Around the U.S.

LOS ANGELES – Día de los Muertos (Day of The Dead) is a Mexican holiday Nov. 1-2 that's catching on north of the border. The LA Phil offered a celebratory program of colorful, propulsive music led by Gustavo Dudamel.

PASADENA, Calif. – It was a long, rocky road the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra traveled to get to its first concerts with Brett Mitchell installed as music director. Mahler's Symphony No. 1 capped the program in lavish Ambassador Auditorium.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Can a city of 155,000 support a professional orchestra? The Springfield Symphony, which has flourished for more than 80 years, tapped its regional roots in a winning concert led by artistic adviser Mei-Ann Chen.

SAN FRANCISCO –The San Francisco Opera's music director, just signed to an extension through 2031, shaped a knockout performance in her first go at Tristan und Isolde with Simon O'Neill and Anja Kampe in the ill-fortuned lovers.

NEW YORK – Osvaldo Golijov’s entrancing Ainadamar is really a chamber opera, maybe not an opera at all, with flamenco dancers and non-traditional voices. But it belonged in this grand opera house, even in less than ideal conditions.

SEATTLE – Creator and director Tazewell Thompson stitched together a generous collection of 40 spirituals for Jubilee, something of a quasi-operatic theater piece that lacked a solid narrative arc as it unfolded to begin a run at Seattle Opera.

NEW YORK – The Light After, presented in the crypt beneath the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, initiated a new series from Death of Classical, which uses eerie venues like catacombs and cemeteries. This spot was particularly effective.

DALLAS – With performances of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi capped off an ambitious, even history-making Wagner project usually reserved for full staging in opera houses.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Music director David Danzmayr led the Oregon Symphony and soloist Jeffrey Ziegler in the West Coast premiere of a concerto by virtuoso percussionist-composer Andy Akiho that struck sparks of rhythmic intensity and wit.

NEW YORK – Meredith Monk has been creating, performing in, and recording multi-disciplinary music-based works for more than 60 years. At age 81, she offered the U.S. premiere of her expansive performance piece and installation Indra’s Net.

SAN DIEGO – With a performance of Mahler's massive and sonorously complex Resurrection Symphony, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra under music director Rafael Payare unveiled the $120-million transformation of its concert hall.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Well-balanced performances of Barber's Violin Concerto with the Australian teen Amaryn Olmeda and Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony bespoke qualities the orchestra has sustained through a decade under Carlos Izcaray.

PHILADELPHIA – En route to Opera Philadelphia, Missy Mazzoli’s The Listeners, about toxic modern America, has softened into something pungent with dark comic edges. But how many times can we hear the f-word sung before it turns artificial?

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Set in a Mennonite community in Northern Mexico, Silent Light by composer Paola Prestini and librettist Royce Vavrek creates a weave of ecstasy, guilt, and heartbreak in a production marking National Sawdust's 10th year.

PERSPECTIVE – When the San Diego Symphony Orchestra inaugurates the newly refurbished Jacobs Music Center on Sept. 28, it will mark the transformation of one of America’s great movie palaces into a state-of-the-art concert venue.

NEW YORK – What happens to the soul of an Air Force pilot when she gets an intimate view of the destruction she rains down on once-unseen targets? That's the churn summoned by composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist George Brant.

SAN FRANCISCO – A revival of Poul Ruders and Paul Bentley’s opera based on Margaret Atwood's futuristic story about women reduced to child-bearers in a theocratic United States, the San Francisco Opera's take was unsettling in its clarity.

SEATTLE – After naming Xian Zhang as its music director-designate, the Seattle Symphony opened its season with conductor emeritus Ludovic Morlot leading an upbeat Spanish/Latin program capped by a tepid Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue.

SUN VALLEY, Idaho – Situated in this flower-laden resort town, the Sun Valley Music Festival is unlike anything else in its posh setting: It's free. Writers from the Music Critics Association of North America had a close look at the spirited event.

NEW YORK – The Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center tapped into this year's Summer for the City theme with Schumann and the world premiere of Hannah Kendall’s He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.