Benjamin Frandzel

A warm, clear, vibrant recording by the Cypress String Quartet explores how American composition evolved.

Cabrillo wraps up its season with new works that surprise, delight, and sometimes frustrate.

Stunning playing by the Australian Chamber Orchestra meets Dawn Upshaw’s sterling vocalism in a freshly minted Ojai North program.

The stellar trio of Christina Mok, Joanne Lin, and Lori Lack convincingly bring off lyrical as well as stormy works.

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players celebrated its 40th anniversary in style this past Monday at the Herbst Theatre, bringing together hundreds of adoring friends to hear a wide range of music, all done very well.

The coming months promise orchestra aficionados all around the Bay Area a wide array of music. In this list, “classic” scores. Whatever your taste or locale, there’s something intriguing beckoning you in the near future. Here are some of the many highlights ahead.

Rara (film) shows us the composer Sylvano Bussotti wearing all his many hats.

In the second season the New Century Chamber Orchestra continues to move forward with imaginative programs. Their recent round of concerts was in many ways a testament to the adaptability of great music in the hands of imaginative musicians.

A truly exciting new ensemble made its way to San Francisco Thursday for a local debut, and, hopefully, the first of many visits. The Estamos Ensemble, a collective of musicians from Mexico and the U.S., offered a potent program of chamber improvisation, with nine works, all of them premieres by Mexican and American composers.

It was that familiar feeling — the warm, almost small-town atmosphere in the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, the jokey introductions, the openness of the audience to the new sounds on hand. This could only be the Cabrillo Festival, where Music Director Marin Alsop once again led her players through unfamiliar and often exciting music during the festival’s opening weekend.