Week of High Notes in Classical Concerts : The outstanding events could make this the highlight of Ventura County’s musical year.

As the concert season lurches into spring, classical music offerings around Ventura pick up the pace. This coming week may, in fact, be the strongest of the year, in terms of recommendable options for concert-goers.

Between programs by Los Robles Master Chorale, along with the Conejo Symphony, and two separate Ventura County Symphony concerts, there’s no lack of worthy excuses to get out of the house.

*

On Saturday and Sunday in Thousand Oaks, Los Robles Master Chorale (formerly the Moorpark Master Chorale) will undertake its most ambitious program of the year. Abetted by the Conejo Symphony’s orchestral forces--as it was in concert a year ago--the master chorale’s director, James Stemen, will lead his group in performances of Haydn’s “Te Deum” and, as the epic centerpiece, Beethoven’s Mass in C Major.

The Beethoven performance will be a public local warm-up for the master chorale’s tour of Britain this summer, when it plays a part in the International Church Festival at Coventry Cathedral.

*

This has been a season of anticipation for the Conejo Symphony, which makes a substantial move next year from its current concert home on the Cal Lutheran campus to the new Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza Auditorium. For its 34th consecutive concert season beginning in October, the Conejo Symphony, led by Elmer Ramsey, will make the arts compound safe for classical music.

Recently, the symphony organization released news of its first season in the complex. Besides making a notable venue change, the symphony has increased its concert season--from five to seven performances.

The guest artists come from different corners of the map, from the light stuff of Victor Borge and Shirley Jones--the first and last concerts, respectively--to pianists Daniel Pollack and Vladimir Feltsman, violinist Glenn Dicterow and baritone Sylvester Blue. The Feb. 11 program will be devoted to the music of composer-patron saint Gordon Getty.

*

This week also finds not one, but two Ventura County Symphony concerts.

On the regular subscription series, we find a program under the title “Amadeus Plus,” a mostly Mozart evening Saturday at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium. Young Hong Kong-born pianist Angela Cheng, winner of the Montreal International Piano Competition, will tackle Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 488.

Also on the program are Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony and Max Reger’s Variations & Fugue on a Theme by Mozart.

If you’re on the lookout for some serious non-European music diversion, head over to the Spanish Hills Country Club--of all places--where the final of three concerts in the exciting Music Alive! series will take place Tuesday.

This program, under the heading of “India Alive!,” continues with the series concept of matching world music with contemporary composition. On the program will be Ravi Shankar’s Sitar Concerto With Orchestra, conducted by Boris Brott. The CalArts Multicultural Instrumental Ensemble, led by Amiya Dasgupta, will perform Dasgupta’s “Sur-O-Chanda” (“Melody and Rhythm”).

This series looks to be easily the most provocative new wrinkle in the county’s cultural agenda this season. The idly curious and the committed are well-advised to check it out.

*

Sooner than we think, the Ojai Festival hits town, bringing with it the county’s obvious musical apex--at least in terms of international profile. Whatever programmatic waxing and waning the Ojai Festival can be accused of in the past several years, it refuses to be pedestrian or predictable.

That first weekend of summer in Ojai is a reliably fine way to kick off the summer and cap off the official concert season.

This June 3 to 5, Ojai veteran Michael Tilson Thomas takes the reins and the podium. The five-concert weekend program, for this festival, runs an unusually wide gamut across history and style.

The program will include music by Mahler, Brahms, Astor Piazolla, Stravinsky (the unofficial saint of Ojai), Varese, Schubert, Takemitsu, and on and on. Saturday night’s concert will be a two-piano recital, featuring Thomas and Ralph Grierson, of music by John Cage, Lou Harrison, Nicolas Slonimsky and others. Featured guest artists will include renowned baritone Thomas Hampson and flutist Paula Robison.

Thomas’ return to Ojai--his seventh time here--signifies a sense of full circularity. He appeared in Ojai as a young up-and-comer beginning some 25 years ago. Now in a healthy mid-career, he will come with experience as the former conductor of the London Symphony, founder of the New World Symphony (which will be featured in Ojai) and, beginning in the fall, as music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

Can we, chauvinistically, claim him as an honorary son?

Details

Los Robles Master Chorale with the Conejo Symphony Orchestra, 8:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Paschal Baylon Catholic Church, 155 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks, and 4 p.m. Sunday at Ascension Lutheran Church, 1600 Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks. For information: 482-7357.

Ventura County Symphony, 8 p.m. Saturday at Oxnard Civic Auditorium, 800 Hobson Road. For information: 643-8646.

“India Alive!” at Spanish Hills Country Club, 999 Crestview Ave., Camarillo, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. For information: 643-8646.

The Ojai Festival, June 3 to 5, at the Libbey Bowl in Ojai. Info: 646-2094.