Here are some of the best bets for this season’s classical music shows

Here are some the top classical music events in South Florida this season.

Miami International Piano Festival

Oct. 19, Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, Aventura.

Concerto Night: Season opener features three acclaimed pianists conducted by Igor Gruppman. The program features Russian pianist Dmitry Ablogin (“a musician of integrity and unusually high sensitivity”) performing Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor; Ilya Itin — known for his extraordinary range, power, quality of sound and command — performing Beethoven Concerto No. 4 in G Major; and Alexander Gavrylyuk (“easily, the most compelling pianist of his generation”) performing Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor.

A Spooky Symphony

Oct. 24, Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center, South Miami-Dade

Thrill your little ones with this annual family tradition offering actual culture rather than TikTok videos. The Alhambra Orchestra and Greater Miami Youth Symphony team up for a multimedia Halloween concert filled with spine-tingling fun and cinematic magic, featuring iconic music from “The Wizard of Oz,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Wonder Woman,” “Beetlejuice” and more — all accompanied by vivid imagery on a giant screen. Costumes are warmly encouraged, and it’s free!

Chopin for All

Nov. 8 at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, Fort Lauderdale; Nov. 9 at Granada Church, Coral Gables.

Free concerts with Indonesian-American pianist Jonathan Mamora, first-prize winner at the 2025 Hilton Head International Piano Competition. His Carnegie Hall recital in 2023 was praised by New York Concert Review as “larger than life … with a technique so solid that it seemed at times that he couldn’t play a wrong note if he tried.”

Program includes J. S. Bach - Toccata in F sharp minor; A. Scriabin - Piano Sonata No. 5; F. Chopin - Barcarolle in F sharp Major, scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor; W. A. Mozart - Adagio in B minor; and F. Chopin - Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor.

Miami Symphony Orchestra

Nov. 16 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami.

Grand Season Opener under the direction of Maestro Eduardo Marturet features Cuban-Ukrainian and Miami-raised cellist Anna Litvinenko, who is a graduate of the Juilliard School, the Royal College in London and the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. The powerful, emotional program includes Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde Prelude and Liebestod, Dvořák’s Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in B minor and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor.

New World Symphony: Prieto, Music of the Americas

Nov. 22-23, New World Center, Miami Beach.

This truly eclectic concert taps sounds and styles from all over the world, from Argentina and Venezuela to Mexico and New York City, under the baton of Carlos Miguel Prieto, the foremost Mexican conductor of his generation.

Juan Pablo Contreras’ Grammy-nominated “Mariachitlán” fuses the infectious rhythms of mariachi with original melodies inspired by the Mexican state of Jalisco. With violinist Karen Gomyo, praised by the Chicago Tribune as “a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance and intensity.” Program includes Ginastera: “Variaciones concertantes”; Bernstein: “Serenade (After Plato’s Symposium”); Castellanos: “Santa Cruz de Pacairigua”; and Contreras: “Mariachitlán.”

New World Symphony: John Adams with Denève & Ólafsson

Jan. 17-18, New World Center, Miami Beach.

Composer and conductor John Adams’ works spanning more than three decades are among the most performed of all contemporary classical music, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003 for “On the Transmigration of Souls.” The New York Times in 2007 called Adams a “skilled and dynamic conductor” whose music is “gravely beautiful yet restless.” Adams is accompanied by conductor Stéphane Denève and pianist Víkingur Ólafsson; program includes Adams’ “Chairman Dances,” “After the Fall” Piano Concerto, “I Still Dance” and “Dr. Atomic” symphony.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Jan. 18, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra teams up with conductor Vasily Petrenko, who was the 2017 Gramophone Awards Artist of the Year and “has brought style and excitement to the RPO ... since taking over three seasons ago,” according to The Guardian. Program includes Nielsen’s Helios Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (with Ray Chen, who plays a “virtuoso lick with a rock ’n’ roll stance, making it look mighty cool to be a violinist”) and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2.

South Florida Symphony Orchestra

Feb. 17, New World Center, Miami Beach; Feb. 18, Parker Playhouse, Fort Lauderdale.

This standout program is elevated by two Florida premieres: Grammy nominee Nathalie Joachim’s “Had to Be,” an intimate exploration of memory and identity featuring rising cellist Seth Parker Woods; and Carlos Simon’s “Four Black American Dances,” a vibrant work filled with spiritual depth. Also on the bill are Mozart’s “Haffner” symphony, which “bursts with celebratory energy and elegant precision”; plus Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol” and its lively Spanish rhythms.

The Vienna Philharmonic

March 9, Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, West Palm Beach.

The Vienna Philharmonic and Maestro Andris Nelsons will be joined by pianist Lang Lang, “one of the most gifted classical artists on the planet,” for a program featuring Bartók’s stunning Third Piano Concerto (completed as a gift for his wife during the final stages of leukemia) and Mahler’s dramatic First Symphony, the “Titan.”

Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Joshua Bell

March 14, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

The first-rate musical ensemble Academy of St Martin in the Fields pairs with violinist Joshua Bell, whose “exquisite technique” (Orlando Sentinel) is matched by a “vaulted singing tone” (South Florida Classical Review), to perform two masterworks of the Romantic repertory: Schumann’s buoyant Symphony No. 1, a “seasonal celebration of renewal, hope and optimism”; and Saint-Saëns’ dazzling Violin Concerto No. 3; plus Charles Ives’ Variations on “America.”