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It only took the better part of two decades, but Thursday evening at Davies Symphony Hall, Robin Holloway’s Clarissa Sequence finally received its first San Francisco Symphony performance. Holloway’s original Clarissa Sequence, that is, the one for soprano and orchestra.

Pink Martini, the self-described “house band of the United Nations,” is back for their third tour of duty with the San Francisco Symphony. The eclectic mix of world music and pop is hip on its own, but their arrangements, already for an expanded band, make them a great fit for an orchestra.

I'm not normally one to recommend complete sets of anything. The complete choral works of Samuel Barber, an odyssey that Voices of Musica Sacra and their music director, John Kendall Bailey, undertake beginning this weekend, is a bit different. The real reason to seek out these concerts is that you probably haven't heard most of the works that are being given a rare outing here.

Kurt Rohde, winner of the prestigious Rome Prize, and also the violist/founder of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, will soon have the world premiere of his Concertino in the Bay Area. And two other San Francisco musicians have been benefitting from artistic residence in Rome. While Rohde's Rome Prize stay recently concluded, San Francisco–raised composer Lisa Bielawa, is a current Rome Prize winner; and ODC Dance Company founder/artistic director/choreographer Brenda Way was a Resident in the Arts, and served as a senior advisor to the Rome Prize winners, including Rohde.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and apparently more than one way to pick a guitar. At the San Francisco Guitar Summit, guitarists will perform works that pick, strum, bend, scrape, soothe, and electrify the senses, in almost the widest range of musical styles possible in one evening. From classical to world fusion, this concert provokes new ideas of what the guitar is all about.

It’s not as rare as one might think, from the constant reports of the demise of the classical recording industry, to encounter great new recordings of unfamiliar music. All the same, this recent release by the Göttingen Festival Orchestra, the NDR Choir, and a stellar cast of soloists under the direction of Nicholas McGegan is rather astonishing.

Fixed on the playlist of eternally popular operas, Verdi’s La traviata is easily adapted to community opera houses. It is full of all the elements that people find most appealing to opera: glamour, effusive melodies and, best of all, great love with an unusual love triangle. This past weekend West Bay Opera opened La traviata as the final production of its 54th season.

Erin Wall, who made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2004, has become something of a Bay Area favorite since then. The Canadian soprano returns for two S.F. Symphony programs in May and June. Here, she talks about working with MTT — the singer's conductor — the freedom of new repertoire, and the challenges ahead.

This is not your grandmother’s chamber music.

Sure, there are some similarities. When the Double Duo, the newest chamber music grouping of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, takes the stage at Old First Concerts on June 4 and 6, you’ll see concerts designed to explore both the range of conventional instruments doing unconventional pieces and the combination of conventional and unconventional instruments.