Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Nicholas Collon

Aurora Orchestra turn Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony inside out to exhilarating effect in a dazzling performance in their Scottish debut. Abel Selaocoe’s Four Spirits, on the other hand, has surface shine but not much substance.

Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra, together with Frantic Assembly, present an illuminating analysis of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, followed by a blistering account of the work from memory.

The exquisite ensemble of Aurora and BBC Singers in the intimate setting of Kings Place are reason enough to linger longer on earth.

Steven Osborne was lucid and detailed in his interpretation, lighting the technical fireworks as appropriate and seductive in the long and languid sixth movement, Jardin du sommeil d’amour.

Nicholas Collon conducts the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a ZaterdagMatinee programme designed to celebrate Finnish Independence Day. 

Two distinctly different halves to this evening in Kings Hall: chamber delicacy and subtlety in Ligeti and CPE Bach, and a barnstorming approach in Schubert's greatest symphony.

NIcholas Collon conducts the BBC Philharmonic in a superbly conceived programme that demonstrates “quality, agility and impact”.

Britten and Shostakovich rub shoulders at Kings Place in a programme that careers into darkness with the latter's desolate Fourteenth Symphony. 

New Chief Conductor Nicholas Collon passes the Sibelius test with flying colours in a fine Fifth Symphony. 

Valeriy Sokolov explores the loneliness of the long-distance runner in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, while the formidable artistic partnership of Nicholas Collon and Aurora Orchestra come up trumps in Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony.

Forget those po-faced tenors of yore; this is joyous music and Allan Clayton was just the man to deliver it.

An all-day Beethoven experience European style with both highs and lows: much diversity revealed and exploited but of variable quality.

While Stravinsky and Britten tuck away their sentiments and melodies, the debate about Shostakovich’s Fifth seems finally to be settled.

Nicholas Collon leads Auorora Orchestra through an effervescent account of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. 

A month into the year-long "Nature Unwrapped" programme at Kings Place, it was the turn of its resident Aurora Orchestra to contribute to the series.

Nicholas Collon decides that Mendelssohn is really a very revolutionary composer, while Amy Dickson's saxophone and Ronald Brautigam in Mozart provide vibrant contrasts.

Berlioz on acid: Nicholas Collon and Mathew Baynton lead the Proms audience through the streets of Paris before a wild ride through the Symphonie fantastique.

The Aurora Orchestra and Collon engage audiences new and old with infectiously joyful Mozart and intensely virtuosic Adès, with Pekka Kuusisto.

Missy Mazzoli's double bass concerto receives its UK premiere as part of Kings Place's Venus Unwrapped season. 

The Aurora Orchestra performed and supported a teeming program that took in Norwegian/Appalachian folk music, Mahler and a world premiere.

Imogen Cooper shone in Aurora's serious and fulsome performances of Mozart.

Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes is a nuanced, gripping tale that should pack an emotional punch. Despite fine moments, Oper Köln's production didn't serve the work. 

Smoke and Mirrors in the title, but nothing unreal about the performances at the Southbank.

A remarkable feat of memorisation – a whole orchestra and no music! – made for an illuminating and exciting introduction to the Soviet composer's “victory” symphony.

Not even the BAFTAs going on next door offered the star quality on display in the QEH.

Nicholas Collon and the BBC Philharmonic play two pieces by Stravinsky, Sibelius and Beethoven in a fine concert at Bridgewater Hall.

Das Lied von der Erde may have been down-sized but it lost none of its stature in the Aurora Orchestra’s performance of a chamber arrangement of Mahler’s great song-symphony.

High wire Beethoven from Nicolas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra, truly live in every sense, with an entertaining deconstructed introduction from Collon with Tom Service.

“Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.” Storytime with the Aurora Orchestra proved a delight. 

Breaking up is hard to do. If his First Symphony is anything to go by, William Walton took it particularly badly.

A moving first half of Vaughan Williams and Tchaikovsky and a mysterious Shostakovich 15 in the second half. Andreas Brantelid's superlative musicianship wowed.

The CBSO pairs Berlioz' opium-fuelled extravaganza with a 20th-century favourite starring Vilde Frang.

This evening’s performance marked the next stop on the Aurora Orchestra’s Grand Tour, continuing a five-year journey through the complete cycle of Mozart’s piano concertos. 

Nicholas Collon and his Aurora Orchestra remind us that classical music is still made by us, for us, in Rihm, Strauss and Mozart.

An evening of exceptional originality and daring in Snape Maltings – not to mention glorious music – got the Aldeburgh Festival off to a striking start for the 2016 season.

The CBSO conducted by Nicholas Collon grapple with the collision of love and death in works by Mahler, Webern and Brahms

The Aurora Orchestra defies tradition and turns Britten’s ghostly Turn of the Screw into a kind of a dramatic ‘installation’

Prom 29 had a distinctly French flavour, with themes of dance and birdsong running through the programme in a glittering performance of music by Mozart, Ravel, Messiaen and Stravinsky.

The maverick Aurora Orchestra returns to the Proms, and doesn't disappoint.

Detailed, transparent readings from the London Sinfonietta brought out the modernist in early Schoenberg, but passion and atmosphere were lacking.

Infectious energy from musicians who breezed through a diverse and challenging programme without music stands or chairs, in which Benedict Mason displayed his originality.

The Philharmonia, conducted by Nicholas Collon, perform two masterpieces by Britten and Vaughan Williams and a newer work by Thomas Adès.

Aurora Orchestra and Dawn Landes take us on a road trip across America, with music from John Adams, Charles Ives and Aaron Copland.

J S Bach's opus ultimum, the Mass in B Minor, was also the opus ultimum of the year-long Bach Unwrapped series at Kings Place. Unfortunately, it proved not to be the crowning glory it might have been.

With a debut opera for ENO in the pipeline for next year and residencies with both Wigmore Hall and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, things are currently looking bright for Julian Anderson. To celebrate this, Wigmore Hall turned 2 November into Julian Anderson Day, devoting two concerts and a talk to exploring his music.

It would probably be a mistake to take Frank Zappa’s The Adventures of Greggery Peccary too seriously. True, musically it is highly taxing in its orchestral transcription by Ali N. Askin, and there’s absolutely no denying the seriousness of Zappa as a musician generally. But this is Zappa in full-on nonsense mode.Greggery Peccary is a pig of some sort, who works in an office, or something.

Miraculous as Jonathan Harvey’s music is, it seems reductive to call Wagner Dream an opera. Half the cast, after all, don’t even sing, but act: it’s a sincere meeting of music and theatre in a way that opera usually isn’t.

It’s a slightly topsy-turvy world when a Shostakovich symphony lightens the mood and sends you home grinning, and when a work by Mahler is a filler rather than the main event.

You are sitting in the choir stalls of the Royal Festival Hall, watching the ceramic artist and writer Edmund de Waal address you, his back to an enormous sea of empty, grey, imposing seats. He is delivering a vivid narrative account of a day in the life of a young aristocratic Jewish boy in early 20th-century Vienna.

The house was full for the opening night at the London Coliseum, and there were plenty of whoops for conductor Nicholas Collon as he made his ENO debut. This year marks the 25th anniversary of ENO's celebrated production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, and this revival – the fourteenth – will be the last.