Michael Zwiebach

Choruses want to do Bach's B-Minor Mass the way that symphony orchestras want to do a Beethoven cycle, or opera companies want to do Wagner's Ring. The trick is not to actually get through it, but to render the seemingly endless details in the piece precisely and clearly while summoning the passion to do this powerful work justice. For the conclusion of its anniversary season, the S.F. Bach Choir will show us how it measures up to the Big One.

New Century Chamber Orchestra has had a few interesting featured composers the last few years, none more so than this year's selection, Mark O'Connor. His new work Elevations premieres this weekend.

For their big finale this week, Peninsula Symphony brings in baritone Eugene Brancoveanu and soprano Heidi Moss for a delightful set of opera excerpts from the great repertory warhorses. The 140 voices of the Stanford Symphonic Choir are also on hand to help knock down the walls in the Aida excerpts.

Magnus Lindberg is a major name in composition, and not just because of the “Magnus” part. He's at the Herbst Theatre this Sunday, courtesy of S.F. Performances, as part of a piano trio that also includes Jennifer Koh on violin and Ansi Karttunen on cello.

Volti's odyssey through new and contemporary choral pieces continues this Sunday with the premiere of Matthew Barnson's Genesis. Barnson won this year's Choral Arts Laboratory residency prize. There's more than one premiere on the program, so if you like a bit of mystery and surprise along with really fine singing, you should have this concert on your schedule.

This Friday, Street Scene, the Kurt Weill-Langston Hughes opera comes to the Paramount Theatre stage, played by the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Michael Morgan. It is every bit as marvelous as Morgan says, and you probably won't soon get another chance to hear it in the Bay Area.

Conductor Michael Morgan’s modesty becomes him, yet it’s in service to a mission that he pursues no less relentlessly than most other conductors pursue fame and fortune.

The S.F. Choral Artists is taking a big leap, both in visibility and in its repertoire. For its upcoming concert on Sunday, the group is going for its whiskers, partnering with the Alexander String Quartet in a concert that features three — count 'em — commissioned world premieres.

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers has generously donated her time for a Japan disaster relief fund-raiser, sponsored by Play for Japan USA.

As the S.F. Symphony returns to action after a brief off-week, they get to work with one of those superb but unheralded conductors who seem more inexplicable in these days of well-oiled publicity machines: Peter Oundjian, known for being self-effacing and for connecting brilliantly with orchestra players.