Artiste: 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.