Season Tickets

As spring fades, so does the classical concert season, with the locally owned and operated ensembles easing into their final concerts this weekend. It’s a good time for music lovers to take advantage while they can.

After the mighty Ojai Festival--Ventura County’s greatest claim to international fame--in the first week of June, summertime gets lean for classical music in Ventura County. But there are plenty of enticements to the north, with the Music Academy of the West’s reliably bold programming of concerts and public-invited master classes.

This weekend, the New West Symphony goes out with a raucous, crowd-pleasing bang, giving full weight to Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” The orchestral forces will be fortified with the vocal talents of both the Los Robles Master Chorale and the Ventura County Master Chorale, as well as the children’s choirs of both organizations.

A similar marshaling of the county’s musical ensembles occurred at Christmas with a massive Messiah. Baritone Nmon Ford-Levine, heard in the Messiah, returns as soloist, along with soprano Rebecca Sherburn and tenor Joseph Meyers. The program’s other star soloists are pianists Vicki Ray and Gloria Cheng-Cochran, those laudable Los Angeles-based champions of new music, here performing Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two pianos.

DETAILS

New West Symphony, 8 p.m. Friday at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., $9-37, 449-2787; and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson Way in Oxnard, $8-37, 486-2424.

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SPANNING THE AGES: The Camerata Pacifica ends an inspiring concert season this weekend in Ventura on Saturday and in Thousand Oaks on Sunday with a 19th-century-meets-20th-century program.

The romantic flavor of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet and Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor will be interspersed with Jacob Druckman’s “Valentine” for solo double bass (Nico Abondolo doing the honors) and, leaning toward the Latin-jazz side, a performance of drummer-composer Luis Munoz’s “Yiquirro.”

A Costa Rican who came to UC Santa Barbara to study music in the ‘70s and never left, Munoz has had an important role in the local music scene and has, in the last few years, branched out into the larger scene with well-received CDs. This is his first local foray into the classical zone.

DETAILS

Camerata Pacifica, Saturday at Temple Beth Torah in Ventura and Sunday at the Forum Theater of the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks. Both shows start at 8 p.m. Tickets are $23; 961-0571.

LOCAL-GLOBAL JAZZ HERO: Charles Lloyd, the legendary saxophonist who lives on a hillside with a view of Santa Barbara, will play at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City on Friday and Saturday.

This year’s Charles Lloyd experience is one that circles back on his own history. He teamed up with an old compadre, drummer Billy Higgins, and guitarist John Abercrombie, whose angular, probing style has some of its roots in the playing of the late Hungarian guitarist, Gabor Szabo, an important ally of Lloyd’s in the ‘60s.

Lloyd’s new recording, “Voice in the Night,” covers a wide spread of material, from his new originals to a fresh version of his late ‘60s hit, “Forest Flower.” For cover material, he pulled out “God Give Me Strength” by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach and the lovely ballad “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing” by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. It all holds together, with emotions tugging in various directions, including into the magnetic realm of nostalgia.

Lloyd, a kind of global-local hero in the tri-county area, will bring that group, with bassist Marc Johnson replacing the album’s bassist Dave Holland, to Culver City this weekend, and it’s worth a drive down. The group is making a sweep of American cities, including a gig at the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans and winding up as one of the headliners of the Bell Atlantic jazz festival at Manhattan’s Knitting Factory in June.

DETAILS

Charles Lloyd, 8 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Jazz Bakery, Helms Avenue near Venice Boulevard, Culver City, $25, (310) 271-9039.