Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Fanfare for the Common Man

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra provided a formidable performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony under Marin Alsop, with Renaud Capuçon bringing warmth and joie de vivre to Mendelssohn.

On this Montréal concert, visiting conductor Cristian Măcelaru presented Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs to mark the 70th anniversary of World War II

Both new works by Michael Williams and James Ledger rose to the challenge of marking Anzac Day admirably with personal and intense responses to the tragedy of war.

Five years on from her historic appointment as the first woman to head a major American orchestra, Marin Alsop took to the stage of Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley Friday night with a swagger, leading the impressive Baltimore Symphony, the orchestra with whom she has made her mark as one of the world’s leading conductors.

For its centenary concert – given on 11th September 2011, in Cheltenham, and at Poole Lighthouse on Tuesday 13th September – Bournemouth Symphony Chorus paid tribute to those who fell victim to the catastrophic act of terrorism that shook the world ten years before.

The programme read a little like a musical version of Kim's Game: not one but two full-scale symphonies, the same number of prefatory pieces, and then a piano concerto to boot: a test for the audience as well as the orchestra. The principal connexion between the works – apart from their contemporaneity – was the celebrated conductor, Serge Koussevitsky.

Asier Polo dio una clase magistral de sensibilidad, exhibiendo un rango dinámico y tímbrico excepcional y dando vida a las disonantes armonías de la pieza con una lucidez y musicalidad de la que pocos violonchelistas de la actualidad pueden presumir.