Hawaii’s classical music organizations will present both chamber music and orchestral performances this week, kicking off a season that will feature three of the most highly acclaimed artists in classical music — and a ghost from the past.

Chamber Music Hawaii, which features local artists in a variety of ensemble combinations, performs a program of Schubert and Wagner on Monday evening at Paliku Theatre. On Sept. 16, the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra opens its sixth season at Blaisdell Concert Hall with a concert devoted to the music of British rock group Queen. The performances launch a season full of highly anticipated offerings.

Chamber music lovers have plenty to look forward to. The Honolulu Chamber Music Series, which brings guest artists to the islands, will feature a number of young but astonishingly accomplished musical groups such as Time for Three, which performs an eclectic mix of classical and pop music, and the Grammy-nominated Eroica Trio. But the star of its series will be pianist Garrick Ohlsson, who in 1970 became the first — and to this day the only — American to win the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Now firmly established as one of the world’s pre-eminent pianists, he will give a solo recital in January.

Chamber Music Hawaii highlights its season with concerts dedicated to its string, wind and brass ensembles, along with a special presentation of the music of Antonio Salieri, whose music and character were depicted in less than complimentary terms in the film “Amadeus.” The February performances will be an adaptation of a Hawaii Public Radio show by KHON-TV news anchor Joe Moore, an occasional playwright and full-time Mozart aficionado. Moore’s play resurrected the ghost of Salieri to set his record straight as an accomplished and influential composer in his day.

Chamber Music Hawaii’s performance Monday at Paliku Theatre will be a “tresemble” concert, a term it uses when it combines ensembles. Strings, brass and winds will all be featured in Schubert’s grand “Octet in F Major” and Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” a precursor to the opera “Siegfried.” The concert will be repeated Sept. 19 at the Doris Duke Theatre.

Of the other chamber music recitals scheduled for this season, of particular interest for more traditional classical music lovers will be a visit by Camerata RCO, made of members of the esteemed Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of the Netherlands, on March 24, courtesy of the Honolulu Chamber Music Series.

For family fun, the return of conductor Rick Benjamin leading Chamber Music Hawaii performers in music composed for silent movies on May 20 will be welcome. As funny as Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd films are visually, Benjamin’s 2014 appearance here demonstrated the melodic madness of their films.

The symphony will feature lots of budding talent, veteran touring performers and local stars, capping its season with pianist Andre Watts, who was the first recipient of the Grammy for Most Promising Classical Artist and has done nothing to discredit that award. He will perform Rachmaninoff’s monumental Piano Concerto No. 2 in June. (It was recently announced that Watts has prostate cancer; he is expected to be fully recovered by then.) The orchestra’s pops series, meanwhile, will also be rockin’ ’n’ rollin’ as it expands its repertoire into new arenas of music.

The Queen concert, meanwhile, represents a new effort by the symphony to broaden its appeal, this time by reaching out to rock music fans.

“We think this is a different audience for us, and that’s part of our effort, to come up with things for a broader and wider audience,” said symphony Executive Director Jonathan Parrish.

The Sept. 16 concert will feature a small tribute band with the orchestra playing backup. “Queen used a lot of symphonic stuff in their albums, so it lends itself really well to symphonic treatment,” Parrish said.

Parrish, promising that orchestra members will be “really into” playing Queen’s tunes, such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions,” said the concert could set a trend. “If it works, we could be bringing them back to do Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, David Bowie, Prince,” he said. “It could be a whole series of its own — not an extensive one, maybe two or three concerts a year.”

On the classical side, the symphony’s MasterWorks series launches on Oct. 1 and 2, featuring the return of conductor Gerard Schwarz and guest pianist Conrad Tao. Both appeared here in 2014, with Tao giving a muscular performance of Grieg, and Schwarz providing plenty of musical cues to those trying to solve Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” Their program will feature Brahms Symphony No. 3, Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” and Liszt’s “Les Preludes.”

Familiar names and many new ones appear throughout the rest of the symphony’s 12-program, 20-concert MasterWorks season. Out of the returning artists, of particular note is violinist Augustin Hadelich, a recent Grammy winner, who got a standing ovation here after playing just the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major in 2015; and conductor Xian Zhang, whose sweeping, graceful gestures were a pleasure to watch during Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” and Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” last season. Hadelich will perform Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” in November, and Zhang leads the orchestra in February in a program featuring Tchaikovsky works and Brahms’ Double Concerto. That piece will highlight two of the symphony’s star performers, concertmaster Iggy Jang and principal cellist Mark Votapek.

Another familiar name is pianist Sean Kennard, who grew up in Hawaii studying with the late Ellen Masaki and has since gone on to a successful touring and competitive career. He will be giving a solo recital at the University of Hawaii on Nov. 6 and will perform Liszt with the symphony Nov. 13.

Several soloists will make their Hawaii debuts this season, which is particularly strong in young violinists. Parrish cited Taiwanese-Australian violinist Ray Chen as an “exciting performer” and Sayaka Shoji as “a wonderful Japanese violinist.”

Musically, the symphony’s season will feature both favorites and less-performed works. A highlight will be the world premiere of “Kumulipo Reflections,” by Anders Paulsson. The Swedish composer was prompted by the 13th International Coral Reef Symposium, held this summer in Honolulu, to write a piece that, “through music, would promote the idea of coral reef preservation,” Parrish said.

The symphony put Paulsson in touch with Aaron Mahi, former conductor of both the Honolulu Symphony and the Royal Hawaiian Band, who told him of the “Kumulipo,” the Hawaiian story of creation. Parrish has heard parts of the work and called it “very dramatic, very cinematic,” adding, “It’s clearly going to be tremendous.”

The performance will include projections of ocean images, a dramatic touch that will also be featured in the symphony’s performance of Holst’s grand work “The Planets” in October. Conductor Sarah Ioannides will bring a video of planetary explorations to give visual accompaniment to the music. “She’s done it with great success elsewhere, and I think it will be fun for our audience to actually hear ‘The Planets’ and see the results of NASA explorations,” Parrish said.

Hawaii Opera Theatre brings the great mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, a star at the Metropolitan Opera since her debut in 1970, to the stage. She will grace the Hawaii Theatre stage for “Three Decembers,” a modern opera based on a play by Terrence McNally about an aging actress.

HOT also will debut Andre Previn’s adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” along with opera favorites “La Boheme” and “Tales of Hoffman.”

As has become practice in the past few season, it will present one production in the fall, “La Boheme” in October, with the remaining three productions in the spring: “Streetcar” in January, “Three Decembers” in March and “Tales of Hoffman” in April.

“We’re excited about the season because it’s such a mix,” said HOT Executive Director Simon Crookall. “We’ve got two operas by living American composers, which I think is a first for HOT and a very good sign that we’re embracing the new and trying to move the art form forward.

“Obviously, we want to continue to present the great masterpieces of opera. ‘La Boheme’ is an example of that — it will be a fabulous cast and a great production. … And then ‘Hoffman’ at the end of the year is such a great vehicle for singers and for innovative production. I think we’ve got terrific variety and should be proud of that.”

Getting Von Stade to perform here stemmed from HOT’s interest in American composer Jake Heggie, who has also written the operas “Moby-Dick,” “Dead Man Walking” and “The End of the Affair,” Crookall said.

“Three Decembers,” which premiered in 2008, is an intimate production, with three singers and a small ensemble. Von Stade starred in the lead role, and she was happy to reprise her performance in Hawaii, having come here in recent years to work with young opera singers, Crookall said.

“We’re bringing the original cast from the first production,” Crookall said. “Obviously, that means they know the work best and can present the work best.”

HOT will be taking the production to three neighbor islands — Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island — another first for the company.

The Honolulu shows will be significant as HOT’s first full productions in the historic Hawaii Theatre.

“‘Three Decembers’ is about an actress coming to the end of her career and looking back over her life, and this actress has probably played many venues like the Hawaii Theatre, so it’s just the perfect venue for that,” Crookalls said. “It will suit the atmosphere of the piece.”

Hawaii Opera Theatre will also be bringing back Sol3 Mio, the trio of Samoan-New Zealanders who wowed the audience with their blend of pop, Broadway and Polynesian songs. They’ll be coming in January in the midst of the run of “Streetcar.”

“I think one of the important things to say about HOT now is that we are able to be much more flexible about what we do and where and how we tailor our programs,” he said. “We’re not trying to do a one-size-fits-all in the Blaisdell, and that’s it.”

CHAMBER MUSIC HAWAII

Tickets: $30. chambermusichawaii.org or 489-5038

Tresemble

7:30 p.m. Sept. 12, Paliku Theatre; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 19, Doris Duke Theatre. Schubert, “Octet in F”; Wagner, “Siegfried Idyll”

Galliard String Quartet

4 p.m. Oct. 9, Doris Duke Theatre; 7 p.m. Oct. 11, UH-West Oahu library; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24, Paliku Theatre. Schubert, “Quartetsatz”; Beethoven, String Quartet No. 10 “Harp”; Shostakovich, Quartet No. 3

Spring Wind Quintet

7:30 p.m. Nov. 21, Doris Duke Theatre; 7 p.m. Nov. 22, UH-West Oahu library; 7:30 p.m. Nov. 28, Paliku Theatre. Respighi, Wind Quintet; Strappa “Music for the Great Circus of the World”; Puccini, “Crisantemi”

Honolulu Brass Choir

7:30 p.m. Dec. 5, St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Seasonal music for brass and percussion

Honolulu Brass Quintet

7 p.m. Dec. 6, UH-West Oahu library; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12, Paliku Theatre.Seasonal music

Wu Han & Tresemble

7:30 p.m. Jan. 16, Doris Duke Theatre

Pianist Wu Han, co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center New York, joins CMH players in Gaubert’s “Medailles Antiques,” Malcolm Arnold’s Oboe Quartet, Op. 61, Dring’s “Trio” and Dohnanyi’s Piano Quintet in C Minor, Op. 1.

“Maligned Master: Setting the Record Straight on Salieri,” with Joe Moore

4 p.m. Feb. 12, Doris Duke Theatre; 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13, Paliku Theatre

Moore reveals the truth about Antonio Salieri, featuring the U.S. premiere of Johann Wendt’s arrangements from Salieri’s opera “La Grotta di Trofonio.”

Honolulu Brass Quintet

7:30 p.m. March 13, Paliku Theatre; 7:30 p.m. March 20, Doris Duke Theatre

Bruce Adolphe, “Triakelion”; Victor Ewald, Brass Quintet No. 4

Tresemble

7:30 p.m. April 10, Paliku Theatre; 7:30 p.m. April 24, Doris Duke Theatre

Dvorak, String Quintet, Op. 77; Beethoven, “Serenade in D”

CMH at the Movies!

7:30 p.m. May 20, Orvis Auditorium, UH Manoa. Conductor Rick Benjamin leads CMH players in music of silent-movie classics

HAWAI‘I SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Blaisdell Concert Hall, unless noted. MasterWorks concerts $34-$92, musicthatrocks and pops (schedule TBA) $29-$89. hawaiisymphonyorchestra.org or 946-8742

The Music of Queen

7:30 p.m. Sept. 16

Season Opening Gala

5:30 p.m. Sept. 30, Neiman Marcus: with Conrad Tao, piano and Gerard Schwarz. $300; tables from $3,000

Tao Rachs!

7:30 p.m. Oct. 1, 4 p.m. Oct. 2: Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Conrad Tao, piano. Program: Brahms, Symphony No. 3; Rachmaninoff, “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”; Liszt, “Les Preludes”

The Planets

4 p.m. Oct. 30: Sarah Ioannides, conductor; Ray Chen, violin. Program: Wagenaar, “The Taming of the Shrew Overture”; Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1; Holst, “The Planets”

Kennard Plays Liszt

4 p.m. Nov. 13: Ward Stare, conductor; Sean Kennard, piano. Program: Wagner, Overture to “Rienzi”: Liszt, Piano Concerto No. 1; Sibelius, Symphony No. 5

Augustin Plays Lalo

7:30 p.m. Nov. 19, 4 p.m. Nov. 20: Marcelo Lehninger, conductor; Augustin Hadelich, violin. Program: Mozart, Overture to “The Magic Flute”; Lalo, “Symphonie Espagnole”; Beethoven, Symphony No. 4

Ode to Joy

7:30 Dec. 29-30: (Friday-Saturday): JoAnn Falletta, conductor. Program: Strauss, “Death & Transfiguration”; Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, “Choral”

Made in America

4 p.m. Jan. 8: JoAnn Falletta, conductor; William Wolfram, piano. Program: Barber, “The School for Scandal Overture”; Gershwin, Piano Concerto in F Major; John Corigliano, “Phantasmagoria Suite”; Bernstein, “West Side Story” Symphonic Dances

Brahms Double Concerto

7:30 p.m. Feb. 4, 4 p.m. Feb. 5: Xian Zhang, conductor; Ignace Jang, violin, Mark Votapek, cello. Program: Rachmaninoff, “Vocalise”; Brahms, Violin and Cello Concerto in A Minor; Tchaikovsky, Suite from “Sleeping Beauty”; Tchaikovsky, “Marche Slave”

Schubert “The Great”

7:30 p.m. Feb. 18, 4 p.m. Feb. 19: Rune Bergmann, conductor; Joseph Swenson, violin. Program: Barber, Violin Concerto, Op. 14; Schubert, Symphony No. 9, “The Great”

Beethoven & Schumann

4 p.m. March 19: Jun Maerkl, conductor; Zhang Zuo, piano. Program: Beethoven, Overture to “Fidelio”; Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 1; Schumann, Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish”

Ocean Dreams

7:30 p.m. April 1, 4 p.m. April 2: JoAnn Falletta, conductor; JinJoo Choo, violin. Program: Zemlinsky, “The Little Mermaid”; Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto; Anders Paulsson, “Kumulipo Reflections” (world premiere)

Romeo & Juliet

7:30 p.m. May 13, 4 p.m. May 14: Ken Lam, conductor; Sayaka Shoji, violin. Program: Vaughan Williams, “Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus”; Respighi, “Concerto Gregoriano”; Prokofiev, “Romeo & Juliet” Suite

Season Finale with Otomo and Watts

7:30 p.m. June 10, 4 p.m. June 11: Naoto Otomo, conductor; Andre Watts, piano. Program: Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 2; Ravel, “Mother Goose Suite”; Stravinsky, “The Firebird”

HONOLULU CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES

All concerts at 7:30 p.m., Orvis Auditorium. $20-$45 ($60 for Garrick Ohlsson). honoluluchambermusicseries.org

Sept. 27: Time for Three — a “classically trained garage band”

Nov. 20: Dover String Quartet — award-winning young string quartet

Jan. 28: Garrick Ohlsson — Grammy winner for Beethoven recording

Feb. 11: Eroica Trio — Grammy-nominated trio returns

March 24: Camerata RCA — chamber music by members of one of the world’s finest orchestras

HAWAII OPERA THEATRE

$29-$130 (Blaisdell Concert Hall productions), $30-$90 (Hawaii Theatre). hawaiioperatheatre.org or 596-7858. * denotes Hawaii Opera Theatre debut.

Puccini’s “La Boheme”

Oct. 14, 16, & 18, 2016

Elizabeth Caballero, Mackenzie Whitney,* Wes Mason, Nathan Stark, Michael Weyandt*, Rachelle Durkin, Kevin J. Glavin

Previn’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Jan. 27, 29, 31

Jill Gardner, Ryan McKinny, Stacey Tappan*, Richard Cox*, Victoria Livengood, Kip Wilborn

Heggie’s “Three Decembers”

March 24, 25, & 26 (Hawaii Theatre)

Frederica von Stade*, Kristin Clayton*, Keith Phares*

Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann”

April 21, 23, 25

Eric Fennell*, Wayne Tigges*, Rachele Gilmore*, Christina Arand*, Eve Gigliotti*, Valerian Ruminski