Michael Zwiebach

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.

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.

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. 

When George Frederick Handel gets the chorus revved up, a concert can get pretty exciting. San Francisco Bach Choir is hopping the Handel train in its upcoming concerts. Expect the rafters to ring.

In a performance hosted by Ben Simon and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, as part of their afternoon “You Gotta Hear This” series you'll have the chance to hear Rootstock and Sqwonk on Oct. 18.

Classical Revolution, the chamber group that fearlessly brings classics to unconventional venues, is not resting up after Sunday's gig at the Crowden School. On Oct. 19, it will play at Yoshi's S.F. with the Real Vocal String Quartet, a group that often plays American folk, and adds the musicians voices to the mix.

Lagging economy or not, some of the Bay Area’s local opera companies are taking risks. West Bay Opera is taking the lead and going for its whiskers with an upcoming production of Verdi’s La forza del destino . General Director José Luis Moscovich said of the undertaking, “This is not an opera for the faint of heart.”