Previews

With their latest Call and Response concert, the Cypress Quartet explores the question, “What is exotic?”

Bay Area audiences know pianist Hadley McCarroll, who is also a well-loved music teacher in Oakland. If you haven't heard her play, you might nip over to Old First Concerts on Sunday.

James MacMillan's passionate setting of the Seven Last Words has had a bit of a mini-revival in the Bay Area the last couple of months. Now it's the turn of the Sanford Dole Ensemble to sing this modern classic.

Renowned lutenist Hopkinson Smith has transcribed Bach's Suites for Solo Cello for the theorbo (a bass lute). Bach lovers can see him play the first three of them at concerts for the San Francisco Early Music Society this weekend.

The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble premieres three new works this weekend on the theme of childhood in what promises to be a real variety show.

A Mozartian mash-up at Stanford cleverly hangs some of Mozart's most beautiful and accessible arias on the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins in selections from The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo and more.

With all the Bay Area choral groups around (more than 300 and counting), you may be forgiven if you've missed a few, here and there. But Schola Cantorum is worth going out of your way to hear, even if it does spend most of its time hiding its light under bushels.

Fans of orchestral music are heading for the San Francisco Symphony this weekend, where Osmo Osmo Vänskä is set to lead the orchestra in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

Dubravka Tomsic is one o f those really wonderful pianists who never seem to garner the accolades and recognition their excellence deserves. She's back at S.F. Performances.

Stile Antico, a great vocal group from England that's young but much-heralded, appears at Calvary Presbyterian Church this weekend.