Previews

Up at UC Davis' Mondavi Center, the coming weekend will see several performances on the theme of “Madness and Music.” The one you want to catch, if you can, is Alarm Will Sound, a genre-bending, electrifying, 20-member band that wears its virtuosity lightly and is game for anything.

Last time out, at the Berkeley Exhibition, Musica Pacifica brought you a breezy, delightful set of folktunes from the British Isles. For its upcoming concert, sponsored by the San Francisco Early Music Society, the group goes in the opposite direction, with music about love in all its oft-dysfunctional splendor. Soprano Dominique Labelle will be on hand.

If there’s one thing Lamplighters Music Theatre knows, it’s Gilbert and Sullivan. So it’s not surprising that the lyricist-composer duo’s latest show — the one spoofing vampire-mania and the Twilight books and movies, not to mention San Francisco’s own Mayor Navin Gruesome — is receiving its premiere from them.

“Relevance.” This is the confident answer of Volti’s artistic director, Robert Geary, when asked what people will like about the choral ensemble’s upcoming program. The weekend of Nov. 5-7 will see Volti’s 32nd season open.

The San Francisco Symphony is alive at this concert for the dead.

Benjamin Simon leads his student charges, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra in a wide ranging program encapsulating pieces from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Super-cellist Michelle Djokic (now with Quartet S.F. and NCCO) solos in Lou Harrison's Suites for Cello and Chamber Orchestra.

Terry Riley is famous in music history for writing In C, one of the most joyous of the seminal works of minimalism. In their upcoming concert, a look back at 20th-century writing for string quartet, the Left Coast Ensemble will go to the dominant, Riley's G Song, originally commissioned by the Kronos Quartet.

The always interesting men's choral group Clerestory, which draws several of its members from Chanticleer, has just released their second CD, Night Draws Near. Their first concert of the season features music from that recording, anticipating Halloween by a week.

Benjamin Bagby may be uniquely qualified to perform Beowulf. He’s been making a progress back to the medieval epic’s source since the start of his career. The American-born, Paris-based early-music specialist arrives in the Bay Area this week to perform his acclaimed “reconstruction” of the Anglo-Saxon poem.

Sure, most people at Davies Symphony Hall for the San Francisco Symphony concerts beginning Oct. 21, will be there for superstar violinist Joshua Bell. But the orchestra will also play a trio crowdpleasers under the baton of James Conlon.