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David Robertson's program combines a passionate and multilayered account of Bartók's Second Violin Concerto with early, rarely played works by Ligeti and Rachmaninov that challenges assumptions about their composers.

Leading the Czech Philharmonic in a sampling of works by Charles Ives, Robertson built a bridge between Old World sensibilities and contemporary musical ideas.

Richard Jones' setting is superb in its bare minimalism, but he pays great attention to all the psychological nuances in Janáček's opera. 

James Robinson’s production allows the large cast of Catfish Row to interact like the old pals – almost family – that they are.

In Boston, an inventive program of Ravel, Honegger and Milhaud explores the Parisian musical melting pot of the 1920s and 30s.

The Met’s new production is directed by James Robinson, who has the characters interacting and listening to one another as if in real life – the inhabitants of Catfish Row have known each other for all of their lives and love, pray and grieve like family.

Phelim McDermott’s new Met production is set in Brooklyn’s Coney Island in the late 1950s and is brilliantly vivid looking, but Mozart's music plays second fiddle. 

A performance of John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary good enough to convert even the most conservative listener to the Church of New Music.

One could hardly dream of a better concert to open the season than one featuring Maxim Vengerov as the guest soloist in Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto in D major.

Steve Reich turned 80 last month, and New Yorkers finally pencilled him, between the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade and the daunting presidential election, for big birthday bash at Carnegie Hall.

Olivier Tambosi’s controversial production of Janáček's Jenůfa first appeared at the Met in 2003.

The SSO left its usual venue to perform Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony no. 2 in C minor in the Sydney Town Hall.

Julian Rachlin steps in at the last moment and scores a win on a winning score.

A rare opportunitiy to hear Messiaen's Des canyons aux étoiles in Sydney. 

The Sydney Symphony invited a Big Band, the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra with its leader, Wynton Marsalis to join forces for a week, and in this concert, the delighted audience quickly realised that ‘all you gotta do is swing’.

In director Daniel Slater’s production at Santa Fe Opera this summer, Freud is God, and a biblical saga of lust, incest and murder is presented through a Viennese, turn-of-the-century lens. 

A performance of Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde, a testimony for all-enduring love, is a welcome event anywhere in the world. 

Summer Nights on a winter's afternoon in Sydney, as Katarina Karnéus performs Berlioz with the Sydney Symphony. 

Steve Mackey's Violin Concerto entitled Beautiful Passing was the highlight in this Sydney Symphony concert which also explored popular Czech repertoire. 

The 2015 Master Series of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra opened with a programme of Schumann and Mendelssohn put together with excellent taste and scholarly insight.

An adventurous journey with David Robertson included a superlative and unique performance of Ives's The Unanswered Question and a terrific introduction to Luc Brewaeys and his Symphony no. 6. 

David Robertson carried the Met Orchestra through one of the most brilliantly-conducted performances I’ve witnessed, though the music itself was not always impressive. 

Fiery Janáček and Lalo tempered by autumnal Brahms in Sydney in a concert which turned the usual structure on its head. 

Angels, Emperors and Heroes - Emanuel Ax continues his Sydney Beethoven cycle in style. 

Emanuel Ax launches into a cycle of Beethoven piano concertos in Sydney with classical elegance and wit. 

Ensemble ACJW performed works by Berio, Reich, and Bartók with conductor David Robertson and soprano Dawn Upshaw at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. This attractively programmed concert featured an admirable first half, though the Bartók left something to be desired.

32-year-old Nico Muhly recently tweeted “I'm obsessed with people asking why I must write such ‘atonal music.

György Ligeti’s Concert Românesc was banned by the Soviet government for the crime of getting too fancy with colouring on dominant chords. Though by no means overly dissonant, especially as compared to Ligeti’s later works, the last few minutes of this work do become ever so slightly crunchy.

On Wednesday night, a group of young artists coached by John Adams and David Robertson warmed up on the stage of Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. The snatches of the music we were about to hear – from cinematic melodies to jaunty dance-like snippets – jumbled together as one usually expects of a warm-up.

“Synesthesia” is a neurological condition that causes an involuntary sensory experience to be provoked from an initial stimulation of a different sensory or cognitive pathway – for instance, automatically associating colors with numbers, letters, or sounds. Olivier Messiaen, a 20th-century French composer, organist, and ornithologist, “heard” colors in all music, whether tonal, modal, or serial.

Surely, Michael Tippett must be considered the most important British composer of the mid 20th century, even if this might be an unfashionable thing to say in this Britten-filled centenary year. Certainly, the BBCSO’s brave performance of his Third Symphony was evidence of this in itself.Since his death in 1998 at the age of 93, performances of Tippett’s work have gone into sad decline.

On 3 September 1912, in a Proms concert which also featured a comedy overture by Granville Bantock and excerpts from Délibes’ ballet Coppélia, Henry Wood and his Queen’s Hall Orchestra gave the world première of Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces, a landmark work in atonal expressionism which drew hisses from the hall audience.

This, the final indoor concert of the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival (the closing Fireworks Concert takes place under the Castle Rock in Princes Street Gardens), was bookended by possibly the loudest and quietest sounds in the festival.Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question opens with a delicate mist of pianissimo strings.

The numerous links and connections between each of tonight’s pieces make this a very cleverly crafted programme, on paper at least.

At this concert we were treated to three completely different works which showcased the orchestra in a variety of styles and colours.

If only every orchestral concert were as thoughtfully programmed as the Saint Louis Symphony’s last Saturday. David Robertson led his orchestra in Debussy’s Printemps, an ingratiating early work; the Carnegie Hall premiere of Quatre Instants by Kaija Saariaho with the irrepressible soprano Karita Mattila; and the full-length version of Stravinsky’s Firebird.

It is always exciting to witness the birth of a new piece of composition, all the more so when the soloist is the inimitable Yo-Yo Ma.

The program opened with Tapiola, Sibelius' symphonic poem and his last major work. Tapio is the Finnish god of the forests and Sibelius' score is prefaced with these lines:Wide-spread they stand, the Northland's dusky forests,Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams,Within them dwells the Forest's mighty God,And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.

The BBC Symphony presented a packed programme for this concert in celebration of their 80th anniversary. The performances were interspersed with two short films looking back at the orchestra’s illustrious history, with former principal conductors such as Adrian Boult and Pierre Boulez.

La Orquesta de Cadaqués vuelve a Ibermúsica dirigida por David Robertson.