Previews

Opening the San Francisco Symphony season with Mahler is a safe bet, especially with Michael Tilson Thomas’ passionate advocacy sure to be in force. Thus, his opening series — running September 16, 17, 19, and 20 — offers an all-Mahler program; and indeed, all September’s three weeks feature Mahler’s music.

Sure, Nicola Luisotti — aka Mr. Excitement — is making his debut on Friday, Sept.

To the uninitiated, the New Century Chamber Orchestra’s 2009-2010 opening concert set, titled “Pictures at an Exhibition: New Traditions,” might appear to emphasize the traditional over the new. At first glance, the lineup seems startlingly traditional, offering two works by J.S. Bach (the Chaconne from the Partita No.

Music in the Vineyards, a three-week chamber music festival staged in and around Napa's famous wineries, is not in danger of competing with its higher-profile, heavily promoted, festival neighbors. And that's the way they like it.

"We've learned a lot of lessons from seeing how other festivals operate," says Michael Adams, who founded and co-directs Music in the Vineyards with his wife, Daria.

Though many members of college orchestras spend the summer months at their parents' homes or bicycling through Europe, enough young musicians live in the Bay Area to cobble together a respectable orchestra. This is the premise behind the UC Berkeley Summer Symphony, a collection of fine musicians from the region's many youth orchestras.

Summertime typically signals a period of downtime for classical music, as many ensembles enjoy a well-earned hiatus or shift their programming toward lighter fare. Not so for the San Francisco Lyric Chorus, a talented choir under the direction of Robert Gurney.

Among the gems in the crown of the San Francisco music scene are the Friday evening and Sunday 4 o’clocks at Old First Church. Those offer chamber music and recitals of quality programming by some of the Bay Area’s finer musicians — and at an exceptionally affordable price, too.

After the epic lavishness of Turandot, Festival Opera isn’t looking to bowl you over with its upcoming production of Gounod’s Faust. But while the physical design of Faust takes the opposite tack from Puccini’s blockbuster, the end result promises to be just as impressive.

The Web site for an upcoming sfSound concert on Aug. 9 includes a video of Karlheinz Stockhausen, a famous German composer, speaking about human evolution. The idea of evolution suits this concert on two levels.

Every time Robert Geary returns to Giuseppe Verdi’s stirring Requiem Mass, “it’s deeper in my blood, but I have to prepare and rethink it. And that’s wonderful,” says the noted artistic director of the 200-voice San Francisco Choral Society.