Here are the top classical music performances in Miami, Broward and Palm Beach this season

Here are some of the can’t-miss performances for the upcoming classical music season in South Florida.

A Spooky Symphony

Here’s the perfect way to get your little ones to finally put down their electronic devices and experience real live culture rather than TikTok videos. Dress up in full Halloween gear and enjoy an evening of bewitchingly beautiful classical music in this kid-friendly concert presented by the Alhambra Orchestra and featuring the Greater Miami Youth Symphony. The program features eerie favorites and iconic movie themes with chilling melodies and thrilling crescendos. And it’s free! Oct. 25, Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center.

New World Symphony

Veterans Day Concert: A WWII Journey. Truly moving performance honors veterans and the global sounds of resiliency. From the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima to the skies of the Tuskegee Airmen, explore the global fight for democracy through music that commemorates and reflects. Join conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya and best-selling historian James Holland, while soprano Emily Magee makes her NWS debut. Program - Aaron Copland: “Fanfare for the Common Man”; Pavel Haas: Mvt. II from Symphony No. 2; Dmitri Shostakovich: Mvt. IV from Symphony No. 7; William Grant Still: In Memoriam; John Williams: “Hymn to the Fallen” from “Saving Private Ryan”; Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs. Nov. 9-10, New World Center.

Miami International Piano Festival

Spanish pianist Josu De Solaun is a two-time awardee of the prestigious International Classical Music Awards for chamber music (2021) and best soloist (2023), with the jury for the latter award noting, “Josu de Solaun is one of the most impressive discoveries of the past decade. Not only is he a technically impressive pianist, but his interpretative imagination also knows no limits.” Nov. 17, Aventura Arts & Cultural Center.

Seraphic Fire – A Seraphic Fire Christmas

What better way to celebrate the holidays than with South Florida’s preeminent vocal choir, with guest conductor Anthony Trecek-King? Unaccompanied (a capella) voices in a candlelit setting mark the Christmas season in South Florida with a program including yuletide tunes from modern composers such as Benjamin Britten, plus fan favorites like “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.” But bring a tissue: The choir typically evokes emotional responses from its audiences with its complex and glorious layered harmonies. Dec. 7 at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox, Miami; Dec. 11 at the Kravis Center, West Palm Beach; Dec. 13 at the Church of the Little Flower, Coral Gables; Dec. 14 at Sanctuary Church, Ft. Lauderdale; and Dec. 15 at The Moss Center, Miami.

Palm Beach Symphony – Masterworks II

Maestro Gerard Schwarz leads the orchestra – featuring Leonidas Kavakos, one of the world’s most celebrated violinists and a regular partner with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma – in performing Brahms’ only violin concerto (the incredibly challenging Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77). The program also features Christopher Theofanidis’ “Rainbow Body” and closes with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70, the composer’s towering achievement of mood, melody and musical command. Dec. 10, Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.

The Cleveland Orchestra

Four years after her sensational Cleveland debut, violinist Sayaka Shoji takes on one of the instrument’s crown jewels in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (a masterwork which – hard to believe – was neglected for decades after its composition), conducted by Kahchun Wong. If that weren’t enough, Beethoven is followed by Ravel’s exquisite orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which concludes with one of the grandest themes in music: a stately vision of the Great Gate of Kyiv. Jan. 24-25, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

London Symphony Orchestra

Don’t miss one of the world’s top orchestras when the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), led by “incandescent” new chief conductor Sir Antonio Pappano, performs at the Knight Concert Hall for the first time. “A lavish glory of strings, a grand battery of percussion, the woodwind and brass glaring and blaring, provides an inspiring preview of the London Symphony Orchestra under its new principal,” raved inews.uk. Joining them will be the great violinist Janine Jansen, whose sound has been praised by the New York Times as “one of astonishing power and beauty.” March 2, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

New World Symphony

Don’t miss the highly anticipated return of one of the greatest conductors of our time, Michael Tilson Thomas, as he takes on two Beethoven classics: “Ah! Perfido” and Symphony No. 5. Plus, MTT teams up with two international superstars — pianist Yefim Bronfman and soprano Susanna Phillips — for an emotional exploration of German classics, from Robert Schumann’s beloved Piano Concerto to Franz Schubert’s masterful “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen” (“The Shepherd on the Rock”). March 29-30, New World Center.

South Florida Symphony Orchestra

SFSO’s Masterworks V concert features Catherine Lan – praised by critics as a pianist with “poise and artistry” (The Lancaster News) and “fluent technique, sensitive musicianship and a probing intellect” (Palm Beach Daily News) – performing Prokofiev’s “devilishly difficult” Piano Concerto No. 3 and a triumphant and uplifting finale, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, “Romantic,” under the direction of Sebrina María Alfonso. April 9-10, Parker Playhouse.

Florida Grand Opera

Georges Bizet’s beloved “Carmen” – performed by FGO for the first time since 2016 - gets a deeply personal makeover by director Maria Todaro, one in which “Carmen and her female companions pursue not only personal freedom and emancipation but also the liberation of their country from Franco’s dictatorship. Their bodies become weapons of defiance and resistance, a tactic often employed during times of oppression and war.” Sung in French with English and Spanish projected translations. April 12, 13 and 15 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts; April 24 and 26 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.