Health and safety concerns currently prevent me from attending most live performances – avoid crowds, the doctors advise; so I’m going to try some preemptive reviewing.
What follows are a somewhat jaded but inquisitive and variety-hungry critic’s choices of the most enticing offerings in the Richmond area’s 2025-26 classical season. Links for times, tickets and other details are appended.
My picks, in chronological order:
– Pacifica Quartet and clarinetist Anthony McGill, Sept. 14 at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Arts Center. A pace-setting US string quartet, joined by the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, who’s also an active soloist, playing one of the works on their new album “American Stories,” James Lee III’s Quintet for clarinet and string quartet, along with Dvořák’s “American” Quartet and Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet. (https://modlin.richmond.edu)
– Belvedere Series ensemble, Sept. 21 at Ryan Recital Hall of St. Christopher’s School. Never pass up the chance to hear Tchaikovsky’s string sextet “Souvenir de Florence” (which sounds more like “Souvenir de Florence en passant par Moscow”). That, plus a Mozart piano quartet and a cello sonata by the Turkish pianist-composer Fazil Say, should make for a geographical and stylistic tour de force. (https://belvedereseries.org)
– Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia ensemble, Oct. 12 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. A sampler of 20th-century classics by Debussy, Shostakovich, Ravel and Prokofiev, ranging in tone and mood from the ethereal to the post-apocalyptic. Chesterfield County-bred Zachary Wadsworth’s chamber arrangement of the adagio from Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major is a wild card in the deck. (https://cmscva.org)
– Pianist Emanuel Ax with the Richmond Symphony, Valentina Peleggi conducting, Oct. 25-26 at the Carpenter Theatre of Dominion Energy Center. Ax, playing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, can be counted on to do ample justice to any music he essays, especially if it’s from the classical and romantic eras. The program also features Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, as deep a dive into Russian romanticism as fans of same could desire. (https://richmondsymphony.com)
– Dreamers’ Circus, Oct. 30 at UR’s Modlin Center. This trio, one of whom, Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, is a violinist in the Danish String Quartet, carries on that group’s long-running exploration of Nordic folk song and dance, little-known outside Scandinavia, but delightful – addictive, even – and sound evidence that quick-’n’-devilish fiddling isn’t confined to Tartini, Paganini, Sarasate and bluegrass. (https://modlin.richmond.edu)
– Violinist Francesca Dego with the Richmond Symphony, Valentina Peleggi conducting, Nov. 8-9 at the Carpenter Theatre. Having performed and recorded a lot of Mozart, Beethoven and later romantic music, Dego should be well-attuned to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, the most noble and lyrical of concertos for the instrument. Also on the program: Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, his most darkly expressive orchestral work, and Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” whose history is closely tied to this orchestra’s – its founding music director, Edgar Schenkman, conducted the premiere in 1946 in New York, and frequently programmed it in Richmond. (https://richmondsymphony.com)
– Violinist Midori, Nov. 16 at UR’s Modlin Center. Like Emanuel Ax, Midori is a veteran all-rounder, fluent across a wide spectrum of musical eras and styles. Her program, with music by Beethoven, Schubert, Robert and Clara Schumann, Poulenc and the contemporary American violinist-composer Che Buford, promises to be one of the best violin recitals heard here in years. (https://modlin.richmond.edu)
– Voces8, Dec. 18 at River Road Church, Baptist. A British vocal octet with a repertory ranging from Renaissance polyphony to contemporary classical and crossover, the ensemble’s polished technique and innovative programming have earned it an international following. (Tickets sold by the Virginia Arts Festival – https://vafest.org – which presents the concert in conjunction with the church.)
– Pianist Alexander Paley, violinist Daisuke Yamamoto, cellist Neal Cary and the piano 4-hands duo of Paley and Peiwen Chen, Jan. 10 at St. Luke Lutheran Church. This season’s Alexander Paley Music Festival, Jan. 9-11, is an all-Russian affair. Its centerpiece program features a violin sonata by Prokofiev, a cello sonata by Shostakovich and a 4-hands sonata by Anton Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky’s teacher and a founder of the Russian piano school, of which Paley is an exemplar. (https://paleymusicfestival.org)
– Richmond Symphony, Symphony Chorus and soloists, Kazem Abdullah conducting, Jan. 17-18 at the Carpenter Theatre, performing Damien Geter’s “An African American Requiem.” One of the Chesterfield-born composer’s most resonant works, the Requiem, and an orchestral suite from his recently introduced opera “Loving v. Virginia,” which the symphony will play on Feb. 28 and March 1 at the Carpenter Theatre, round out Geter’s residency with the orchestra. (https://richmondsymphony.com)
– Virginia Opera, Adam Turner conducting, Feb. 6 and 8 at the Carpenter Theatre, staging Jake Heggie’s and Gene Scheer’s “Intelligence.” Based on the exploits of the Civil War espionage ring run by Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union loyalist in Confederate Richmond, the opera centers on Mary Jane Bowser, an enslaved woman who was one of the ring’s key operatives. This production offers not only a score and text by leading figures in contemporary American opera but also a belated reminder that not all Richmonders were handmaids to slaveholders and secessionists. (https://vaopera.org)
– Richmond Symphony, Valentina Peleggi conducting, with soprano Alicia Russell Tagert, Feb. 6 at Perkinson Arts Center in Chester and Feb. 7 at Ryan Recital Hall of St. Christopher’s School. In an symphony season full of American works, this may be the most wide-ranging program, with Tagert singing Aaron Copland’s “Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson” and Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville, Summer of 1915” alongside string-orchestra pieces by Elliott Carter and Philip Glass. (https://richmondsymphony.com)
– Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, Feb. 8 at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Singleton Arts Center. Touring historical-instruments ensembles rarely appear here. Apollo’s Fire may the best, and certainly is among the most versatile, in the US. Its “Winter Sparks” program features works by Bach, Vivaldi and Marin Marais. (https://arts.vcu.edu/music/concerts-and-events/#rennolds-series)
– Dover Quartet, Feb. 22 at VCU’s Singleton Center. Sometimes dubbed the second coming of the Guarneri Quartet, the Dover is one of the most sonorously high-powered string quartets at work today, celebrated especially for its performances of Beethoven. No word yet on what the group will be playing here. (https://arts.vcu.edu/music/concerts-and-events/#rennolds-series)
– Owls, March 6 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. This contemporary string quartet will be serving the musical equivalent of a chef’s tasting menu. Its program, presented by the Belvedere Series, offers flavors ranging from François Couperin to Chick Corea to Terry Riley. (https://belvedereseries.org)
– Vocalist-composer Peni Candra Rini with a gamelan ensemble and Javanese court dancers, April 19 at UR’s Modlin Arts Center. Indonesian music, which has fascinated Western composers ever since Debussy heard it at the 1889 Paris Exposition, is one of the most alluring Asian genres, an immersive sonic and visual experience. (https://modlin.richmond.edu)
– Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia ensemble, May 11 at First Unitarian Universalist Church. The program features piano quartets by Dvořák and Pēteris Vasks, the Latvian composer who has produced some of the most colorful and expressive works in contemporary classical music. Also on the program, two pieces by Virginians: Adolphus Hailstork’s “Three Spirituals for String Trio” and a new work by Joe Jaxson. (https://cmscva.org)
– Belvedere Series ensemble, May 31 at Ryan Recital Hall of St. Christopher’s School. A program of discoveries: A piano quartet by Ernst von Dohnányi, a late-romantic whose music is generally meatier than his semi-famous “Variations on a Nursery Tune;” a nonet by Finland’s Olli Mustonen, best-known as a pianist, but also a composer of attractive pieces in a usually tuneful, at times toe-tapping, neo-classical style; and the premiere of Canadian composer Kati Agócs’ Horn Trio. (https://belvedereseries.org)
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