On Wednesday night, Washington Performing Arts Society opened its fall classical music season with a spectacular concert by the La Scala Philharmonic. Notably it did so not at the Kennedy Center, which has long been the organization’s main venue, but at the newer and growing Music Center at Strathmore. In spite of the suburban location, which doubled this disgruntled city dweller’s car trip, a VIP box at house left held such distinguished guests as First…

The high point of this week in classical music is surely the Lieder recital by the superlative German baritone Christian Gerhaher and his regular pianist collaborator, Gerold Huber, sponsored by the Vocal Arts Society at the Embassy of Austria (October 11, 7:30 p.m.). Gerhaher’s most recent Lieder recording is a knockout, and his program for Thursday night is devoted entirely to songs by Robert Schumann. THE SYMPHONY: >> Riccardo Chailly brings his La Scala Philharmonic…

A trip out to Fairfax requires some justification, which the concerts hosted by the George Mason University Center for the Arts occasionally provide. This was the case Saturday night, when that venue distinguished itself as the only local stop for the current U.S. tour of the orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus (recently in Chicago and Boston, but also in smaller places like Schenectady). That venerable ensemble, founded in 1781, is one of the oldest orchestras…