It's so much fun to sit back in December and reflect on some of the best moments in music this past year. Pittsburgh never fails to make it difficult to whittle concerts down to the best 10, but my editors say it must be done.

So before you read this list, know that I really wanted to included the Orion String Quartet's solid Beethoven for the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society series, the Pittsburgh Opera's daring "Dialogues of the Carmelites," conductor Christoph Konig's impressive debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Camerata's thoughtful exploration of spirituals. Two more lighter affairs also deserved placement: the PSO's historic return (first in 34 years) to the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Point State Park and young Jackie Evancho's mesmerizing concert at the Benedum Center.

But in the end, sometimes some wheat flies off with the chaff, and I could fit only these wonderful memories:

How can a performance by someone you expect to be extraordinary exceed those expectations by miles? When it's Yo-Yo Ma -- especially when he's performing Dvorak's Cello Concerto. It was a magical night as he forged a relationship with PSO music director Manfred Honeck and with concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley that had him re-examining this work he has owned for so many years. And the lovefest that ensued afterward between Mr. Ma and the PSO was touching to watch.

This concert was a once-in-a-lifetime experience -- a living museum of the amazing homemade instruments of Harry Partch. The 20th-century American composer sought to reconnect music to the body and to natural (also called just) tuning, all of which seemed radical even to the modernists. Mr. Partch expanded the number of pitches within the octave beyond the standard 12 and built his own instruments to play his works. Pitt's Music on the Edge series and The Andy Warhol Museum collaborated to bring the visually arresting instruments, such as the Cloud-Chamber Bowls, Diamond Marimba and Chromelodeon, to Pittsburgh via Dean Drummond's New Band, for an unforgettable experience.

This highly interpretive staging of Handel's oratorio touched not just a nerve, but entire nervous systems of patrons, for and against. Stage director Sam Helfrich took its biblical text at its word, so to speak, and shined a harsh light on American society. The staging had its ups and downs. But it is so important to show that classical music can be provocative as well as uplifting -- that it is not only old pieces that need to be appreciated. Controversy is less heard at Heinz Hall than flat playing, and it is ultimately a good thing to push audiences from time to time.

It wouldn't be a Top 10 list without a PSO Mahler entry. This concert pitted Mr. Honeck's organic and folk-inspired against the typical Romantic approach to this colossal work. His approach was best heard in his comparatively up-tempo conducting of the famous Adgietto.

These two need to get together more often. The city's preeminent period groups collaborated when R&B presented Chatham Baroque on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. The program was primarily taken from the "Paris Quartet" collection of Telemann, with a few friends joining in. The result was splendid for any period.

This production was everything a staging of a classic should be. The French Canadian team of Andre Barbe and Renaud Doucet overlaid a compelling interpretation on the Puccini masterpiece -- viewing the Chinese princess as more in control of her life while respecting the composer's intentions and historical context (i.e. the French view of China at the time). Above all it was a rich and colorful presentation, and the cast was suburb: Susan Neves (Turandot), Frank Porretta (Prince Calaf), NaGuanda Nobles (Liu) and Hao Jiang Tian (Timur).

Opera Theater director Jonathan Eaton outdid himself this time. He not only staged Ricky Ian Gordon's touching song cycle "Orpheus and Euridice," but he did so in the middle of the Allegheny Cemetery. The gravestones, mausoleums and monuments gave poignant meaning to the work written after Mr. Gordon's partner died of AIDS. Attack Theatre accepted the challenge and designed choreography that dialogued with the space wonderfully. The singers, dancers and musicians responded with inspired performance.

PNME expanded its already wide range to include baking a cake on stage. Lee Hoiby's "Bon Appetit!" revisited Julia Child on the TV set of her "The French Chef" with a mezzo-soprano singing her words from two episodes while baking a chocolate cake. But artistic director Kevin Noe added to the recipe by casting countertenor Peter Garrett Thoreson, making the work even more of a send-up than it typically is with "a subtle sexual undertone in her love for food."

Festival founder Aron Zelkowicz dug deep and came out with yet another intriguing program of all-but-forgotten Jewish composers, highlighted by the music of Solomon Rosowsky, a Russian-Jewish composer active in the first half of the 20th century.

I can't get to everything, and sometimes I get burned badly by missing something. I heard from so many people about the Juilliard Baroque's blisteringly excellent concert of obscure music for three violins that I feel it must be included. The makeup of the group alone would have predicted the result: early-music luminaries Monica Huggett, Cynthia Roberts and Robert Mealy (violin); cellist Phoebe Carrai (cello); and Avi Stein (harpsichordist).