With the Chicago Symphony Orchestra away all January for its first European tour since COVID (yay!), the first month of the year, already a sleepy month on this list, could be practically catatonic.

Not so in 2024! January, and the months beyond, will keep you shuffling from one gig to the other. A few recommendations follow:

It’s Symphony Center season: The weather may be cold, but this winter, the downtown venue, whose jazz series celebrates its 30th anniversary, is hot. I’m sheepishly struggling to highlight just a couple of offerings — a tall order when Makaya McCraven and Meshell Ndegeocello (performing together), Ron Carter, Christian McBride, Eliades Ochoa, Herbie Hancock and a Blue Note anniversary celebration arrive within a few months of each other. All at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., tickets and information at cso.org:

• Makaya McCraven with Meshell Ndegeocello, 8 p.m. Jan. 19, tickets $35-$199.
• Christian McBride’s “The Movement Revisited,” 8 p.m. Feb. 2, tickets $35-$199
• The Blue Note Quintet and Ron Carter’s Golden Striker Trio, commemorating the 85th anniversary of Blue Note Records, 8 p.m. Feb. 16, $39-$199
• Eliades Ochoa, 8 p.m. March 8, tickets $35-$125
• Herbie Hancock, 8 p.m. March 30, $75-$299

New chapter, New Breed: Guitarist Jeff Parker is widely lauded for his contributions to creative music and the influential post-rock outfit Tortoise. Even so, the Chicago expat only recently refocused on his own compositions. His primary vehicle: the New Breed, a flexibly ranked ensemble that can realign listeners’ heartbeats with bone-deep funk (their self-titled debut in 2016) or assemble elaborate rhythms into soporific trance music (“Suite for Max Brown,” 2020). The band returns to Chicago for the first time since the 2022 Pitchfork Festival. “Jeff Parker & The New Breed,” 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26 at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center Performance Hall, 915 E. 60th St.; tickets $40, $20 for patrons under 35 and $10 for students; chicagopresents.uchicago.edu

Tugging heartstrings: Since its 2021 premiere, composer and librettist Huang Ruo’s “Book of Mountains and Seas” has enjoyed something few contemporary operas do: several repeat performances. It’s easy to see why, from the slivers viewable online. Through dazzling puppetry by MacArthur “genius” Basil Twist, Huang’s opera interprets traditional Chinese myths from the 4th century BCE collection of the same name. Though Chicago Opera Theater and the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival play host, Ars Nova Copenhagen provides the onstage chorus rather than the company’s usual corps of Chicago freelancers. “Book of Mountains and Seas,” Jan. 26-28 at the Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan Ave., tickets $45-$100, chicagooperatheater.org

A German requiem: No, not Brahms’ — this is Heinrich Schütz’s “Musikalische Exequien.” The early Baroque composer is believed to be the first to compose a requiem mass in his mother tongue, which he wrote for the funeral of his royal patron. But death was all around Schütz at the time: He wrote “Musikalische Exequien” amid the Thirty Years’ War and devastating outbreaks of the plague. The Los Angeles Master Chorale, directed by Peter Sellars, sings, acts and dances Schütz’s score in “Music to Accompany a Departure,” a staged rumination on collective grief. “Music to Accompany a Departure,” 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St.; tickets $20-$105; harristheaterchicago.org

“Women Out of Time”: Chicago Jazz Philharmonic director Orbert Davis is an undisputed master of the evening-length tribute. His latest pays homage to three great jazz women: Lil Hardin Armstrong, Mary Lou Williams and Nina Simone. References to the trio’s oeuvres guide the composition, brought to life by vocalist Dee Alexander, pianist Bethany Pickens, violinist Zara Zaharieva and the Philharmonic’s chamber ensemble. 7 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Kehrein Center for the Arts, 5628 W. Washington Blvd.; tickets $1 or suggested donation; chicagojazzphilharmonic.org

Happy birthday, Bernard Rands: The Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago composer is coming up on a big one in March: 90. Guarneri Hall celebrates with this two-part riffle through Rands’ catalog, interspersed with music that inspired, or which was inspired by, his own. The top-flight roster of chamber musicians on both bills includes the Terra String Quartet, Nois and cellist Alexander Hersh, who premieres a new solo cello piece by Rands on the Saturday program. “Rands at 90,” 6:30 p.m. March 8 and 2 p.m. March 9 at Guarneri Hall, 11 E. Adams St., 3rd Floor; tickets $40 general admission, $10 students; guarnerihall.org

Soloists to the front: Every piece on the Chicago Sinfonietta’s March program is a first in some way: a Chicago premiere (a Florence Price concert overture), a Chicago debut (by violin wunderkind Amaryn Olmeda) and a Sinfonietta premiere (Francis Poulenc’s suite from his ballet “Les biches”). First among firsts, though, is the anywhere-premiere of a new work for voice and orchestra by Brazilian American composer Clarice Assad, with the composer herself singing. The following week, Chicago Symphony principal flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson pilots Lowell Liebermann’s Flute Concerto No. 2, the first of two commissioned concertos coming to the CSO this season. (A third, Christopher Theofanidis’ “Indigo Heaven” for clarinetist Stephen Williamson, has been postponed to next season.) The concert, conducted by the great Finnish maestra Susanna Mälkki, also features the gleaming soprano Ying Fang in Mahler 4.

• “Echo” with the Chicago Sinfonietta, 7:30 p.m. March 15 at North Central College’s Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville, and 7:30 p.m. March 16 at Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets $27-$67, with $5 and $10 tickets available four weeks before the concert; chicagosinfonietta.org
• Mahler 4 with the Chicago Symphony, 7:30 p.m. March 21 and 23, 3 p.m. March 24 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; tickets $39-$250; cso.org

Haymarket’s heyday continues: Thought “La liberazione di Ruggiero” and “L’amant anonyme” were deep cuts? Try deeper. This March, the Baroque opera company stages Maria Margherita Grimani’s “La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista” (The beheading of Saint John the Baptist), billed, believably, as a modern-era premiere. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron stars in the title role, with soprano Kristin Knutson as Salome and bass-baritone Christian Pursell as Herod. “La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista,” 7:30 p.m. March 22 at DePaul University’s Gannon Concert Hall; ticket price TBD and on sale in January; haymarketopera.org

“FORCE!”: Presenters from the Chicago Symphony to Elastic Arts have featured snippets from this opera, an abolitionist fantasia set in the liminal space of a prison waiting room. Here’s an opportunity to experience the work start to finish, which was written collaboratively by artist Anna Martine Whitehead, music director Ayanna Woods, co-composers Angel Bat Dawid and Phillip Armstrong, and others. “FORCE! an opera in three acts,” 7:30 p.m. March 28-30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s Edlis Neeson Theater, 220 E. Chicago Ave.; $30 general admission, $10 students; visit.mcachicago.org

Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.

The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The Chicago Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.