It’s a new year, and the winter and spring half of the season is getting under way. There are some excellent concerts planned in Washington over the next several months. We’ll be letting you know more about them week by week, every Sunday.

SYMPHONY:
>> Why is DCist headlining the Baltimore Symphony? The incoming music director of the BSO — Marin Alsop, the first woman to hold that position with a major American orchestra — will be at the podium this week. The BSO is celebrating the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Peabody Institute with an interesting program (Strauss, Alpine Symphony; Stravinsky, Rite of Spring) in collaboration with performers from that conservatory. There is one performance at Strathmore on Saturday (January 13, 8 p.m.), but tickets (especially less expensive ones) may be scarce. There are also performances at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore on Thursday and Friday (January 11 and 12, 8 p.m.) and Sunday afternoon (January 14, 3 p.m.).

>> The National Symphony Orchestra is back at the Kennedy Center this week. This program features violinist Leila Josefowicz playing the Hindemith concerto. Performances are scheduled for Thursday and Friday (January 11 and 12, 7 p.m.) and Saturday (January 13, 8 p.m.). Tickets: $20 to $80 (full-time students may be able to purchase $10 tickets for the Friday performance, through the Attend! program).

>> It’s almost as far as Baltimore, but the George Mason University Center for the Arts, in Fairfax, is hosting a concert by the Symphonica Toscanini on Friday (January 12, 8 p.m.). Lorin Maazel will conduct this group, founded in 2001, in a program of Rossini, Mendelssohn, and Respighi. Tickets: $27.50 to $55.

Free concerts after the jump.

Image of Marin Alsop by R. R. Jones