For this week's picks, Yuja Wang does Prokofiev with the Philharmonic, an operatic rarity by Mozart gets a staging and Jonathan Biss plays a wallet-friendly recital at Town Hall.

Friday, April 13 at 8 pm
New York Philharmonic with Yuja Wang
Avery Fisher Hall
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3   
Mahler: Symphony No. 1
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The Philharmonic devotes the weekend to a pair of explosive scores under the baton of Jaap van Zweden. The Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto is a work that demands immense virtuosity, and Yuja Wang, 25, is proving to be a pianist who can deliver. This is not a studied, pensive work. It builds to great drama over three movements, and requires a pianist who can bring out its contrasts in color, dynamics and rhythm. The stylish and irreverent Wang recently told the Wall Street Journal that she sometimes listens to R&B star Rihanna before playing Prokofiev, since both artists “channel a raw energy.” Whatever works.

Saturday, April 14
Gotham Chamber Opera
Mozart’s Il sogno di Scipione
John Jay College
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What were you doing at age 15? Mozart was busy composing Scipio’s Dream, a one-act opera about a Roman general who must choose between two high-singing goddesses, Fortune and Constancy. In 2001 the edgy Gotham Chamber Opera presented the U.S. stage premiere of this work as its very first production. This week, they bring it back as part of their tenth anniversary season. Christopher Alden directs the production featuring singers Susannah Biller, Michele Angelini and Marie-Eve Munger.

Sunday, April 15 at 2 pm
The Town Hall
Jonathan Biss
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The serious, 31-year-old pianist Jonathan Biss makes his only local recital appearance this season as part of the budget-friendly (and sometimes boisterous) People’s Symphony series. He'll perform works by Beethoven (the C Minor, "Moonlight" and “Les Adieux” Sonatas) and Janáček, along with a new work by the Philadelphia composer David Ludwig.

Also consider: Sunday at 7:30 pm at Le Poisson Rouge: Gavin Bryars's The Sinking of the Titanic. Mark the anniversary of the liner's sinking.