Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Thomas Adès

Textures, tensions and transformations across musical perspectives imbue the Tanglewood programme Thomas Adès inherited from Esa-Pekka Salonen. 

Thomas Adès serves up an astronomical programme, pairing his Piano Concerto and Paradiso with Holst’s crowd favourite, The Planets.

In a rewarding program of challenging, unfamiliar scores, Thomas Adès and The Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus tackle works by Sibelius, Ives, Saariaho, and Adès himself.

Stephen Waarts plays two 21st-century works for violin and orchestra that deserve to become repertoire regulars, sandwiches by two fine performances of Sibelius symphonies. 

What fills a large London concert hall? It could be time for a rethink.

Thomas Adès conducts a new version of his own The Origin of the Harp, but music by Woolrich and Weir falls to grip. 

The French premiere of the British composer's opera will be the undisputed high point of the Grande Boutique's season: a perfect confluence of music, staging and cast.

Having often been featured as a composer on Cleveland Orchestra programs, Thomas Adès makes his podium debut with the orchestra, leading his own music coupled with analogous works of Sibelius.

Thomas Adès conducts music from his own ballet score to The Dante Project and Stravinsky's Persephone. 

Thomas Adès takes the audience in Rome into paradise, or the ascension into Dante's heavens, as his Paradiso makes its first appearance in Italy in a programme dedicated to the celestial world. 

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here” could have been the strapline for this brilliantly constructed, brilliantly played concert featuring music by Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Thomas Adès himself. 

British composer Thomas Adès conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in a custom-made programme, also featuring Pekka Kuusisto's hypnotic violin-playing.

The two pianists strike gold with a fine duo recital at the Lucerne Festival.

Soloists Leonidas Kavakos and Antoine Tamestit brought elegance and gravitas to Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, while Adès led a thoughtful performance of his own Shanty – Over the Sea.

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra opens its season with a dazzling showpiece by Thomas Adès.

Barry goes for out-weirding Carroll at a fast and furious pace. There's plenty of fun and it's beautifully staged – but is that enough?

The Boston Symphony Orchestra offered a reading of Beethoven's “Pastoral” Symphony that ideally suited the bucolic surroundings.

The culmination of Thomas Ades' Beethoven cycle with the Britten Sinfonia channels Beethoven's atavistic energies. 

Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia now enter the final phase of their three year Beethoven and Barry cycle with rewarding interpretations of Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth, separated by a new Viola Concerto from Barry.

The concerto is not only a dance with tradition, it’s a dance between Adès and his frequent collaborator and friend, Kirill Gerstein.

Commendably fine playing from the LPO conducted by Thomas Adès, and with Kirill Gerstein as soloist, three less than familiar works throw up overwhelming volumes of energy.

Teztlaff’s ability to bring freshness and an enchanted inner life to even the most trodden of musical works is unsurpassed.

Thomas Adès continued his Beethoven cycle with the Britten Sinfonia in a superb performance of Beethoven's Sixth paired with Barry’s marmite piece The Conquest of Ireland.

The latest concert in the Britten Sinfonia’s ongoing Beethoven symphony cycle also featured the London première of Gerald Barry’s combative Piano Concerto.

Glistening performances by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and combined forces under Thomas Adès bring to life Stravinsky’s Perséphone, with fiery premières of works by Adès himself and Gerald Barry.

With Andris Nelsons about to debut as Kapellmeister at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, a collaboration with his Boston Symphony was inaugurated in style. 

Adès opera resists explanation, and the ambiguity of the story drives much of its compelling nature. 

Thomas Adès conducts the Britten Sinfonia in Beethoven and Gerald Barry.

Adès brought a freshness and originality to Beethoven's earliest symphonies, and a sharp portrait of the composer was given courtesy of Gerald Barry.

Luis Buñuel's derision at the sense of entitlement of over-privileged, self-righteous prigs shines through a high quality operatic adaptation.

Lewis Carroll's Alice: so crazy that all Gerald Barry can do is make it crazier.

Thomas Adès conducts three pieces on the subject of death, concluding with his own Totentanz. Despite the lugubrious subject matter there was a great sense of joy in the music making.

Evocative new works by Adès and Coll were performed thrillingly and provocatively by the Britten Sinfonia as they brought fizz and clarity to Beethoven's eighth and Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony.

The Salzburg Festival audience warmly applauded Thomas Adès, Tom Cairns and all musicians for a rounded and gripping première.

That Thomas Adès is a force of musical nature was demonstrated again in this passionate concert that made up the second part of his Composer Focus with the LSO.

Thomas Adès, in the first concert of his mini Composer Focus with the LSO, conducted three of his own works and one by Brahms at the Barbican.

Two seasons after his Met Opera debut, Thomas Adès is back at Lincoln Center making his conducting debut at the New York Philharmonic, including his own tremendous orchestral work, Totentanz.

Wayne McGregor, Karole Armitage, Alexander Whitley and Crystal Pite offer four stimulating choreographic readings of Thomas Adès’s music, in 'Thomas Adès : See the Music, Hear the Dance'  at Sadler’s Wells

Despite the frequency with which the two composers are compared, Thomas Adès’ music seldom sounds very much like that of Benjamin Britten. But Adès has an uncanny knack of performing Britten’s music in such a way that it resembles his own.

Thankfully, when it comes to classical music, programmes around the theme of death tend to make highly energetic evenings. The eighth Prom of this year was no exception, as Thomas Adès led the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the world première of his new work Totentanz, but not after performances of two similarly themed works: Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem and Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto.

It’s pretty luxurious to be able to stumble out of your front door at ten to six, wander five minutes round the corner to your friendly local cinema, be greeted with a glass of sparkling wine, and then watch a high-definition live screening of a top contemporary opera production at the Met.

Read our review of Robert Lepage's production of The Tempest in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

The Importance of Being Earnest is Gerald Barry’s fourth full-length opera; his previous three have set texts much more at home in the opera world than this ambitious libretto from Wilde’s famous play.

Thomas Adès' music has a rawness that only comes across heard live. This seems particularly true when he conducts it himself. Gone are the smooth contours of recordings and other conductors, replaced by a focus on infectious rhythm and sometimes brutal colours. His lyrical tendencies therefore become all the more powerful.Tevot is the perfect example.

I had extremely high expectations for this evening of music at the Concertgebouw; I’m a huge Thomas Adès fan and ever since I’d seen Leila Josefowicz play Esa-Pekka Salonen’s violin concerto I was more than impressed with her. Three Dutch premières of Thomas Adès’s music, as well as his debut as a conductor for the Concertgebouworkest certainly made an inspiring billing.

Dans un programme imaginé comme une véritable invitation à voyager, le compositeur-chef d'orchestre a montré tous ses talents de conteur pour le dernier concert de sa résidence parisienne.

En résidence à la Fondation Vuitton, le compositeur, chef d'orchestre et pianiste britannique a donné à entendre son formidable cycle Növényék, au sein d'un programme qui montrait son attachement aux musiques de l'est.

Ewig faszinierender Shakespeare in zeitgenössischer Musik und modernem Gewand, das „hat was“.

Concierto de excelente confección en el Thomas Adès dirigió obras propias y de Janáček, ofreciendo una lección en torno a su música y la de un autor por el que siente especial atracción.