Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Alison Balsom

This is the bicentenary of the Shelley's death, drowned in a storm off the coast here in July 1822 and so, naturally, the Lerici Music Festival has taken the poet as its theme this year.

Two of today’s brightest soloists take on Mozart and Hummel concertos, then come together with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra for Shostakovich.  

Saint-Saens' “Dance of Death” and Orff's gaudy, medieval satire framed a stunningly-realised new commission from Guy Barker, with Alison Balsom playing against type. 

The China Philharmonic Orchestra and Long Yu made their BBC Proms première, the concert's rather jumbled programme producing mixed results.

In what was apparently the first appearance from an Irish orchestra at the Proms since the 1970s, pianist/conductor Barry Douglas and the strings of his Camerata Ireland brought a programme to Cadogan Hall which examined Benjamin Britten in the context of some of his contemporaries and friends.

Shakespeare’s Globe is currently hosting playwright Samuel Adamson’s Gabriel, described as “an entertainment with trumpet”. Alison Balsom, the internationally recognised trumpeter and creative producer of this show, presented musical extracts from Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, King Arthur and Dioclesian, along with many other odes and songs by Purcell and other Baroque composers.

There might be a shiver of fear in some quarters when the listener is confronted with the name Nicholas McGegan. Mercilessly rushed tempi, slipshod ensemble—and the wool-on-chalkboard horror of vibratoless strings.

For its last classical concert of 2011, Perth welcomed back international trumpet virtuoso Alison Balsom to St John’s Kirk, this time with David Goode on organ, for an imaginative and challenging programme of music. Balsom, awarded Best Female Artist at this year’s Classical Brit Awards, is no stranger to the town, and a sizeable crowd filled the church for this recital.

In the week when the world of Physics was turned upside-down by neutrinos being found to travel faster than the speed of light, my physics world encountered another first – a carpeted church with a fantastic acoustic! St Michael’s Kirk, Inveresk – situated at the highest point of Musselburgh, East Lothian - played host to a sold-out concert featuring The Scottish Ensemble and their special guest,