Michael Zwiebach

Holding nothing back in cast strength and performance quality, West Edge Opera mounts an admirable production of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

The men's choir Clerestory, originally a splinter group from Chanticleer, is one of the less-known Bay Area treasures. If you've never looked in on them, here is a wonderful-sounding program about the music of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, presented in conjunction with Humanities West's seminar weekend.

What do today’s huge range of composers call their works? Almost every term is up for grabs, as the relevance of the word classical fades.

The San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music provide a nice classical chamber series at the Legion of Honor, but their signature event has quickly become Chamber Music Day at the de Young Museum.

One of Russia’s premier performing arts organizations under its charismatic leader, Valery Gergiev arrives at Cal Performances in Berkeley, after opening the Carnegie Hall season.

Composer Steve Reich turns 75 this year and keeps on rolling. And the 38-year-old Kronos Quartet keeps going with him. On its Cal Performances recital this Sunday, Kronos plays Reich's music composed for the quartet; likely to make it one of the most life-affirming concerts of the season.

In another sign of the times the 2010 Latin Grammy for Best Classical Album went to Fernando Otero. He's at SFJAZZ this weekend and if you like contemporary Latin American sounds, you'll definitely be pleasantly surprised at the variety of his repertoire.

This weekend the Ives Quartet is playing a quintet, the Brahms F-Minor Piano Quintet to be exact. But what's really exciting is that pianist Gwendolyn Mok is going to play (as she played Ravel last year), on her 19th-century piano, an Erard, the Paris firm that was one of the most highly regarded instrument makers in Europe.

Although the cunning folks at the San Francisco Symphony are billing this concert as “MTT Conducts Mozart and Stravinsky,” the real excitement is going to come from the local premiere of Thomas Adès' Polaris, a co-commission of the SFS, with video by Tal Rosner.

Today, and continuing over the weekend, the New Century Chamber Orchestra opens its season by welcoming back one of its founders and its first music director, Stuart Canin.