Georgia Rowe

With programs built around composers such as John Cage, Charles Ives, Meredith Monk, and Lou Harrison, the S.F. Symphony’s three-week “American Mavericks Festival” emerged as one of this conductor’s unmitigated triumphs.

The NCCO, under Music Director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, pushes the margins a little bit further with an illuminating program featuring two contrasting, yet ultimately congenial, mandolin concertos.

With Rinaldo Alessandrini on the podium, the San Francisco Symphony delivers a vibrant, dynamic performance of Mozart and Haydn.

A gritty contemporary setting backs up bright singing in West Bay Opera’s version of a Mozart classic.

In a stunning performance, a new song cycle is born, capturing episodes from the life of a French sculptor.

An outstanding British baritone, blessed with a brilliant accompanist, takes listeners on an atmospheric cruise, with memorable highlights along the way.

A great conductor approaches 30 years in his ongoing love affair with his former symphony, leading two programs in February.

The multitalented bass-baritone preps for the physical and emotional demands of his first Bay Area recital, with songs ranging from gloomy to soulful and intense.

La Voix humaine, one of the oddest and most fascinating works in the operatic repertoire, opens at Opera San José in a double bill with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci on Nov. 12 at the California Theatre.

This month at the Aurora Theatre, a stellar group of artists is coming together to combine three art forms in a new production, co-directed by Tom Ross and Muriel Maffre; it promises one of the season’s most remarkable collaborations.