BEST BETS Sunday 5/20

NEWPORT BEACH

4pm

Music

Marika Frankl’s Harmonia Baroque Players will showcase guest soprano Maurita Phillips-Thornburgh in the final program of a three-concert season in Newport Beach. Phillips-Thornburgh will sing lute songs by Holborne, Dowland and Purcell and cantatas by Handel and Pepusch. Works by Loeillet, Vivaldi and Geminiani complete the program. The players include Frankl (recorder), Richard Glenn (lute and guitar), Barbara King (harpsichord) and Paul Sherman (baroque oboe).

* Harmonia Baroque Players, Newport Harbor Lutheran Church, 7988 Dover Drive, Newport Beach. 4 p.m. $12. ($10 for students and seniors.) (714) 970-8545.

NEWPORT BEACH

4pm

Music

Berlioz wrote his “Messe Solennelle” in 1824, but the score was lost and discovered only in 1991. So the claim that this performance at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church is a West Coast premiere could very well be accurate. Larry Ball will conduct the 200 voices of the combined California Master Chorale and the St. Andrew Sanctuary Choir. The soloists will include soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, tenor Robert MacNeil and bass Louis Lebherz. There will be a 40-piece orchestra.

* California Master Chorale and Sanctuary Choir, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 600 St. Andrews Road, Newport Beach. 4 p.m. $8. (949) 9574-2231.

ANAHEIM HILLS

8pm

Music

The 20th century was the era in which classical music composers liberated percussion instruments from their rather limited earlier roles in orchestras and small ensembles. Brett Reed, a performer and composer specializing in contemporary and improvised music, will show the range, variety and subtlety of these instruments in his “Metal, Clay and Skin: Music for Solo Percussionist” program one night only in Anaheim Hills.

* Percussionist Brett Reed, Chance Theater, 5576 East La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. 8 p.m. $15. ($13 for students and seniors.) (714) 777-3033.

SANTA ANA

4pm

Events

The Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana will host “The Search for Life in the Universe,” a presentation by the Orange County Space Society. This lecture by Neil Campbell, a retired Boeing engineer, will address recent discoveries and the future of space exploration and will include NASA film clips and photos of Mars. After the program, the public is welcome to stay and learn more about the National Space Society.

* “The Search for Life in the Universe,” Discovery Science Center, 2500 N. Main St., Santa Ana. 4 p.m. $7.50 to $9.50. Free for children 2 and younger. (714) 542-2823.