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Enhanced by bells, Ex Cathedra Jeffrey Skidmore give a low-key but highly dramatic performance of Rachmaninov’s Vespers in Birmingham Town Hall

Bradley Smith, as Evangelist, and a fine cast of soloists drove this Good Friday account of Bach’s St Matthew Passion from Ex Cathedra in Birmingham.

In the final instalment of aus LICHT, the Helicopter String Quartet lives up to the publicity hype and choirs perform marvellous feats.

A Lenten programme of 17th-century French and Italian sacred music partially fulfilled its dramatic potential in refined, understated performances. 

In performing the Vespers in the acoustically wonderful Milton Court, Jeffrey Skidmore took the imaginative decision to interleaving its movements with solo piano works, played by Steven Osborne. It proved inspirational programming.

Ex Cathedra's Chorus in fine voice for a "small scale" Messiah in Birmingham. 

There’s more to Brazil than nuts and football, as our reviewer discovered in an evening devoted to Brazilian Baroque, presented by Ex Cathedra. 

Tonight’s Stockhausen Prom was in equal parts sonic experience and performance.In an introduction to a performance of Gesang der Jünglinge in 2001, Stockhausen proposed that “if you close your eyes every now and then, you might even see these angels”. In a concert performance this isn’t an empty suggestion; Gesang der Jünglinge is a truly acoustic experience.

Any venue, cathedral or concert hall, that advertises a Good Friday performance of J.S. Bach’s epic St Matthew Passion is likely to sell out; even Birmingham’s vast Symphony Hall is no exception, today being full to bursting with eager parishioners making their annual pilgrimage to wallow in Bach’s all-consuming musical ministry.

I was in two minds whether to opt for this concert, as I’d have another one to review the following day, but from the first note it was clearly the right decision.

Le 16 mai, Carolyn Sampson et l'Ex Cathedra Consort and Baroque Orchestra donnaient un programme construit autour de la figure de Marie Fel, grande soprano du 18ème siècle. Un hommage tout à fait intéressant malgré une interprétation un peu monochrome.