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A stunning performance of virtuosic ensemble singing by Collegium Vocale Gent to open the 16th Oslo International Church Music Festival

Making its fourth Proms appearance this season, the BBC National Orchestra transported the audience from the Orient in Nielsen’s Aladdin, to Ancient Greece for a world première, then to heaven in Mahler’s Symphony no. 4.

Andreas Scholl, Klara Ek and the Academy of Ancient music perform Vivldi, Pergolesi and Wassenaer at the Barbican. All the musicians worked exceptionally well as part of the collective, turning the programme into a real delicacy.

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted”, says the scripture, and it was so last night as Peter Oundjian conducted the mournful music of Brahms and Lieberson. Wave after wave of the rich textures of grieving arose and subsided in song, leaving in their wake the energy of reconciliation.The grieving of Peter Lieberson is deep.

Andrés Orozco-Estrada has been feted as “a brilliant stand-in”, having replaced a number of more well-known conductors at short notice in Vienna, where he studied his craft. He is now the music director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna having made an all-important career breakthrough.The Colombian was no stand-in for this concert, however.

Nikolaj Znaider concluded the Hallé Beethoven cycle in emphatic fashion, preceding the Choral Symphony with another ninth symphony, that of Shostakovich. The football-style roar from the sell-out audience at the end of the evening was a good indicator of the quality of the concert.