Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Alan Pierson

Launching a new “Reflektor” series of short festivals, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie invited Bryce Dessner to curate two days of concerts.

The U.S. première of Richard Ayres’s No. 42 In the Alps was musically delightful, visually whimsical, and all-around hilarious.

On Friday night, the Irish new music group Crash Ensemble produced some sonic pyrotechnics to match the Scriabinian lights display at Carnegie Hall’s recently renovated Zankel Hall.

The Brooklyn Festival, a week-long celebration of the new music scene from New York City’s “most dynamic borough”, was launched on Tuesday 16 April with a Green Umbrella concert at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.Interestingly enough, the festival came hard on the heels of another festival which ended Sunday, the Hear Now Music Festival.

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member band whose name has become synonymous with new and emerging contemporary classical work. Whether the music is playful of spiteful, dramatic or lighthearted, Alarm Will Sound nails the performance – just as they did Saturday night in Zankel Hall.Opening with Journeyman, a New York première by John Orfe, Alarm Will Sound immediately made their presence known.