Don’t Miss

It’s always worth the effort to catch an orchestra of the stature of the New York Philharmonic, which doesn’t get out this way often. Kurt Masur leads the vaunted ensemble in Costa Mesa tonight in two works by Strauss as well as Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. The group’s recording of the Shostakovich Fifth under Leonard Bernstein some 40 years ago remains one of the finest of that powerful work.

* Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. $65-$85. Presented by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. (949) 553-2422.