of Germany’s premier period-instrument groups, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (May 13). For chamber ensembles, there are two each of string quartets and piano trios. In the first category are the Tokyo (January 21) and the Emerson, the latter exploring the complete quartets of Mendelssohn in two concerts (February 5 and April 8). For trios, there’s the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson (October 29) and the Beaux Arts (April 2), the latter celebrating, incredibly, its 50th anniversary.

Also marking 50 years in the business is the Boston Camerata, whose November 7 concert is part of the local-talent Boston Marquee series. Other entries include the New England String Ensemble (December 10), the Boston Conservatory Dance Theater (February 17 and 18), and the incisive pianist Sergey Schepkin (April 16). Besides Schepkin, four high-profile pianists are on tap: the ever-popular Dubravka Tomsic (October 8), the ever-imperious Maurizio Pollini (October 24, provided he doesn’t cancel), the ever-imperturbable Krystian Zimerman (November 13), and the ever-youthful Lang Lang (March 30).

Other soloists include violinists young (Hilary Hahn, November 6) and not so young (Itzhak Perlman, May 1). Yo-Yo Ma makes another visit with his Silk Road Ensemble (April 6), as does the vocal ensemble Chanticleer, premiering a work by composer Augusta Read Thomas (April 29). And speaking of vocalists: three superstars are on the bill. Heldentenor Ben Heppner (November 19) and countertenor David Daniels (January 28) will play Jordan, but Renée Fleming will likely pack them into Symphony on February 18. In addition, Quincy native Barbara Quintiliani makes her Celebrity Series debut on April 8.

Robert Kapilow continues his illustrative "What Makes it Great?" series with two programs, exploring Handel’s Messiah with the Handel and Haydn Society on December 3 and unpacking Beethoven’s final string quartet, Opus 135, with the Shanghai Quartet on March 19.

Outside the straight classical repertoire, Cuban reed player Paquito D’Rivera hooks up with the guitar duo the Assad Brothers at Sanders Theatre (January 29), and the Chieftains make their regular visit to Symphony Hall on March 16. Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra kick the whole season off on September 26 at Symphony, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band brings its Creole Christmas program there on November 28. Funnyman David Sedaris deadpans on October 27; other events under the "entertainment" category range from the Vienna Choir Boys (December 5) to the Soweto Gospel Choir (February 12).

Finally, the dance programs are as substantial as ever. This season’s major ballet import is the Bolshoi Ballet and Orchestra (October 6 through 10), which will be performing Don Quixote and Raymonda. Returning companies include Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane (October 22 through 24), Mark Morris (March 10 through 13), Alvin Ailey (April 19 through 24), and Paul Taylor (May 20 through 22). The Seán Curran Company makes its Celebrity Series debut at Boston University’s Tsai Performance Center on January 22 and 23.

Information about all of the above and more, including subscriptions, is available at (617) 482-6661, or visit www.celebrityseries.org. Individual tickets go on sale September 13.