Everyone needs a vacation, even musicians, and the summer is quite naturally a time that the classical music world slows down. So this is it for your Classical Music Agenda, until August. This week’s installment will be a little longer than normal, because there are several interesting things happening over the next couple months. If you want to hear some music this summer, you can, and here’s where. HEADLINES: >> The most important classical music…

This coming weekend is the last viable one for concerts in November. So we have a pile-up of events on the agenda this week, as everyone in town tries to get something heard before Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, it will be time for that dreaded December tradition, the holiday concerts and umpteen performances of a certain Handel oratorio that must not be named. FREE, FREE, FREE: >> This week musicians from two important summer music festivals…

This week, the free concerts are at the top of my classical music picks, because everyone loves to hear music for free, especially when it promises to be of such high quality as most of these concerts. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: >> It is finally time to go hear excellent chamber music at the Library of Congress again. This Wednesday (October 11, 8 p.m.), one of the finest chamber groups around, the Beaux Arts Trio, will…

We have been plugging the excellent production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess all week, and it is worth your time and effort to see it, as we did this past Wednesday. However, all remaining performances have apparently been sold out. This means that your best and only remaining chance to experience this great American opera will be later today, when a live simulcast from the Kennedy Center Opera House will be shown on a huge…

(Classical Music Agenda by DCist contributor Charles T. Downey of Ionarts) Arts blogger Drew McManus, at Adaptistration, has proclaimed that May is Take a Friend to Orchestra Month. As Drew envisions it, this is “your sanctioned excuse to approach a friend about attending an orchestra concert with you.” (All this week, Drew has been running responses to and suggestions concerning his idea at Adaptistration.) To that end, here is your weekly dose of concert suggestions….