Staff picks: LA Phil

Grammy winners Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck join forces for The Fiddle and the Drum, an evening of Appalachian folk music marking America's 250th anniversary. Why we love it: Opera's biggest voice meets bluegrass, and neither backs down.

Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo bring four decades of hits, including "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Heartbreaker," to Walt Disney Concert Hall. Why we love it: hear arena rock inside a room built for orchestras.

Global piano star Lang Lang, who has performed at the Olympics and for Pope Francis, returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall for an all-solo recital of Mozart, Albéniz, and Granados. Why we love it: it's a rare chance to hear him without an orchestra.

Elim Chan conducts her own take on Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, praised for shaping the score "as if she were born to conduct ballet." Yefim Bronfman joins for Liszt's Second Piano Concerto. Why we love it: hear a ballet score built for the stage, reimagined purely as a concert-hall showpiece.

Members of the LA Phil open with Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2, once called "a trifle nasty to play." Brahms' String Sextet No. 2 follows, written after a failed relationship left him "freed." Why we love it: get a free glass of wine before the show.

Elim Chan leads the LA Phil through Debussy's hazy Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Stravinsky's Petrushka. In between, violinist Karen Gomyo premieres a new violin concerto by Samuel Adams. Why we love it: experience a world premiere sandwiched between two orchestral classics.

Clark Wilson performs a live organ score for the 1920 film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, considered the first great American horror movie, starring John Barrymore's first virtuoso screen performance. Why we love it: it's a one-of-a-kind experience.

Academy Award winner Michael Giacchino hosts a Halloween doubleheader: a first look at his new musical Headless, then the LA Phil performing his Werewolf by Night score live to picture. Why we love it: it's a chance to experience new work in the composer's old stomping ground.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, his meditation on "the fatal power which prevents one from attaining happiness." Saxophonist Steven Banks joins for Billy Childs' Diaspora concerto. Why we love it: it's a modern concerto paired with a symphonic classic.