Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Rafael Payare

The OSM's Music Director-designate emphasises the Brahmsian aspects of Dvořák's splendid Seventh Symphony. 

Just named as Music Director Designate, the Venezuelan took to the helm in Montréal for a concert of Berlioz and Brahms. 

From the podium, Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare’s fine direction and unmitigated athleticism were part and parcel of the excitement.

Cast changes and a revival director who sharpens up the action make all the difference to this revival of Rossini's *Barber of Seville* in Glyndebourne's opening weekend. 

Mozart’s early youthful 29th Symphony felt rather misplaced in this otherwise solemn concert from Rafael Payare, Ulster Orchestra and the Belfast Philharmonic Choir. 

Reaching the climax of his exploration of Shostakovich’s “war symphonies”, Rafael Payare and the Ulster Orchestra pit Strauss’ epic tone-poem against the colossal “Leningrad” Symphony.

Widmann, Mendelssohn and Beethoven draw a full house to the Ulster Hall. Rafael Payare leads the Ulster Orchestra confidently, but Veronika Eberle steals the show.

Rafael Payare demonstrates his mastery of a late Romantic score and together with the RPO partners Lise de la Salle in an early piano concerto by Mozart.

Rafael Payare and the Ulster Orchestra present a programme of music that looks both backwards and forwards from composers who were musical visionaries.

Dorothea Röschmann has a soaring silvery line when needed (she is a famous Marschallin).

In the second instalment of his Strauss and Shostakovich exploration, Payare directs the Ulster Orchestra in two hugely contrasting works premiered in times of conflict.

Husband and wife join together with the Ulster Orchestra in Ulster Hall, at the beginning of a year-long féile pairing the music of two twentieth-century giants of symphonic repertoire. 

...the perpetuum mobile character building to a raucously joyous finale that elicited genuine, generous applause.

In the climax of his penultimate season Payare conducted the Ulster Orchestra in a programme of Britten, Mahler and Shostakovich. 

Rafael Payare, in his first appearance with the RPO, has musical encounters with Don Juan and Don Quixote, and a Mozart symphony provides a suitable contrast.

Rafael Payare contrasts a stentorian Brahms Symphony 4 with colorful French scores, including a scintillating Shéhérazade.

Stephen Hough stuns with an emotive reading of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, while the Ulster Orchestra under Rafael Payare were on fine form for the season’s finale.

Alina Ibragimove reigns supreme in Symphony Hall with Brahms' Violin Concerto as Ulster Orchestra srtuggle to find the depth of emotion Sibelius deserves in Symphony No 1

The Venezuelan maestro conducts a programme of early 20th-century works with the BBC Philharmonic .

Strindberg, Munch, Grieg, and Kierkegaard eke out a living in a loft in Stockholm among the joys and sorrows of love and loss.

Rafael Payare's energetic conducting of his Ulster Orchestra in Tchaikovsky, Haydn and Hellawell showed how fortunate Belfast is to still have this skilled musical force. 

Tonight's concert was listed under the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's "Indulge" series, and it was indeed an occasion for feeling well and truly spoilt.

Alisa Weilerstein and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Payare rendered a thrilling performance of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto in Leeds.

Much-loved favourites wrapped around an assured early Beethoven piano concerto with Elisabeth Leonskaja.

Even Emperor Josef II would have thought this was a bad idea. The real-life monarch depicted in Peter Shaffer’s fictional play Amadeus quite memorably forbade ballet in his court operas. But the absurdity of the dancers carrying on with no music playing in Mozart’s Act III convinced the Emperor that he was in the wrong.

Rafael Payare préside, avec un style à la fois sérieux et détendu, à l’introduction antéchronologique dans le langage hexagonal avec Claude Debussy, puis Camille Saint-Saëns et enfin Hector Berlioz.

Rafael Payare, chef vénézuélien offre une vision contrastée du Concerto pour orchestre de Bartók, sans pour autant mener le troisième concerto de Beethoven à bon port : la jeunesse de David Fray n'aura pas su donner l'amplitude nécessaire à l'œuvre du génie allemand... dommage car l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande sonna bien... 

Eine starke Orchesterleistung lässt mit Schostakowitschs Zehnter anfängliche Unvollkommenheiten vergessen.

Sergey Katchatryan brilliert im Violinkonzert des Jubilars Sibelius, doch die Münchner Philharmoniker stehen ihm in Virtuosität und Farbenreichtum in nichts nach.