JAAP VAN ZWEDEN One of the surprises of this conductor’s first season as music director of the New York Philharmonic was that he seemed more adept at contemporary music than at the standard repertory with which he’s more closely associated. His embrace of the new continues: He opens the Philharmonic’s season on Sept. 18 with the premiere of Philip Glass’s “King Lear Overture,” then turns on the 26th to staged performances of Schoenberg’s “Erwartung” and Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle.” Oct. 7 brings Beethoven — whose 250th birthday will make him even more omnipresent than usual this season, around the world — and Lang Lang, who also plays Carnegie Hall on May 7. Another brilliant pianist, Daniil Trifonov, joins at the end of November for Scriabin’s Romantic but unassuming concerto. (Mr. Trifonov plays arrangements of Bach and “The Art of Fugue” at Alice Tully Hall on March 3.) As part of the Philharmonic’s Project 19 series of commissions from female composers, Mr. van Zweden also leads new works by Nina C. Young, Tania León and Ellen Reid, as well as lots of Mahler and the music of Steve Reich, Nico Muhly and John Adams (his luminous early choral work “Harmonium”). nyphil.org.

EMPAC The experimental arts center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., has recently hired a new curator of music, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, whose first program, on Sept. 20, will be a solo concert by the sound artist and vocalist Ken Ueno. (A concert by Sarah Hennies, a composer and percussionist whose works explore intimacy and transgender identity, follows on Dec. 4; Ms. Hennies’s work will also be featured as part of the Ferus Festival at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on Jan. 10-14 .) empac.rpi.edu.

ODYSSEY OPERA One of the nation’s most intriguing opera companies starts a season devoted to the Tudor dynasty — and repertory obscurities — on Sept. 21 with Saint-Saëns’s “Henry VIII.” Other offerings include Pacini’s “Maria, Regina d’Inghilterra”; the premiere of Arnold Rosner’s “The Chronicle of Nine,” about Lady Jane Grey; Rossini’s “Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra”; Britten’s “Gloriana,” with Anna Caterina Antonacci making a rare American appearance as Elizabeth I; and Edward German’s “Merrie England.” odysseyopera.org.

ST. LOUIS SYMPHONY Welcoming its new music director, Stéphane Denève, with a program called “Bienvenue Stéphane” (Sept. 21-22), it’s clear what this superb orchestra is highlighting: Mr. Denève’s French background (Debussy, Connesson, Ravel); his curiosity about contemporary music (Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Puts); and his considerable energy (“An American in Paris”). March brings a concert version of Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust” — a work that the Metropolitan Opera has demoted from full production to concert performances at the end of January. slso.org.