With Labor Day weekend upon us, the whirring flywheels and pistons of the area’s cultural institutions are nearly up to speed.

In today’s Trenton Times, I take a look at some of the orchestral concerts poised to open the 2016-2017 season. Included are representative programs of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra, the Westminster Community Orchestra, and Sinfonietta Nova.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/08/classical_music_2016-17_concer.html

There wasn’t room to mention additional orchestral concerts in New Brunswick, just a half an hour’s drive to the north, courtesy of the State Theatre New Jersey – which will host the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (9/24, 10/9, 10/29/11/13, 11/27, 1/8, 1/15, 1/28, 2/12, 4/8, 4/23, 5/14), the Warsaw Philharmonic (10/23, including Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Symphony No. 4!), the Bamberg Symphony (2/12), and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (2/19) – and the Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, which performs excellent and diverse programs under the direction of Kynan Johns.

The RSO’s opening concert will feature Mason Bates’ “Mothership” alongside Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” with pianist Michael Bulyachev-Okser, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (Nicholas Auditorium, Mason Gross School of the Arts, on 9/24). You can find the complete season schedule by clicking on the PDF file at the bottom of this page:

http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/music/rutgers-symphony-orchestra

I was also remiss in not mentioning the Princeton University Orchestra (as I had intended to do), which begins its season on 10/22 & 10/23 with Samuel Barber’s “School for Scandal Overture,” scenes from Berlioz’s “Romeo and Juliet,” and Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. The complete schedule, including a springtime Mahler 5, can be found here:

Current Season

All in all, a well-orchestrated season.

PHOTO: Violinist Daniel Rowland will be soloist and conductor as the Princeton Symphony Orchestra opens its season with works by Antonio Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla, at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on 9/15 at 8 p.m.