“Music must matter to everyone,” says Michael Stern, music director of the newly branded Orchestra Lumos, formerly known as the Stamford Symphony, serving greater Fairfield County. The mainstage season unfolds at the Palace Theatre. The house is a relic from the heyday of vaudeville, and there might be a vaudevillian touch to the new Lumos formula, which calls for artfully chosen programs emceed by hosts who appeal to audiences new and old. The Tony Award-winning André De Shields, ex Hermes in Hadestown, lights the way to the underworld for “Orpheus Sings” (October 5 and 6, selections by Gluck, Beethoven, Liszt, Offenbach, and George Walker). Sonnets and dramatic excerpts spoken by the House of Cards veterans Michel Gill and Jayne Atkinson are the connecting thread for “Shakespeare In Love ” (November 9 and 10, heavy emphasis on Romeo and Juliet in scores by Mendelssohn, Anna Clyne, Berlioz, David Diamond, and Tchaikovsky). The composer–songwriter Gabriel Kahane anchors “Music of Memory, Music of Reconciliation” (February 22 and 23), which centers on his piano concerto Heirloom, a vehicle on this occasion for his father, the distinguished Jeffrey Kahane. The green-themed “Our Common World” counts on the wattage of the superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma (May 24 and 25, including selections by Dvořák, Sibelius, Arvo Pärt, and Haydn). Various subscription options are available. Popup events on a more intimate scale (“Small Space Series”) at indoor and open-air locations throughout Fairfield County continue through June. —Matthew Gurewitsch