Classical music is happening in smaller, quicker and cheaper versions. It just happened again.

You might have thought that Monterey County was rich in classical music performances before, but there are a lot more instances of it happening in smaller and more accessible iterations.

On October 25, the Carmel Bach Festival launched its first-ever Fall Concert at Seaside's Oldemeyer Center. The festival's executive director, Debbie Chinn, had been looking for ways to have a more constant presence in people's consciousness, and a smaller standalone concert outside of the confines of the annual summer festival was one way. In March, the Catalyst Quartet, prior to playing their Chamber Music Monterey Bay concert at Sunset Center, played a "mini-concert" in the library of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. It was free to attend.

On Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 7:30pm (beginning with a pre-concert talk at 7pm by Todd Samra), a quartet comprised of players from the Monterey Symphony will perform at Monterey Institute of International Studies' Irvine Auditorium in the McCone Building (460 Pierce St., Monterey). The concert is dubbed The Viennese School.

They're doing this short (a little more than one hour) one-off, their second such chamber concert, for a few reasons, according to the symphony's executive director, Lee Rosen.

"We're trying to provide added exposure for our fine Monterey Symphony players," says Rosen.

The concert is led by violinist and Monterey Symphony Concertmaster Christina Mok, who's performed as a soloist with the Seoul Symphony Orchestra, the Russian Federal Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Silicon Valley, and who's won music awards from the BBC Young Artists' Forum to the Warshaw Violin Competition to the Seoul Arts Center.

In the hours prior to the concert, she lists other reasons for the concert.

"In order to bring a variety of programs to subscribers and introduce the Monterey Symphony to audiences who might not be symphony goers," she says.

That means students, young people. Tickets are $20 for general admission, but $10 for students. Mok concurs.

"We would love to introduce chamber music to a lot of younger folks as well," she says. Rosen adds that they hope to do this at CSUMB in the spring of next year.

Tonight's program centers on the flute. It features prominently Monterey Symphony's second flute, Teresa Orozco, who's played in the Carmel Bach Festival the last five years, and also plays jazz flute (no references to Ron Burgundy, please) and Latin music in Mambo Tropical, Orquesta Gitano and Havana Jazz.

Principal viola, Vladimir Khalikulov, is a 24-year veteran with the symphony. The chamber quartet (they'll play mostly as a trio) is rounded out by cellist Drew Ford, who was the youngest member of the South Carolina Philharmonic, though he performs mostly in the Bay Area where he lives.

Mok says that chamber music, derived from performances in salons and rooms, thrives in the intimate confines of smaller venues, like MIIS. And that the program combines some of the masters of the Viennese classical music era.

There are four piece slated. The Schubert piece, "String Trio No. 2 in B Flat Major," sounds like a prototypical chamber trio piece, a light number that wouldn't be out of place in a garden party scene in a movie. Beethoven can be dark and brooding, substantial, but with this piece written for flute, violin and cello, he's in a more perky mood, though he loses none of his interplay and melody. Haydn's "London Trio No. 3 in G Major for Flute, Violin an Cello," composed in 1794, comes next, and the concert closes on Mozart's "Flute Quartet in D Major."

It's a delightful program. All sprightly, springy, unburdened with the encroaching darkness and cold of fall. Maybe it's the sweetest way to usher in the changing season. Like an Indian Summer.

Call 645-1124 or go to www.MontereySymphony.org/special-events for details.