Janos Gereben

For the first full summer series in its

They come at this time of the year, announcements of both summer festival programs and the fall seasons. Below, some of the highlights, beginning with what is paradoxically the closest to home, London's BBC Proms, available right where you sit, at your computer.

The musicians of the San Francisco Symphony will present a solidarity concert in support of the locked out musicians of the Minnesota and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras at 7 p.m. April 29, in St. Ignatius Church, Parker at Fulton.

Noe Valley Chamber Music hit the jackpot for the celebration of its 20th anniversary on May 19 in San Francisco's St. Mark's Lutheran Church: the event will feature Frederica von Stade, soprano Lisa Delan, tenor William Burden, baritone Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek, pianist/composer Jake Heggie, violinist Dawn Harms, and cellist Emil Miland.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's New Century Chamber Orchestra has consistently adventurous programming, but the upcoming series may be the first (at least until I am corrected) of an all-symphonic lineup. Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and Haydn’s Farewell Symphony will bracket the commissioned world premiere of Lera Auerbach's String Symphony No.

Last week's edition of The New Yorker featured a

Ivan Ilic, a pianist born in Belgrade, later a resident of Palo Alto, schooled at Berkeley and the S.F. Conservatory of Music, has gone on to graduate studies in Paris, and a career in Europe. He writes to Music News:

Strains of classical music echoed on Sunday — not inside an august concert hall — but in a bleak Chicago jail where the mostly teenage boys await trial on charges ranging from dope dealing to murder.