It's your birthday And it lasts all year, if you're Mozart BY BECCA DEWAN

Mozart turns 250 and Portland is celebrating! Throughout the 2005-2006 concert season, a variety of his pieces will be performed to honor the great composer. The Portland String Quartet kicks off their celebration — dubbed "Mozart Maineia!" — October 16 with a smattering of string quartets. Over the course of the year, PSQ will play the complete cycle of Mozart’s 10 quartets. And, after a successful European tour, USM’s Chamber Singers will offer their ode to Mozart in November as part of the group’s annual Joyous Sounds for a Festive Season concert.

You will begin noticing some changes at the Portland Symphony Orchestra concerts this year. With the upcoming resignation of maestro Toshiyuki Shimada, the PSO will host an impressive line-up of guest conductors. However, Shimada will conduct the PSO’s opening concert on October 11. Eva Virsik will join the PSO to perform Beethoven’s first piano concerto. The featured piece is Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, which will serve as fodder for conversation for the pre-concert lecture. Maestro Shimada will draw parallels between his life with the PSO and musical elements of Ein Heldenleben.

Also on the PSO’s schedule is an evening of Debussy and Saint-Saëns with guest-conductor Edwin Outwater in November. October’s Classical Sunday series concert is one of universal appeal: Haydn’s "Mercury" Symphony and Mozart’s "Jupiter" Symphony are on the program.

Though candy should be left at home, costumes are certainly welcome in Merrill Auditorium for the PSO’s Halloween Pops featuring a Night on Bald Mountain and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ will also have a Halloween celebration with its annual Silent Film Night.

The DaPonte String Quartet have a busy concert schedule that takes them around Maine. October 15 and December 3 they will be in Portland at the State Street Church. November 5 they will perform Dido and Aeneas with the Choral Arts Society.

If nighttime concerts aren’t your thing, then check out the various noontime concert series. The Portland Conservatory offers Noonday Concerts for your Thursday lunch breaks from October through April. Performances begin at 12:15 and are free. Last year they featured a wide variety of performers; expect the same this year.

If you’re from the north, check out Bowdoin’s Teatime Concerts on some Fridays at 4 pm, also free. The genres of performances are quite eclectic. On September 23, Sylvia Smith and Ayano Kataoka will perform on marimba the percussion and theater music of native Maine composer Stuart Saunders Smith. October 21 brings a violin and piano duo performing works by birthday-boy Mozart, Stravinsky, Tartini, and Fauré.

Bowdoin offers more than just teatime entertainment, however. In addition to their fine student ensembles, Bowdoin brings a host of wonderful performers to Maine. This season we will hear traditional Swedish music, the professional symphony orchestra from Guangzhou, China, and Derek Lee Ragin, a world-famous countertenor, among others.

Portland Conservatory has Thursdays covered. Bowdoin occupies a few Friday afternoons. And Bates College has dibs on Tuesdays with their Noonday Concert series. For an evening concert, pianist Frank Glazer, artist in residence at Bates, will perform works by Schumann on September 23.

Although the University of Southern Maine does not have a weekly afternoon concert, the School of Music does have a wonderful Faculty Concert Series and a number of fine student ensembles. The Faculty Series opens September 30 with "Stolen Jewels: An evening of French treasures"; The Portland Wind Trio will play pieces arranged for wind trio, all "stolen" from their original instrumentation. In early October, you can hear Thomas Parchman and Anastasia Antonacos perform a Brahms clarinet sonata. Later that month David Goulet, tenor, and pianist Aaron Robinson put on a concert titled "The French Connection: Love, Lust, War, Politics — and the simpler things of life with a French twist!" The semester’s series ends November 18 with a night of Schumann — both of them! Soprano Christina Astrachan and tenor Bruce Fithian will perform lieder by both Clara and Robert Schumann. The night will also include readings from their letters and marriage diaries.

To benefit the Freeport Performing Arts Center — and their new piano — the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Pianist Laura Kargul will also premiere a work for piano solo by composer Elliot Schwartz. This should be quite an exciting event: relatively new space, new piano, and new Elliot Schwartz piece.

In the year-end review, I made mention of the performance I heard of Robert Ray’s Gospel Mass performed by the Westminster Choir College Jubilee Singers. Well, this year, this fabulous piece is being performed right in Gorham! The USM Chorale will perform the Gospel Mass along with Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms on November 15.

Keep Colby College in mind if you’re up in the Waterville area. Bruce Murray will perform a piano recital on September 24. Colby also has its contingent of student ensembles. One of their choral groups puts on a gorgeous Service of Carols and Lights around the holiday season.

And that pretty much wraps up the fall. Whether its symphonic, chamber, solo, or choral music you wish to hear, you can find something to your liking.

Becca DeWan can be reached at beccadewan@mac.com. Check weekly "Listings" for concert times and contact information.