Cal Performances’ wide-ranging 2023-24 season

New and recent work by theater artists Taylor Mac and Matt Ray, composer Nathalie Joachim, the Silkroad Ensemble and the dance-theater company Urban Bush Women are scheduled to contribute to a thematic focus on “Individual and Community” during Cal Performances’ 2023-24 season.

The UC Berkeley presenter’s lineup of music, dance, theater and spoken word events, announced April 18 by Executive and Artistic Director Jeremy Geffen, also includes a gala honoring Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a residency by the Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the renewal of a multi-season residency by the Chicago-based Joffrey Ballet.

The season is set to open Oct. 1 with the Bay Area debut recital of Israeli pianist Tom Borrow, and continue through May 4, 2024, when Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson is slated to perform Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.”

“Bark of Millions,” by Mac and Ray, is billed as a four-hour rock opera meditation on queerness and is scheduled for its West Coast premiere.

Other works feeding into the “Individual and Community” theme include “Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge,” a dramatization by the New York theater troupe Elevator Repair Service of the famous 1965 debate between American writers James Baldwin and William F. Buckley about racial justice and politics.

The Los Angeles new music ensemble Wild Up is expected to present “Femenine” by the visionary composer Julius Eastman, and Grammy-and MacArthur Fellowship-winning folk musician Rhiannon Giddens plans to lead the Silk-road Ensemble in “American Railroad,” an exploration of the creation of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Musical events include recitals by sopranos Renée Fleming and Christine Goerke, the return of countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski, a pair of appearances including both jazz and classical strains by pianist Brad Mehldau, and an evening by Berkeley’s Eco Ensemble devoted to the music of UC Berkeley composer Cindy Cox.

Complete season details are at www.calperformances.org.

Reach Joshua Kosman: jkosman@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @JoshuaKosman