San Francisco Classical Voice

If search-engine hits are the Web election determining America’s most popular poet, then Emily Dickinson is currently in second or third place (along with Henry Longfellow), behind Walt Whitman. But unlike Whitman, her intensely personal poetry seeks a sympathetic reader, not a vast public sphere. And perhaps that is what drew the composer Gordon Getty to her. His song cycle on Dickinson's poetry, The White Election will be performed, appropriately, on a Tuesday, Feb. 23.

Violinist Midori proved Saturday in Herbst Theatre, under the auspices of San Francisco Performances, that a healthy musical diet can consist almost solely of works written in the 1990s. Her superb musicianship and faultless programming instincts produced one of the best recent-music chamber concerts I have heard in some time.

On Feb. 20, the day before Riccardo Chailly conducts the first of two concerts with Leipzig’s venerable Gewandhaus Orchestra at Davies Symphony Hall, he will turn 57.

His return to San Francisco will come 33 years after his participation in a historic event that took place in the War Memorial Opera House:

The San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas paid a mammoth tribute to two American composers, Charles Ives and Henry Brant, last week. Friday’s performance of A Concord Symphony, music by Ives as orchestrated by Brant, was a landmark in local performances of 20th-century music.

Berkeley Opera has always been known for its adventurous spirit. While it has never enjoyed the large subscriber base — or extravagant budgets — of its high-profile counterparts, the company has given audiences a wide range of productions in the last three decades, offering forgotten masterpieces, English adaptations, and world premieres alongside standards of the repertoire.

This month, though, the company embarks on one of its biggest adventures to date: After years at the Julia Morgan Theater, Berkeley Opera is moving to El Cerrito.