Taylor Swift and TOOL by candlelight: 15 Boston string concerts through Christmas

A string quartet playing TOOL in a theater inside the New England Aquarium sounds like a dare. It’s actually one of 15 Candlelight concerts on the Boston calendar between now and Christmas. Each one is a live hour of pop, rock or film music arranged for strings, played in a room lit by candles. Tickets start at $25.50. Here’s every one, and where it is.

Every show runs about 60 minutes. Late entry isn’t allowed, so give yourself time. Doors open 45 minutes early at the Simons Theatre and an hour early at the two churches. Kids 8 and up can come, and anyone under 16 needs an adult. These are tribute concerts, so none of them is connected to the artists. Concerts happen in three places. One is Simons Theatre at 1 Central Wharf, inside the New England Aquarium. Another is the Sanctuary at Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street on Copley Square. The third is the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, 138 Tremont Street across from Boston Common. Simons Theatre is the Aquarium’s own big-screen theater, with a screen nearly five stories high, and on most days it shows nature films in 3D. It has no parking on site, so take the Blue Line to Aquarium, which stops right by Central Wharf.

The two churches are worth the ticket on their own. Old South Church was finished in 1873 in the Venetian Gothic style, and its congregation once counted Benjamin Franklin and the poet Phillis Wheatley as members. The church also owns one of the 11 surviving first-edition copies of the Bay Psalm Book, printed in 1640, though it’s kept at the Boston Public Library, not in the sanctuary. The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul went up in 1819, designed by Alexander Parris, the architect of Quincy Market. It was the first Greek Revival building in Boston, and it became a National Historic Landmark in 1970. Look up at the front on your way in: the carving planned for the pediment was never made, and the space has stayed empty for more than 200 years.