For many recent seasons, the Monterey Symphony has offered classical comfort food to its audiences, the often-played staples of the repertoire and most classical radio. But music director Max Bragado-Darman’s coming 2009-10 season cracks open a wide vista on the new and unfamiliar in Monterey County, starting with the opening October program that introduces Dave and Chris Brubeck’s brand-new Ansel Adams: America. The work was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras, including the Monterey Symphony, and will be performed while iconic Adams photographs are projected.

Brubeck’s musical genius has expanded on a grand canvas for orchestra, often including large choruses, on equally expansive, even universal, themes. And the older he gets – he’s now 88 – the more driven he is to give expression to the churning world of music inside his head. A 2003 Telarc CD titled Classical Brubeck offers an astonishing two-plus hours of vivid music under the titles: “Beloved Son,” “Pange Lingua Variations” and “Voice of the Holy Spirit.” Each of them accommodates some of Brubeck’s distinctive jazz stylings. Its companion piece is Dvorák’s “New World Symphony.”

Guest conductor Arthur Post takes the podium in early December for a dalliance in French romantic opera, starring soprano Tracy Dahl, while in January, Bragado-Darman conduct's Rossini’s “Overture” to La scala di seta, along with Samuel Barber’s gorgeous “Violin Concerto,” featuring Judith Ingolfsson, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C major. Oscar-winning Corigliano says of “Tournaments,” which dates from 1965, “first-desk players and entire sections vie with each other in displaying their virtuosity.”

After 11 years, Dmitry Yablonsky returns in February to conduct works by Glinka and Shostakovich, and Alexander Scriabin’s lushly sprawling “Symphony No. 2.” Bragado-Darman leads the last three programs of the season, in March with pianist Sara Buechner playing Gershwin’s “Concerto in F,” Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” and the rarely heard “Cockaigne Overture by Elgar.” The April program offers Brahms’ “Serenade No. 2” and, with the “Symphony Chorus,” a Schubert song for male chorus and the Fauré’s comforting “Requiem.” May’s concert brings pianist Gary Graffman for Ravel’s “Concerto for the Left Hand, Rodrigo’s Per La Flor Del Lliri Blau” and Turina’s “Sinfonia Sevillana,” with Ravel’s “Bolero” as the season’s exclamation point. For the complete schedule, visit www.montereysymphony.org.

The Carmel Music Society marketing plan emphasizes the artists, and they open on Oct. 17 at Sunset Center with the St. Martin-in-the-Fields strings playing octets by Mendelssohn and Raff. The CMS season also includes the Mozart Society of California presenting the Alexander String Quartet, Oct. 30, at All Saints Church. On Nov. 29, the outstanding mezzo-soprano Susan Graham will likely sell out Sunset.

Legendary pianist Menahem Pressler appears Jan. 23 with the American String Quartet. For the Mozart Society, pianist Gustavo Romero plays an all-Chopin program at Sunset, while the Jacques Thibaud String Trio from Berlin appears at All Saints March 5. American violinist Tim Fain will be joined in recital by Israel-born pianist Rina Dokshitski on April 4. On April 30, the Rossetti String Quartet will make the Mozart Society members smile, and on May 14 soprano Devon Guthrie, who won first prize at last year’s competition, will perform her winners’ recital. See www.carmelmusic.org.

The acclaimed – some say “hi-def” – Emerson Quartet opens the Chamber Music Monterey Bay season at Sunset, with Schubert, Shostakovich and Dvorák, Oct 23. In 1997, the celebrated Canadian violinist Angèle Dubeau founded La Pietà, an all-female string ensemble that appears in Carmel on Nov. 21 to play virtuoso works from Kreisler to Glass to Bernstein to Pärt.

Clarinet wizard Richard Stoltzman returns to Sunset Jan. 16, this time with the Borromeo String Quartet, featuring the rare Hindemith Clarinet Quintet along with Mozart and Schumann. The ATOS Piano Trio appears on Feb. 19 in music by Beethoven, Cassadó and Schubert; formed in Germany in 2003, they won the 2007 Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award. The popular Cypress String Quartet wraps the season on Apr. 17 playing Mendelssohn, Beethoven and their recently commissioned quartet by Kevin Puts, “Lento Assai.” See www.chambermusicmontereybay.org