It’s December, which means that much of the classical music concert schedule is devoted to some holiday that apparently occurs near the end of the month. Consult our Holiday Concert Agenda and our Handel’s Messiah Agenda, if that is the sort of thing that interests you. Let’s try to keep the regular agenda free of that stuff. There is plenty to talk about without it. VOICES: >> The annual residency of the Kirov Opera, the…

We are well into the season of seasonal concerts at this point. If you are looking for a performance of Handel’s Messiah or a Christmas or Holiday Concert, we’ve dealt with that. Here is what else is happening this week in classical music. NOT CHRISTMAS: >> Ironically, possibly the best performance this week also happens to be free, the latest concert in the excellent series at the Library of Congress. On Friday (December 15, 8…

Taking someone you love to a Holiday Concert is a great December tradition, but how do you know what you will like? Are there really that many choices? We dealt with Messiah performances earlier this week, but here are the season’s best and not so best, all around Washington. Use the comments section if we’ve missed something. INTERESTING: >> The Folger Consort gives the best Christmas concert in Washington, with excellent performances of unusual repertory….

Georg Friedrich Händel’s Messiah (1742) is, I have to keep reminding myself, a masterpiece of music history. It is not that I hate the production, but its overexposure, due to the lamentable annual round of weary performances in December, has mostly deadened my ear to its pleasures. Later this week, we will have a run-down of other Holiday Concert possibilities, but for some people, it is just not the Holiday Season without attending a performance…

December is the month when the classical music concert schedule gets hijacked by that yearly plague, the Christmas Concert, and its politically correct counterpart, the Holiday Concert. Later this week, we’ll be bringing you a special roundup of musical opportunities to get yourself in the Spirit of the Season, so the pickings in the weekly agenda are going to get slimmer from now through New Year’s. FREE CONCERTS: >> Who doesn’t need to save money…

Does anyone else need a vacation from their vacation? Some good classical music is just the thing to calm your nerves after battling the traffic or the airport crowds. Happily, we have some excellent things on the agenda for this week, before the Holiday Concert Madness truly sets in, beginning with some of the big guns. STAR CONCERTS: >> The main event this week as far as I am concerned is the recital by powerhouse…