It´s a good week for Beethoven. Friday and Saturday, the Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) opens its 2011–12 season with a concert that includes the exuberant Symphony No. 7 — so rhythmically exciting that Richard Wagner called it “the apotheosis of the dance.”

Bang! The classical music season is off and running in Boulder. The College of Music Faculty Tuesdays series, which has some especially tempting offerings this year, is already under way. Boulder Philharmonic opens its season Saturday in Macky Auditorium, and the Takács Quartet follows in Grusin Hall Sept. 18-19.

Zach DePue wants to break down walls. Not everyone can accomplish that with a violin, but DePue is a member of Time for Three. Known as a “classically trained garage band,” the trio of two violins and bass (DePue, Nicolas Kendall and Ranaan Meyer) has already earned a reputation for breaking barriers.

A fierce and earthy Carmen stalks the stage at the Central City Opera this summer. Director Daniel’s Pelzig’s production of Bizet’s ever-popular opera, starring mezzo Kirstin Chávez in the title role, opened the CCO’s diverse 2011 season June 25. There are eight more performances through the last day of the season, Aug. 7.

If the months-long Colorado Music Festival (CMF) were a gourmet restaurant, the spécialité de la maison would be the mini-festival that each year occupies a central place in the schedule. In past years, the specialty has been either a composer (Beethoven, Brahms) or a genre (piano concertos). This year it is the virtuoso violin.

Michael Christie knows what he wants at Boulder’s Colorado Music Festival (CMF). “Variety is most important,” says the festival’s music director. “What we do is look off the beaten track and then throw in some element that’s surprising.”

Early performances of a work still not finished are obviously beneficial to composers. They serve much the same purpose as out-of-town tryouts for Broadway shows: a chance to evaluate the opera's effectiveness and make any necessary changes before it is considered finished.

Min Tze Wu likes to break barriers. She broke several when she founded Sounds of Lyons, a classical chamber music festival in one of the world capitals of bluegrass.

The obstacles were obvious. Mahler's music requires very large orchestras and often a chorus. It is extremely challenging to the players and the conductor, and it has a limited, if devoted, audience of its own. Nobody had ever attempted anything like it.

The Takács Quartet premiered the Kellogg piece in New York last October and has since played it on tour around the world. At the premiere, both the work and the performance earned a glowing tribute from New York Times critic Vivien Schweitzer. Kellog's “intelligently wrought and harmonically intriguing work ... echoes a famous quartet by Schubert,” she wrote.