Philharmonia Orchestra, Oct. 28
Expect sparks to fly when Marin Alsop leads the Philharmonia Orchestra in Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, with its eye-popping bursts of instrumental color. In the first half, the elegant pianist Alexandre Kantorow takes on the electric wit of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. In March, Alsop returns to lead the Philadelphia Orchestra in more Prokofiev, as well as a new work by John Adams and Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, with Hayato Sumino, the YouTube sensation and audience favorite at the 2021 Chopin Competition. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Nov. 6
When the conductor Raphaël Pichon made his New York debut at Carnegie with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s last month, he pulled together pieces by Schubert into a fascinating narrative program. Returning with St. Luke’s next season, his subject appears to be Beethoven, with a concert including the almighty Ninth Symphony; the great slow movement from the Seventh Symphony, in Friedrich Silcher’s unfamiliar choral arrangement; and little-heard selections from Beethoven’s incidental music for “Leonore Prohaska.” ZACHARY WOOLFE
Nicolas Altstaedt and Thomas Dunford, Nov. 18
The vibrant lutenist Thomas Dunford and the sweet-toned cellist Nicolas Altstaedt come together in the intimate Weill Recital Hall for a program featuring French Baroque pieces originally written for viola da gamba by Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray. Parts of Bach’s great cello suites are also on the agenda, as is a melancholy movement from Henri Duparc’s 19th-century Cello Sonata. Dunford and Altstaedt also nod to Pärt’s composer residency with a transcription of one his most celebrated pieces, “Spiegel im Spiegel.” ZACHARY WOOLFE
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Dec. 3
Manfred Honeck’s directorship of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra must be counted as one of the country’s most successful conductor-ensemble collaborations, his thoughtful interpretations of the standard repertory inflaming the players’ super-committed virtuosity. They will bring to Carnegie a program that begins with Lera Auerbach’s “Frozen Dreams” and features the pianist Seong-Jin Cho in Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini,” before closing with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, which they released in 2017 on a refined yet coruscating recording. ZACHARY WOOLFE
Igor Levit, Jan. 22
A pianist of dashing perspicacity and muscular technique, Igor Levit likes to double down on challenges. Last March, he regaled Carnegie concertgoers with solo transcriptions of symphonic works by Mahler and Beethoven, and next season he tackles variations, with Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations and Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated.” These pieces, which take off from a throwaway waltz and a Chilean protest song, require the kind of long-breathed concentration that is Levit’s forte. OUSSAMA ZAHR
Leif Ove Andsnes, Jan. 27
You go to a recital by the pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to be as surprised as you are awed. His dignified virtuosity is a given, and will be a reason to a look forward to Robert Schumann’s “Carnaval” at the end of a program that also includes works less famous but likely more revelatory: selections from Gyorgy Kurtag’s “Jatekok,” Janacek’s “On the Overgrown Path” and Liszt’s “Consolations,” as well as more Schumann and a Bartok Burlesque. JOSHUA BARONE
