From a spooky (sort of) classical concert to a popular art expo and classic album from a distinctive rock star, there is a lot of music, theater and more to catch this weekend and beyond.<\/p>\n
Here is a partial rundown.<\/p>\n
Classical picks: Spooktacular, Festival Opera, Chan weighs in<\/p>\n
The fall season and Halloween continue to offer an enticing range of music events. Here are three performances Bay Area classical fans should know about.<\/p>\n
Halloween treats: Symphony San Jose celebrates the season with its annual \u201cSymphonic Spooktacular,\u201d a family-friendly program that celebrates 13 composers, including Danny Elfman, Rossini, Richard Wagner, and John Williams. Peter Jaffe, who encourages attendees to come in costume, conducts the program, which ranges from classics to fan features.<\/p>\n
Details: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24 and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 25; California Theatre, San Jose; $17.50-$125; symphonysanjose.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the salon: Festival Opera is returning to its 2026 Salon Series, which includes resident artists performing works by Handel, Mozart, and Leonard Bernstein among others. The October program on Oct. 25 Sunday joins resident artists in \u201cOperatic Mad Scenes,\u201d performing excerpts of six operas. On Nov. 22, the festival welcomes the excellent baritone Efrain Solis in the world premiere of \u201cBorders of Dreaming,\u201d along with well-known works.<\/p>\n Details: 4 p.m. Oct. 25 and Nov. 22, Piedmont Center for the Arts, Piedmont; $40 per concert; festivalopera.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chan leads the way: Now that conductor Elim Chan has been named the San Francisco Symphony\u2019s new music director, she\u2019s now the 13th to take up the honor \u2014 and claimed it with terrific enthusiasm.\u00a0 She\u2019s already made her mark, and among the works she\u2019ll conduct this fall is a three-evening program drawn from John Adams\u2019 \u201cDoctor Atomic\u201d Symphony, along with works by Brahms and Mendelssohn.<\/p>\n Details: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 29-31, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $45-$159; www.sfsymphony.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Georgia Rowe, Correspondent<\/p>\n 40th Emeryville Art Expo runs through Sunday<\/p>\n Ever want to cram a whole lot of art into a single day? You still have that chance, with the Emeryville Art Exhibition in its final weekend. The event features works by more than 100 artists inspired by the so-called \u201crottenest city on the Pacific Coast.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, visitors to Emeryville\u2019s small-town environs know it\u2019s come far from the days when that moniker applied (it was given due to Prohibition-related bootlegging and gambling). Part of the reason for that is because it\u2019s become a hive of activity for artists, who have studios or live in the city. The Emeryville Art Exhibition this year marks its 40th anniversary, and it\u2019s celebrating in a major way with 200-plus artworks spanning painting, sculpture, textiles, craft furniture and more.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Emeryville Art Exhibition is what art has always been meant to be: accessible, inclusive, affordable and engaging,\u201d says John Bauters, director of the Emeryville Celebration of the Arts (and former city mayor). \u201cArt is the medium through which ideas, perspectives, questions and emotions take form, and our exhibition is the forum where the community gathers to receive, discuss, embrace and share in them.\u201d<\/p>\n Details: Open daily 11 a.m.-6 p.m. until Oct. 25; 5905 Shellmound St., Emeryville; free; emeryarts.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u00a0John Metcalfe, Staff<\/p>\n Hop into Hole re-releases<\/p>\n At the very top of their game, Courtney Love and Hole were every bit as great as any rock band in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n The proof can be heard, in quite dramatic and abundant fashion, on the group\u2019s three classic \u201990s discs \u2014 1991\u2019s \u201cPretty on the Inside,\u201d 1994\u2019s \u201cLive Through This\u201d and 1998\u2019s \u201d Celebrity Skin\u201d \u2014 all of which have been newly reissued and are now available on vinyl.<\/p>\n Big fans will want to get revisit Hole\u2019s powerful debut \u2014 \u201cPretty on the Inside\u201d \u2014 via the limited 35th edition 2-LP \u201cStarbelly Splatter\u201d vinyl edition with new gatefold artwork, a lithograph of a rare band photo and more. \u201cPretty on the Inside\u201d is also being offered as a newly remastered 180g black vinyl LP as well as on CD.<\/p>\n \u201cLive Through This,\u201d the album in which Love really makes a case for being one of the most powerful rock \u2018n\u2019 roll singers of the decade, has been newly mastered for vinyl. It\u2019s being offered as a single 180g black vinyl LP as well as a 1-LP Zoetrope vinyl, delivering animated loops of old music videos as well as previously unseen band footage.<\/p>\n The same vinyl formats are in place for the excellent \u201cCelebrity Skin,\u201d an album that sounds just as vibrant now as it did when it was first released nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n Details: $30 each; holerock.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Jim Harrington, Staff<\/p>\n SF Opera looks at vagaries of love<\/p>\n She is a young ingenue \u2014 pretty, charming and\u00a0 unschooled in the ways of the world. Entranced by the handsome Chevalier, she runs away with him, but later abandons him when wealth and power become, for a time,\u00a0 more attractive propositions. Ah, but then there\u2019s that dramatic reunion in the church when she comes to her senses and wants to win him back before he consigns himself to life in a monastery! That\u2019s what unfolds in Jules Massenet\u2019s \u201cManon,\u201d now playing on stage at War Memorial in San Francisco Opera\u2019s production of the composer\u2019s most popular work. And if soprano Amina Edris as Manon and tenor Pene Pati as the Chevalier des Grieux seem utterly convincing as a romantic pair, offstage they are in fact husband and wife.<\/p>\n Four performances of the classic French opera\u2019s run remain.<\/p>\n Details: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24, 27 and 30, 2 p.m. Nov. 1; $30-$447, sfopera.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Bay City News Foundation<\/p>\n Here\u2019s your freebie of the week<\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, with its three separate venues on three separate floors, plays host on Oct. 25 to an eclectic, intriguing parade of musicians playing for free throughout the afternoon. Beginning at noon, what organizers are calling SF Music Day 2026 presents entertainment in genres as diverse as jazz, classical, traditional, contemporary and world music. The lineup in the ground floor Herbst Theatre kicks off at noon with drummer Jordan Glenn\u2019s BEAK ensemble bringing its blend of improvisational percussion pizzazz to listeners\u2019 ears. One floor up in the lovely Green Room, the flute and percussion combo Nippon Kobo plays contemporary music from Japan at 12:30 p.m. The third-floor Taube Atrium Theater gets things rolling at 12:15 p.m. with a performance by The Sampaguitas, an effervescent girl trio well-versed in Filipino folk music, delivered in three-part harmony. The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra is booked to play, as are the well-known Rova Saxophone Quartet, Quinteto Latino and an ensemble with the curious name Ian Carey and Wood Metal Plastic. The final acts in all three performance spaces begin at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n Details: Find more information, including links to RSVP, at sfmusicday.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Bay City News Foundation<\/p>\n And another freebie<\/p>\n We\u2019re not quite sure what has gotten into those nice folks over at Opera San Jose, but they\u2019re promising to turn a section of their home city into a \u201cTunnel of Terror\u201d on Saturday. No, that doesn\u2019t mean opera company members are going to gather and bellow out \u201cMuskrat Love\u201d or anything \u2014 although, with or without the keyboard solo, that would be pretty darned terrifying. What Opera San Jose, in tandem with the City of San Jose, has planned is a family-friendly Halloween celebration running 5 to 9 p.m. Oct. 24 at the city\u2019s Sonic Runway \u2014 that iconic light\/art installation that looks like someone stretched a Slinky across San Jose\u2019s City Hall Plaza. Opera San Jose resident artists Nicole Koh, Courtney Miller and Micah Perry, along with emeritus artist-in-residence Eugene Brancoveanu, will join members of Children\u2019s Musical Theater of San Jose and other entertainers in performing a wide range of classical and popular numbers including selections of \u201cPhantom of the Opera,\u201d Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cThriller,\u201d the Bobby \u201cBoris\u201d Pickett hit \u201cMonster Mash,\u201d and Tame Impala\u2019s \u201cDracula.\u201d Community trick-or-treating, an interactive light show, street performers, arts and crafts vendors, lowrider culture displays, a light show and a costume contest with prizes are also part of the festivities.<\/p>\n Details: The event is free; more information is at operasj.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Bay City News Foundation<\/p>\n Mariachi that\u2019s old and new<\/p>\n Contemporary performers of art, music, theater or any other art form rooted in tradition face a common challenge these days. If they stick to the traditional style, they\u2019re accused of simply regurgitating what has come before. If they stray too far from the norm, they risk losing support of art form\u2019s most fervent and loyal fans. It\u2019s a dilemma that has only become more pronounced as the explosion of digital communication has made access to all kinds of art and information that much easier and faster. The 13-member band Mariachi Herencia de Mexico \u2014 which performs in UC Berkeley on Oct. 23, as part of the Cal Performances arts series \u2014 is one of the outfits credited with getting it right. The group was founded in 2016 in Chicago by C\u00e9sar Maldonado, a successful entrepreneur who loved mariachi but was concerned that too few young people in America were being exposed to it. He founded the Mariachi Heritage Foundation in 2016 and Mariachi Herencia de Mexico was an outgrowth of that. Blending traditional mariachi \u2014 which is some three centuries old \u2014 with a modern sound also informed by salsa, bolero, bossa nova, cumbia and more styles, the band has known success pretty much from the start. Its first album, \u201cNuestra Herencia\u201d topped the Latin music streaming charts and earned the outfit its first of the Grammy nominations. The band\u2019s 2025 release, \u201cViva la Musica\u201d was heralded as a groundbreaking effort that maximized the band\u2019s reputation for merging genres and traditions to create a thoroughly modern sound that was still unmistakably mariachi.<\/p>\n