Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Chamber Symphony in C minor (arr. Rudolf Barshai), Op.110a

The pairing of Barshai's arrangment of Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet with Mozart's Gran Partita makes for an interesting contrast in this concert, beautifully presented by members of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

An eclectic programme including evocative Sámi joiks from and powerful Shostakovich performed from memory by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra.

Two works by Shostakovich sandwiching Rhapsody in Blue made for an exhilerating concert from the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Melbourne

The combined forces of the Gewandhaus and Boston Symphony unite under Andris Nelsons for a searing Leningrad Symphony, while the Quatuor Danel tackles the string quartets. 

Energetic commitment from the ACO at the Barbican, with precision and edge from Alexander Melnikov and Jeroen Berwaerts in an evening of darkness and light.

The Hong Kong Sinfonietta intrigues with the world premiere of Lam Lai's There is no place like home (beta), impresses in Shostakovich’s brooding Chamber Symphony, while Pavel Kolesnikov proves a fine soloist in Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto.

The charismatic Rakhi Singh leads the Manchester Collective in fine performances of Mazzoli, Leith, Shaw and Shostakovitch.

The Cleveland Orchestra offered stark contrasts of feeling in Shostakovich’s bleak Chamber Symphony and the luminous closing movement of Messiaen’s Éclairs sur l’au-delà.

From two dreamy idylls to the agitated world of Shostakovich, a fine online programme from Kahchun Wong and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in the Esplanade Concert Hall.

As the BSO heads on an international tour, Andris Nelsons leads a program featuring Barber, Shostakovich and Dvořák. 

The SCO’s strings play as though they had an insight into the composer’s psyche that few could share. 

With utter technical mastery, the ACO extract every emotion from a concert that gets progressively darker as the evening proceeds. 

Britten Sinfonia and Voices directed by Eamonn Dougan courageously plumb the depths of humanity’s despair in music ancient and modern

In a diverse programme consisting of Haydn and Pärt, Stephen Layton impressed with his choir Polyphony, while the Britten Sinfonia performed a fine rendition of Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony. 

Grammy-nominated Saxophionist Amy Dickson joins the Scottish Ensemble for an intense Russian-themed programme.

Manchester Camerata’s series of Mozart concertos, an ongoing theme in their 40th anniversary season, came to a close with pianist Ferenc Rados joining fellow Hungarian Gábor Takács-Nagy for a superb account of the Piano Concerto no. 15 at the Royal Northern College of Music.The broader theme of the evening, though, was movement, and two modern works began proceedings to fascinating effect.

For many reasons, the ACO’s most recent show The Reef was an artistic experience like no other in all my years of concert-going. It is difficult even categorising the event: an orchestral concert with accompanying video footage? A film with live soundtrack? Neither does full justice to the nature of the project.

The Mariinsky Orchestra are great, because Valery Gergiev arranges a schedule that only the great could sustain. In the two weeks before they arrived in Toronto, his musicians played six performances of Swan Lake in Berkeley, California. Then Gergiev took them back to St Petersburg (October 15–23) to play the operas Boris Godunov and Aida.

The three pieces performed this evening at the Sage Gateshead by Northern Sinfonia’s string section were very different in character, but they had one thing in common (apart from the alliterative composer names): they all were originally written as chamber pieces, and later arranged for orchestra.

Das Gewandhausorchester Leipzig ließ bei Schostakowitsch und Gubaidulina seine Virtuosität glänzen.

Die Streicher des LCO spielten engagiert und hatten sichtlich Spaß am Auf und Ab Graham Fitkins Komposition.

En direct sur sa chaîne YouTube, l'orchestre lillois montre sous la direction du hautboïste François Leleux qu'il n'a rien perdu de sa superbe malgré deux confinements.

En su segundo concierto de la temporada 2020-2021, la Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife presentó un programa atractivo y ecléctico, bajo la dirección de Juanjo Mena y teniendo como solista a Pablo Ferrández.