PEOPLES’ SYMPHONY CONCERTS One of music’s under-the-radar steals returns with a densely programmed lineup of excellent, inexpensive concerts. A six-show series ends up being less than $10 a ticket, and single tickets max out at just double that. The artists include Paul Lewis, Jonathan Biss, Peter Serkin, Richard Goode and the Juilliard String Quartet. Things get started with the chamber group Russian Renaissance. Season opens Oct. 13; pscny.org. 

 

‘MARNIE’ Based on the Winston Graham page-turner that also inspired Hitchcock’s film, Nico Muhly’s new opera about a psychologically damaged young woman who compulsively changes her identity is streamlined and atmospheric without being truly dramatic. Isabel Leonard and Christopher Maltman star opposite the countertenor Iestyn Davies, who also appears in recital at Carnegie Hall in May. Robert Spano conducts; Michael Mayer directs. (Ever prolific, Mr. Muhly has also written premieres for the Tallis Scholars, at the Miller Theater in December, and for Trinity Wall Street, in February.) Opens Oct. 19; metopera.org. 

 

BOSTON LYRIC OPERA Music drama in Boston is in good shape this season between Odyssey Opera and this resourceful company, which presents the premiere of “Schoenberg in Hollywood,” Tod Machover’s film- and technology-heavy work about that great composer’s flight from Nazi Germany to California. (A new, timely production of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Poul Ruders’s grimly anxious 2000 adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel, arrives in May.) Nov. 14-18, blo.org. 

DANISH STRING QUARTET One of the finest, most passionate young quartets in the world makes its debut at the 92nd Street Y with two pathbreaking pieces — one of Haydn’s Opus 20 quartets and Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” — alongside Hans Abrahamsen’s Quartet No. 1, “10 Preludes.” Nov. 17, 92y.org.

MATTHEW POLENZANI There’s a heartening helping of appearances this season by this tenor, whose Mozartian gallantry has settled into a kind of heroic grace. Star turns at the Met Opera in Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” (in January and February) and Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” (in March and April) are bookends for a Carnegie Hall recital with works by Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms and, most compelling, Janacek’s haunting cycle “The Diary of One Who Disappeared,” with the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano. Feb. 24, carnegiehall.org. 

 

ANDRAS SCHIFF “Nothing short of astounding” was James R. Oestreich’s account of this eminent pianist’s appearance at Carnegie Hall in April. Mr. Schiff returns with a characteristically capacious program of works by Bach, Bartok, Janacek and Schumann. March 7, carnegiehall.org.