Art imitates life, life imitates art, and everything imitates the Internet—or at least that’s what the coming concert-music season looks like. It’s not that every conceivable musical style is available all the time, but there’s more mixing and matching and cross-pollination going on than ever before.

Examples? Well, almost every non-pops event that the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will host features new or newish music, mostly by Canadian composers, alongside the expected European masters. Jeremy Denk’s Vancouver Recital Society concert jumps from early music to jazz to early-20th-century experimentation. For Vancouver New Music, electronic innovator Tim Hecker is repurposing sounds from the 16th century. Fusion is in the air for fall, and this seems a very good thing.

Beethoven Violin Concerto

(September 26 and 28 at the Orpheum)

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra opens its fall season with its big guns blazing, as Bramwell Tovey conducts soloist Miriam Fried in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Also on what promises to be an action-packed bill: Hector Berlioz, Richard Strauss, and the premiere of a new work by Edmonton-born Vivian Fung.

The Draw: High drama and deep musicality.

Target Audience: Listeners ready for some indoor brilliance after a summer full of sun.

Rigoletto

(September 26 to October 4 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre)

With Gordon Hawkins in the title role and Simone Osborne as his innocent daughter Gilda, Vancouver Opera’s season-opener should sizzle.

The Draw: Giuseppe Verdi’s ability to balance indelible arias with a shocking story of revenge gone awry.

Target Audience: Vendetta connoisseurs who prefer their sopranos to sing while they smoulder.

Bach and the Boys

(October 2 at St. James Community Hall)

It’s such a strong idea; why is it so rarely done? Perhaps because the father so thoroughly eclipsed the sons, but musica intima’s journey through four generations of Johann Sebastian Bach’s family tree will certainly draw on sturdy roots.

The Draw: Some of the greatest music ever written—and some that’s inarguably not quite so great.

Target Audience: Historians and Bach hagiographers.

Jeremy Denk

(October 18 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts)

American pianist Jeremy Denk received a MacArthur “genius” award in 2013, and only a genius could pull off what he has in store for local listeners at this Vancouver Recital Society concert.

The Draw: Denk’s crazily engaging program runs from the ageless (Johann Sebastian Bach’s English Suite No. 3 in G Minor) to the jazzy (Art Tatum’s quicksilver arrangement of “Tea for Two”) to the impossible (Conlon Nancarrow’s Canon, originally scored for player piano).

Target Audience: Pianists. All of them.

Paco Peña

(October 24 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts)

We’re normally wary of superlatives, but when those in the know cite Paco Peña as the greatest living flamenco guitarist, it’s hard to disagree.

The Draw: Okay, let’s tone it down a little: Paco Peña is the finest flamenco guitarist you’re likely to hear without making a pilgrimage to Jerez de la Frontera.

Target Audience: Listeners searching for some Andalusian heat during Vancouver’s October drizzle.

88 Tuned Bongos: Under the Hood

(November 6 at the Western Front)

First up, composer Doug Blackley uses the electronic possibilities of the Western Front’s Yamaha Disklavier to present the shimmering, layered overtones of his Spectral Piano Project. After that, Bang on a Can keyboardist Vicky Chow presents the world premiere of Adam Basanta and Remy Siu’s Foxconn Frequency no. 2—for single visibly Chinese performer.

The Draw: A brilliant machine and a beautifully human soloist.

Target Audience: Futurists and explorers.

Turning Point Ensemble

(November 6 to 11 at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts)

The dark story of a doomed airliner inspired air india [redacted], presented on the 30th anniversary of Canada’s most devastating terrorist attack. Irish composer Jürgen Simpson wrote this world premiere with Vancouver poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar; media artist John Galvin, director Tom Creed, and Turning Point Ensemble conductor Owen Underhill will help bring it to light.

The Draw: An all-star cast of musicians and singers, including soprano Zorana Sadiq.

Target Audience: Serious music lovers open to equally serious topics.

Brothers in Arms

(November 11 at West Vancouver United Church and St. Andrew’s–Wesley United Church)

A West Van matinee and a downtown showcase offer Chor Leoni’s many admirers two chances to indulge in harmony rather than conflict on Remembrance Day.

The Draw: Yes, the Dire Straits song is on the bill, but so is soprano Laura Widgett, who’ll bring some female energy to this choral band of brothers.

Target Audience: Lovers of stirring, soulful singing.

Dialogos Ensemble

(November 13 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts)

In Swithun: A Medieval Miracle Play, the four female singers of the Dialogos Ensemble pay tribute to Winchester Cathedral’s patron saint.

The Draw: Music as it would have been sung in England prior to the Norman Conquest, as befits an Early Music Vancouver presentation.

Target Audience: Antiquarians, scholars, and seekers after quiet magic.

New Wave

(November 13 at Ryerson United Church)

Referring not to the ’70s rock idiom but to choral music’s 21st-century rebirth, the most intriguing of several strong Vancouver Chamber Choir presentations surveys the modern vocal landscape.

The Draw: Music from genre hero Eric Whitacre, and from those inspired by his success.

Target Audience: The half of Vancouver that seems to be in some kind of choir.

Modulus Festival

(November 15 to 21 at Heritage Hall and the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre)

If discovering more from Music on Main’s remarkable composer in residence Caroline Shaw isn’t enough, 20th-century classics from Alvin Curran, Morton Feldman, and Terry Riley should seal the deal. And then there’s the madly inventive Nicole Lizée’s intriguingly titled Karappo Okesutura Vol. 2.

The Draw: MoM artistic director Dave Pay’s impeccable taste.

Target Audience: Those who know a good thing when they hear it.

Lief Ove Andsnes

(November 22 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts)

Pianist Lief Ove Andsnes’s afternoon concert for the Vancouver Recital Society should be a trip: we’ll venture into the Baltic woods with Jean Sibelius’s “The Birch”, “The Spruce”, and “The Forest Lake”, before settling into a Parisian salon with a selection of Claude Debussy’s sophisticated études.

The Draw: Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven also appear on Andsnes’s well-chosen program.

Target Audience: Lovers of unfussy elegance.

Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan

(November 24 at the Centennial Theatre)

Kayhan Kalhor plays the Iranian kamancheh, a type of spike fiddle, while Erdal Erzincan plays the Turkish baglama, related to the lute and the mandolin. Both are open-minded and respectful masters.

The Draw: Stringed instruments with more shades than European music allows.

Target Audience: Border jumpers, and the North Shore’s large contingent of Iranian expats.

Tim Hecker

(November 28 at the Orpheum Annex)

Tim Hecker blurs the lines between contemporary composition and what, for want of a better word, could be called electronica, but in the Vancouver New Music–sponsored show he’ll tip more toward the former.

The Draw: The enigmatic works of 16th-century composer Josquin des Prez reimagined for now.

Target Audience: Time travellers and shape-shifters.

Dark Sisters

(November 26 to December 12 at the Vancouver Playhouse)

Composer Nico Muhly has a rare ability to blend postminimalist textures with accessible melodies, and in Dark Sisters he and librettist Stephen Karam turn their attention to polygamy in the Mormon West.

The Draw: Sexual tension, the intimate Playhouse instead of Vancouver Opera’s usual Queen E., and director Amiel Gladstone—what’s not to like?

Target Audience: Not the usual suits and gowns: Muhly’s worked with Usher, the National, and Sigur Rós singer Jónsi.

Sarah Chang

(December 5 and 7 at the Orpheum)

Korean-American violinist Sarah Chang is as flamboyant as she is musical, and she’ll have lots to work with when she plays Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A Minor with the VSO and guest conductor Pietari Inkinen.

The Draw: Inkinen’s not the only rising star on this bill: highly touted composer Jordan Pal will see his piece Burn performed as the opener.

Target Audience: Between the fiery Chang and the opening number, those in the mood for something hot.

Roomful of Teeth

(January 25 and 26, 2016, at the Fox Cabaret)

Music on Main composer in residence Caroline Shaw is an important member of this Brooklyn-based vocal ensemble, but her dazzling compositions are only part of the octet’s appeal.

The Draw: Shaw’s scores—such as her Pulitzer Prize–winning Partita for 8 Voices—and the highly creative use of vocal techniques from around the world.

Target Audience: Attentive ears.