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A conductorless performance of Handel's masterpiece lights up the Barbican.

Britten Sinfonia and Voices directed by Eamonn Dougan courageously plumb the depths of humanity’s despair in music ancient and modern

Engaging, passionate and life-afirming: Harry Christophers' group The Sixteen give a memorable rendition of Monteverdi's Vespers 1610

There was an inundation of the sound of John Tavener's Flood of Beauty at the Barbican on Sunday, with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Martyn Brabbins.

Alina Ibragimova barely glanced up from her score during her Bach concerto with Britten Sinfonia last night, and the result was some of the most intense, beautiful music-making I can recall hearing.

Harry Christophers brought his Sixteen to Manchester for a night of deeply romantic choral music at The Bridgewater Hall. Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem was a foreseeable success, but the seldom-heard Vocal Quartets, settings of Sternau, Schiller, Daumer and Goethe, were a delightful addition to the programme.The first set of Brahms quartets, Op.

Pleasantly enough, Britten Sinfonia went down a thoroughly unconventional route in celebrating their 20th birthday at the Barbican on Saturday, with a brilliantly varied range of new pieces mixing with chamber orchestra classics.

The scene is 1612 in Venice: a great battle has been won against the dreaded Ottoman Empire, and in celebration, evening prayers are ordered to be set to music specially composed by the great Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and others.