The spooky season is creeping into focus as haunted houses start to crop up around the metro area (well, more than usual, anyway). But good times for all ages fill the calendar as fall's first weekend gets started. Now, if that fall weather would just get the hint...

It's a double dose of orchestral exuberance this weekend. Promising a high-octane performance, BIG FREEDIA AND THE LPO will perform Friday at 8:30 p.m. in the Orpheum Theater, the third time the two musical powerhouses have united for a mammoth musical moment. Evan Roider takes the baton for the event at 129 Roosevelt Way. Then, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Mahalia Jackson Theater, Maestro Matthew Kraemer conducts Verdi's "REQUIEM" with a quartet from the New Orleans Opera, with a 6:30 p.m. pre-concert talk. Friday

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