Lawrence Brownlee, Erin Morley, and Gerald Martin Moore. Vocal Arts DC. September 28.

In the wake of this year’s presidential takeover at the Kennedy Center, Vocal Arts DC is one of the few outside presenters choosing to continue hosting events there. The city’s preeminent song recital series kicks off its 35th anniversary season with a superlative soprano-tenor pairing. The program, billed as selections from opera’s golden age, includes some favorites from Verdi, Bizet, and Donizetti, alongside rarer fare from Rossini, Delibes, Thomas, and Bellini. vocalartsdc.org

Stradella: St. John the Baptist. IN Series. October 2–12.

IN Series, under the direction of Timothy Nelson, continues to offer vibrant and unexpected work. The new season’s first production is the world premiere of a staged version of Alessandro Stradella’s San Giovanni Battista. Technically an oratorio, this highly dramatic work should lend itself aptly to theatrical adaptation, in a collaboration with Catapult Opera. The performances are divided between a new theater in Southwest, following this summer’s surprise closure of the Source Theatre—IN Series’ one-time home—and Baltimore Theatre Project. inseries.org

21st Century Consort/Christopher Kendall. Hirshhorn Museum. October 18.

Amid upheaval in the classical music world of Washington, the free concerts by the city’s leading contemporary music ensemble remain dependably good. Their season of four programs opens with a salient pairing of old and new, including Sofia Gubaidulina’s Aus dem Visionen de Hildegard von Bingen, George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children, a world premiere by Juri Seo, and pieces by 14th-century French composers. The ensemble has returned to its former home, the Hirshhorn Museum, for a suitably modern setting. 21consort.org

Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali, with Víkingur Ólafsson. Washington Performing Arts. October 27.

London’s Philharmonia Orchestra returns to the Washington area for the first time in over twenty years. Santtu-Matias Rouvali, who succeeded Esa-Pekka Salonen as principal conductor in 2021, leads Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony and Si el oxígeno fuera verde, a new work by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. An appearance by Víkingur Ólafsson in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major further whets the appetite. washingtonperformingarts.org

Chiarina Chamber Players. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. November 9.

Capitol Hill’s resident chamber ensemble has raised the bar this season, programming music by an unjustly lesser-known local composer. Mary Howe was D.C. cultural royalty, not only a gifted composer but a co-founder of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Washington. The group’s co-artistic directors, joined by a slew of NSO musicians, perform her Suite for String Quartet and Piano, from 1928, alongside music by John Williams, Aaron Copland (Appalachian Spring, premiered locally), and Felix Mendelssohn. chiarina.org

Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha will be presented by Washington National Opera March 12-16, 2026. Photo: Dahlia Katz

Les Arts Florissants, with Théotime Langlois de Swarte. Library of Congress. November 21.

No respectable baroque music fan will want to miss the first local visit by Les Arts Florissants since 2011. Violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte leads the legendary French early music ensemble in a daring new interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Pieces by Monteverdi, Uccellini, and Geminiani round out what should be a stellar concert on the city’s leading free concert series. loc.gov

Gluck: Iphigénie en Tauride. Washington Concert Opera. November 23.

Artistic director Antony Walker has put together another outstanding season of three concert operas, filling in gaps in the city’s theatrical offerings. For those who enjoy hearing opera before 1800, the chance to hear Gluck at Lisner Auditorium is always welcome. Kate Lindsey and Theo Hoffman star in the composer’s 1779 opus Iphigénie en Tauride, last heard from Washington National Opera in 2011. concertopera.org

National Symphony Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda, with Camilla Nylund and Tomasz Konieczny. December 4–6 [POSTPONED]

Gianandrea Noseda will remain at the helm of the NSO at least through its 100th anniversary in 2031. The Italian conductor’s ninth season continues to exceed expectations, program after program. One of many highlights will be the concert devoted to the turn of the 20th century, with Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, and Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. (It has been postponed to a later date.) kennedy-center.org

Joplin: Treemonisha. Washington National Opera. March 12–16, 2026.

Next season looks to be the strongest from the Kennedy Center’s flagship company in several years. Kudos for expanding the number of full productions in the Opera House to five, even if the last one is a musical, Bernstein’s West Side Story. In the spring, WNO presents Damien Sneed’s musical arrangement and orchestration of Scott Joplin’s most famous opera, in a production directed by the notably gifted Denyce Graves. The production runs in tandem with a welcome staging of Robert Ward’s The Crucible. kennedy-center.org

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center/Wu Han. The Barns at Wolf Trap. April 24.

British violinist Daniel Hope takes over the artistic leadership of Chamber Music at the Barns this season, succeeding the transformative tenure of Wu Han. Both Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Wu Han will continue to make appearances on the series, including this program of two rarely heard piano quintets by Arensky and Saint-Saëns, featuring violinists Chad Hoopes and Richard Lin, cellist Dmitri Atapine, and violist Milena Pájaro-van de Stadt, formerly of the Dover Quartet. wolftrap.org

Antony Walker leads Washington Concert Opera in a performance of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride November 23. Photo: WCO