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 —…

A decade ago, conductor Lorin Maazel and his wife started the Châteauville Foundation, based at Castleton Farms in Rappahannock County, Virginia. On Monday night, rather than have Washingtonians go down to the Shenandoah Mountains, Maazel brought his young musicians to the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. A cast of talented singers and a finely honed small ensemble of instrumentalists gave an exquisite performance of Benjamin Britten’s chilling and yet beautiful chamber opera The Turn of the…

You have a few more performances this month before the Washington National Opera season ends. We have reviewed both productions for you at DCist and I recommend them both. On Monday (May 22, 7 p.m.) and Saturday (May 27, 7 p.m.) are the final two performances of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, an opera that is not all that well known but that has some great music — Mozart at the height of his compositional…

As you know from reading last week’s Classical Music Agenda, we are at the beginning of a Mozart Year, with the 250th anniversary of the great Austrian composer’s birth approaching on January 27. If you set foot in a classical concert in the next couple months, chances are good that you will hear Mozart. Considering the number of concerts we attend, Mozart fatigue could set in early. Not to worry, as there is still enough…