Find articles | Melissa Hok Cee Wong

Living in the city is alternately an experience of exhilarating interconnectedness and one of unbearable loneliness. On the good days, you share a sympathetic smile with your fellow commuters on a packed Tube train, you trade easy banter with the cashier at the Sainsbury’s checkout, and you feed off the buzz of the crowd as you head out for a night in Shoreditch.

This Saturday afternoon concert by the Smith Quartet – the first in a two-concert series that would present the complete string quartets of Michael Nyman, including the UK première of his String Quartet no.

In recent years, the line between live and recorded performance has become increasingly blurred. Rock fans go to large stadium concerts only to watch their music heroes largely in close-up shots on a Jumbotron. Umpires and referees at sports matches frequently rely on instant replays to review passages of play that are initially unclear.

The late composer Jonathan Harvey, who died last month at age 73, described his Speakings (2008) as the most complicated and ambitious work he had ever written. A 25-minute composition for orchestra and electronics, the piece certainly warrants that description on the levels of scale and logistics alone.