San Francisco Classical Voice

Haydn Singers
A new choir is hitting the scene, the Haydn Singers, with a name that's certainly not overused in these parts. Its debut concert, directed by Paul Flight, features the rarely heard Mozart works Misericordias Domini (K.222) and the Missa Brevis in F (K.192), in celebration of you-know-whose birthday. The program also includes some choral pieces, Part-songs and Salve Regina in G minor, from their namesake composer. March 10, 8 p.m., First Presbyterian Church, Palo Alto; March 11, 8 p.m., Church of St. Mary Magdalen, Berkeley; $10-$15, haydnsingers@yahoo.com, www.haydnsingers.org. (M.B.)

Ragazzi's Mass for the Children
Peninsula-based Ragazzi Boys Chorus joins the Masterworks Chorale in John Rutter's Mass for the Children on concerts also including French Canadian folk songs and Handel arias. Then, in another program, on March 19, Ragazzi will join St. Andrew's Adult Choir and the Saratoga Symphony. March 11, 8 p.m., Trinity Presbyterian Church, San Carlos; March 12, 4 p.m., Transfiguration Episcopal Church, San Mateo; March 19, 3 p.m., Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church, Saratoga, $16-$25, (650) 579-5568 and (650) 342-8785, www.ragazzi.org. (J.G.)

The Ragazzi Boys Chorus

Rachmaninoff Festival Choir
The Rachmaninoff Festival Choir, a 100-member ensemble from Maine that's dedicated to performing works of the Russian Orthodox Church, is visiting the Bay Area to present its namesake composer's powerful and rarely heard Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The concert is directed by Anthony Antolini, who teaches at Bowdoin College, published the first modern edition of the piece, and produced the public television documentary Rediscovering Rachmaninoff. He recorded the work in 1996 and took the choir to Russia in 2002, where it gave the first liturgical performance of the piece since the church banned it after it was written in 1910. Andre Papkov, an ordained Russian Orthodox priest, sings the supremely low basso profundo role. March 15, 8 p.m., Stanford Memorial Church, Palo Alto; March 16, 7:30 p.m., Grace Cathedral, San Francisco; free, (415) 749-6350 and (650) 723-1762, www.gracecathedral.org/calendar/detail.php?eid=651 and events.stanford.edu/events/80/8069/. (M.B.)

Cantabile's Mass Transit
Cantabile Chorale has a clever — if not entirely clear — name for its next series of concerts. Mass Transit is about Masses, alright, but just what's so transitory about William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices, and a collection of modern works titled Missa Eclectica? No matter, Sanford Dole will conduct the 70-voice chorus in an interesting concert of seldom-heard choral music. March 17, 8 p.m., St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, San Francisco; March 18, 8 p.m., First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto; March 19, 7:30 p.m., First Congregational Church, Berkeley, $6-$25, (650) 424-1410, www.cantabile.org. (J.G.)

Marin Symphony
Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto, alternately bleak and frenetic, seems a natural match for soloist Leila Josefowicz's unusually intense brand of violin playing. With it on this weekend's program are Ingram Marshall's Bright Kingdoms (a Magnum Opus commission) and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade. March 7, 7:30 p.m., Marin Civic Center Veterans' Memorial Auditorium, San Rafael, $24-$57, (415) 479-8100, www.marinsymphony.org. (M.D.T.)

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Not even Philharmonia could resist the Mozart anniversary, but theirs is a concert with a difference: Besides the familiar favorites (the "big" G-minor Symphony, No. 40, and the Clarinet Concerto with Eric Hoeprich as soloist), the March 3-11 concerts feature soprano Cyndia Sieden tackling four of Mozart's best concert arias. This is underperformed music, and with some reason — many of the parts are spectacularly difficult to sing. There are few chances to hear this music performed live, so don't miss this one. March 10, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; March 11, Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, Lafayette; $28-$62, (415) 392-4400, www.philharmonia.org. (M.D.T.)

California Symphony Is a-Dancin'
"Shall We Dance?" asks California Symphony, and the answer is yes, at the orchestra's next pair of subscription concerts, a program complete with waltzes from stage and film, music by Bernstein, Sondheim, and Rozsa, then the Brahms Double Concerto with violinist Chee-Yun and cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony. March 12, 4 p.m.; March 14, 7:30 p.m., Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, $20-$59, (925) 943-7469, www.californiasymphony.org. (J.G.)

Chee-Yun in
the Brahms Double Concerto with
the California Symphony

London Philharmonic's Visit
Kurt Masur is leading the London Philharmonic on tour, arriving in Davies Hall for a concert of the Mahler Symphony No. 1, and the Khachaturian Violin Concerto with soloist Sergey Khachatryan. If the name looks similar to the composer's, it's because they are both Armenian and in fact are closely related. The composer died in 1978, however, while the violinist has just turned 21. March 12, 7 p.m., Davies Hall, San Francisco, $20-$89, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (J.G.)

Der Freischütz or The Trial Shot
Leave it to Donald Pippin to make sense out of an ever-puzzling title, Carl Maria von Weber's 1821 Der Freischütz, which means free shooter, which means ... nothing much in English. Translator/music director Pippin — who is producing this national German opera, which the San Francisco Opera tried to perform last season but gave up on when resources failed to match ambition — calls it The Trial Shot — not at all faithful to the German, but covers the story right. Principal singers include Marcelle Dronkers, Anja Strauss, Bernard Milan, Martin Bell, John Minagro, Richard Mix, and Eric Carter. March 9, 7:30 p.m.; March 11, 2 p.m.; Florence Gould Theater, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, $18-$35, (415) 972-8934, www.pocketopera.org. (J.G.)

Donald Pippin leads
Pocket Opera in
Weber's Der Freischütz

Lyric Tosca
Popular as Puccini's Tosca is, it is grand opera difficult to produce, especially for small companies. San Francisco Lyric Opera is nevertheless putting on this "really big show" with a talented young cast, low prices, and free admission for children. Barnaby Palmer conducts, Heather Carolo is the stage director. Duana Demus sings the title role, tenor Ben Bongers is Cavaradossi, and baritone Roberto Gomez is Scarpia. March 10, 11, at 7:30 p.m., Florence Gould Theater, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, $15-$28, children under 12 free, (415) 392-4400, www.sflyricopera.org. (J.G.)

North Bay's Original Macbeth
Verdi's Macbeth gets many productions — although not enough from this fan's point of view — but we seldom get to hear the original, 1847 version. North Bay Opera to the rescue with S.F. Opera's Philip Kuttner conducting four performances in yonder Fairfield. The exciting young cast includes Sri Lanka's greatest (if probably only) operatic tenor, the Adler Fellow Sean Panikkar as Macduff. Pamela Hicks is Lady Macbeth, Clifton Romig is Banquo, and Joe Kinyon sings the title role. March 11, 8 p.m.; March 15, 7:30 p.m. (student night); March 18, 8 p.m.; March 19, 2 p.m., Fairfield Center for the Creative Arts, $12-$37, (707) 428-7664, www.northbayopera.org. (J.G.)

Old and New Music for ODC Season
ODC/Dance San Francisco, proud owner of a major new dance facility, is running three programs, each featuring a world premiere and an impressive amount of new and commissioned music. Besides such classical works as Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in D, used by company founder/director Brenda Way in her Part of a Longer Story, Arvo Pärt's Trisagion for KT Nelson's Floating Ridge, and piano music by Milhaud for Nelson's Shenanigans, new music abounds. There's Marcos Zarvos' Nepomuk's Dances composed (for the Ethel String Quartet) for Nelson's Stomp a Waltz, Ara Anderson's music for Way's Time Remaining, Phil Kline's work for Nelson's Lost at Sea, Jack Perla's music for Way's On a Train Heading South, and more. Through March 19, varying times, Yerba Buena Center Theater, San Francisco, $15-$40, (415) 978-2787, www.odcdance.org. (J.G.)

Rachmanov Plays Schubert
Dmitry Rachmanov, a pianist praised by Classical Voice for his "virtuosity, concept, and total professionalism," will perform Schubert's Moments musicaux, D. 780; Sonata in A major, D. 664; and Sonata in D major, D. 850 during his next visit to San Francisco. March 12, 3 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org. (J.G.)

A Persian Classic
Mohammad Reza Shajarian is a great singer, a fact you will acknowledge and embrace even if you have never heard the music of Iran before. Excellence trumps exotica. Shajarian communicates passion and lyricism in a direct, heart-to-heart sort of way, and when Kayhan Kalhor's kamancheh (spiked fiddle) provides the base line to Shajarian's voice in full flight, the result is similar to a great (Western) opera singer hitting high notes, supported by the Berlin Philharmonic. World music, Western music — that's not the right distinction. Good or bad, that's more like it. And this one is better than good. March 12, 7 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, $24-$48, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (J.G.) <

Mohammad Shajarian sings
Persian classics in Berkeley

Hula, Sacred and Uptempo
Going cross-cultural can be forced and tedious, but when it works, it brings out new aspects of seemingly unrelated art forms. When the San Francisco-based hula group Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu dances "No'eno'e Maikai'i Ke Aloha," Leo Delibes' "Sous le Dôme épais" (better known as the "Flower Duet" from Lakme), something wonderful happens to both hula and French romantic music. Patrick Makuakane has been both preserving the ancient, sacred art of hula and enhancing it in surprising but relevant contexts. Makuakane's thoughtful, deeply felt, moving tributes to the Islands, from utterly simple, spiritual music to the raucous sounds of wartime Waikiki entertainment, his explorations of artistic connections with opera or the Beatles (the music of Lennon and McCartney are used) — all this and much more variety make Na Lei performances experiences to be treasured. March 18, 2 and 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, $20-$32, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (J.G.)

Hula troupe Na Lei:
Hawaiian music, Delibes,
and The Beatles