Previews

The always interesting men's choral group Clerestory, which draws several of its members from Chanticleer, has just released their second CD, Night Draws Near. Their first concert of the season features music from that recording, anticipating Halloween by a week.

Benjamin Bagby may be uniquely qualified to perform Beowulf. He’s been making a progress back to the medieval epic’s source since the start of his career. The American-born, Paris-based early-music specialist arrives in the Bay Area this week to perform his acclaimed “reconstruction” of the Anglo-Saxon poem.

Sure, most people at Davies Symphony Hall for the San Francisco Symphony concerts beginning Oct. 21, will be there for superstar violinist Joshua Bell. But the orchestra will also play a trio crowdpleasers under the baton of James Conlon. 

When George Frederick Handel gets the chorus revved up, a concert can get pretty exciting. San Francisco Bach Choir is hopping the Handel train in its upcoming concerts. Expect the rafters to ring.

In a performance hosted by Ben Simon and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, as part of their afternoon “You Gotta Hear This” series you'll have the chance to hear Rootstock and Sqwonk on Oct. 18.

Classical Revolution, the chamber group that fearlessly brings classics to unconventional venues, is not resting up after Sunday's gig at the Crowden School. On Oct. 19, it will play at Yoshi's S.F. with the Real Vocal String Quartet, a group that often plays American folk, and adds the musicians voices to the mix.

Early music has considerable postmodern appeal for recorder virtuoso Piers Adams and his group, Red Priest. The group's long-awaited local stop is set as a Halloween-flavored concert on Oct. 28. Arrayed in colorful outfits that evoke olden days and issuing albums with tongue-in-cheek titles, like Red Priest, has effectively marketed itself as an unlikely team of English early-music all-stars.

Who was Emily Dickinson? Popular portrayals cast the famed 19th-century poet as an eccentric recluse, a shadowy Woman in White. But “that image seems to be a fabrication, and when you go further into the story or into her work, an entirely different character emerges,” says Kathryn Roszak of Danse Lumière, which stages “Pensive Spring: A Portrait of Emily Dickinson” Oct. 10 and 19 as part of Berkeley Chamber Performances.

When I watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, I waited to hear an iconic line to match the first film’s “Greed is good.” Gordon Gekko got teary, and I lost hope — until Bretton James (played by Josh Brolin) delivered the aphorism “Every man should have a mentor and a protégé.” Ironically, it is the completely well-intentioned San Francisco Academy Orchestra (SFAO) that acts on this fortune-cookie advice in its season-opening concert.

Lagging economy or not, some of the Bay Area’s local opera companies are taking risks. West Bay Opera is taking the lead and going for its whiskers with an upcoming production of Verdi’s La forza del destino . General Director José Luis Moscovich said of the undertaking, “This is not an opera for the faint of heart.”