October in Vancouver: Tosca, Hadelich, and three nights of new music

Two violin concertos land at the Orpheum within a week: Augustin Hadelich plays Brahms with the VSO on October 9 and 10, and Blake Pouliot follows with Tchaikovsky under Gemma New on the 16th, with a repeat in Surrey on the 18th. The recital calendar is just as strong. William Yang plays for the Chopin Society on Thanksgiving Monday, Filippo Gorini brings Beethoven's Diabelli Variations on the 18th, and Paul Lewis, the Vancouver Recital Society's most frequent guest, begins his Mozart+ project on the 25th.

The last week is the busiest. Vancouver New Music's Open Frequencies festival runs October 22–24 at Pacific Spirit United, opening with a Steve Reich 90th-birthday program from the Kuniko Kato Quartet. Vancouver Opera's new Tosca, co-produced with Pacific Opera Victoria, plays the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on October 24 and 29, the same weekend Alondra de la Parra conducts Bernstein's West Side Story Symphonic Dances.