Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | André de Ridder

Closing the 26th edition of the Ultraschall Berlin festival, André de Ridden and the DSO prove the vitality of the contemporary orchestra with a programme featuring works by Streich, Chin and Andre.

An evening of premieres – the European premiere of Bates' concerto plus the world premiere of Joey Roukens' First Symphony – delights the Rotterdam Philharmonic's Utrecht audience. 

Joshua Bloom and Paula Murrihy excel in Irish National Opera's staging of Bartók's opera, although director Enda Walsh takes too many liberties with the libretto. 

Philippe Jaroussky stars in a new Kaija Saariaho—Peter Sellars collaboration: Only the Sound Remains. Not since Written on Skin has modern opera thrilled with such intensity.

The World Premiere at the Edinburgh Festival of The Last Hotel:   a strange and haunting new chamber opera from post-minimilist composer Donnacha Dennehyna and acclaimed writer Enda Walsh with the Crash Ensemble generating exciting rhythmic pulsing energy in the pit. 

BBC National Orchestra of Wales's afternoon concert series brings unusual works to light, but the small auditorium can make some of the heavier late-romantic orchestration overwhelming – to the point of being overpowering.

The violinist James Ehens brings his masterful Bartók back to Seattle in a program conducted by André de Ridder, who makes his Seattle Symphony debut.

Usually, I don’t find much to be excited about in opera stagings meant to overhaul the genre, to give it the resuscitation it apparently needs. They are always more promising on paper, always less effective in execution: I’ve seen all kinds of sexual permissiveness, giant machines, film projections, even singing robots (an especially low point).

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase “3D occult mystery film opera”? Because I’ll bet that whatever this makes you imagine is nothing like the reality of composer/director Michel van der Aa and librettist David Mitchell’s Sunken Garden, which debuted at the Barbican last night.

Having previously been Assistant Conductor at The Hallé, André de Ridder returned to a bitterly cold Manchester to conduct a fascinating programme, culminating a beautifully autumnal account of Brahms’ Symphony no.4.The Brahms was by far the most successful of the evening’s works.

To judge by the continued chatter, no-one noticed 100 metronomes on stage being set in motion, signalling the beginning of György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (1962). Even when the lights were dimmed it only dawned on people slowly that the concert had actually already begun.

To call last night’s Nico Muhly extravaganza at the Barbican a concert of two halves would not go far enough. It was more like two concerts, with a surprisingly short gap between them. The first was made up of three new classical works played by the Britten Sinfonia, and the second was a set of arty folk numbers and other chamber miniatures by Muhly and others.