Welcome to 2010-2011

Highs are still registering over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade (which is, I am sad to tell you, where highs are measured – highs in the sun are typically 130-plus) and already the Phoenix performing arts season is at flood, with The Phoenix Symphony revving up its classics concerts, Southwest Shakespeare and Phoenix Theatre in the middle of runs, and Ballet Arizona and ASU Gammage gearing up to start before the end of September.

The common wisdom among Arizona arts presenters is that anything prior to November or after April is begging for empty seats, what with the Snowbirds still in Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. Fortunately, the common wisdom is being challenged.

The Phoenix Symphony opened its season with a concert version of The Music Man last week, and commences its classics series proper with two great warhorses this week (Thursday, Sept. 16). The Brahms Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pathetique”) are the sort of pieces we hear in our sleep, so it will be up to TPS music director Michael Christie and violin soloist Augustin Hadelich to wake us up to beauties inherent in the scores, but not necessarily heard before.

I haven’t seen it yet, but everything I’ve heard from trusted friends about Phoenix Theatre’s production of Noises Off tells me it’s something I need to see before it closes this Sunday. Stiff competition comes, however, from ASU School of Music, where Sunday (Sept. 19) at 2:30 p.m., clarinetist Robert Spring gives his annual fall recital, intriguingly titled “Speak of the Devil” and including both new scores and a score or so of Spring’s ASU colleagues. Spring and guests — including flutist Elizabeth Buck, violinist Katie McLin and pianist Andrew Campbell — will perform a sonata by Saint-Saens and a bunch of new works, including one that requires two clarinetists each to play two clarinets at the same time. (Should one call this a duet or a quartet?)

And what, in the name of Francis Bacon, is Blood Royal? That’s a question rhetorical, since we know what it is: It’s Southwest Shakespeare’s adaptation of the Bard’s Henry VI trilogy into a single evening’s tale. Does it work? I have until Sept. 26 to find out.

Ballet Arizona grabs new fans every September with its “Ballet Under the Stars” program, concerts given outdoors in Valley parks. Fresh from triumph in Washington D.C., over the summer, Ballet Arizona presents this free series beginning Sept. 22 at various locations. ASU Gammage brings Broadway to the Valley Sept. 27-Oct. 2 with Young Frankenstein, the Mel Brooks musical based on his film. The ASU season combines new shows – others include Shrek: The Musical and Billy Elliot – plus revivals of old faves such as Fiddler on the Roof and Hair.

Enough to get you started? An embarrassment of riches, as the French say – though I suspect they say it in French. Hang on, the season only gets richer, busier, and more varied.

– Ken LaFave