Michael Zwiebach

One of Russia’s premier performing arts organizations under its charismatic leader, Valery Gergiev arrives at Cal Performances in Berkeley, after opening the Carnegie Hall season.

Composer Steve Reich turns 75 this year and keeps on rolling. And the 38-year-old Kronos Quartet keeps going with him. On its Cal Performances recital this Sunday, Kronos plays Reich's music composed for the quartet; likely to make it one of the most life-affirming concerts of the season.

In another sign of the times the 2010 Latin Grammy for Best Classical Album went to Fernando Otero. He's at SFJAZZ this weekend and if you like contemporary Latin American sounds, you'll definitely be pleasantly surprised at the variety of his repertoire.

This weekend the Ives Quartet is playing a quintet, the Brahms F-Minor Piano Quintet to be exact. But what's really exciting is that pianist Gwendolyn Mok is going to play (as she played Ravel last year), on her 19th-century piano, an Erard, the Paris firm that was one of the most highly regarded instrument makers in Europe.

Although the cunning folks at the San Francisco Symphony are billing this concert as “MTT Conducts Mozart and Stravinsky,” the real excitement is going to come from the local premiere of Thomas Adès' Polaris, a co-commission of the SFS, with video by Tal Rosner.

Today, and continuing over the weekend, the New Century Chamber Orchestra opens its season by welcoming back one of its founders and its first music director, Stuart Canin.

The San Francisco Opera has front-loaded its season, and coming up this week is Renee Fleming's appearance in the title role of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia.

At the Napa Symphony season opener this week, the sister act Christina and Michelle Naughton play a pair of duo piano concertos, one by Mozart and one by Poulenc.

A favorite wind quintet of mine, the Quinteto Latino, which is dedicated to bringing you the music of Mexico and South America, is playing two of the great standards of the repertory at Old First Church on Friday.

This weekend the men's chorus Chanticleer opens the season with a tour of some of the great music written about love – a topic that could fill a few years worth of concerts.