Fine conducting, choral offerings, players outside the concert halls: Sounds good.

Even with the classical music world on pins and needles over the future of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the fall season hardly looks grim. Not only does the orchestra have a strong podium lineup - including chief conductor Charles Dutoit, music director designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and popular guest Vladimir Jurowski - but other organizations in town keep pushing forward with enterprising programs that are getting them out of the usual venues.

New Jersey's Symphony in C sets up shop in Macy's Grand Court on Oct. 1 for another Wanamaker Organ centennial celebration in which music director Rossen Milanov and organist Peter Richard Conte collaborate on Widor's Symphony No. 6. Network for New Music has something that promises to be part concert, part poetry slam at World Cafe Live Nov. 6. Opera Company of Philadelphia simulcasts its opening night of Carmen Sept. 30 on Independence Mall.

The season is unusually heavy on choral music, in part because Philadelphia loves to sing but also because Nézet-Séguin, who studied choral conducting at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, is doing Brahms' A German Requiem Nov. 3 to 5 with Dorothea Röschmann and Matthias Goerne. And heaven only knows what Donald Nally is cooking up for his choir, the Crossing, on Dec. 16 in Chestnut Hill.

Below, some performances my colleague Peter Dobrin and I anticipate this fall. - David Patrick Stearns,
Inquirer music critic

Whether or not the world needs another Carmen, Opera Company of Philadelphia has cast Rinat Shaham, a frequent guest of Christoph Eschenbach and an artist of intense intelligence, who sings the role at the Academy of Music Sept. 30 to Oct. 14. (www.operaphila.org or 215-732-8400)    - David Patrick Stearns

Pianist Stewart Goodyear makes a major Beethoven statement Oct. 6 in Longwood Gardens' suddenly formidable performing arts series - taking on the "Waldstein," "Tempest," "Moonlight," and "Appassionata" sonatas in a single recital. (tickets.longwoodgardens.org or 215-893-1999)    - Peter Dobrin
 

Pamela Frank, one of the most beloved American violinists, was sidelined by an injury roughly a decade ago but slowly has been returning to concert life. Her Philadelphia Chamber Music Society engagement on Oct. 9 at the American Philosophical Society provocatively juxtaposes Scriabin, Brahms, and Mozart with the temporarily reconstituted Guarneri Quartet plus pianist Gary Graffman. (www.pcmsconcerts.org or 215-569-8080)    - D.P.S.