A Garland for St. George: Vivamus sing Byrd in Bloomsbury

After the overload of concerts and carol singing around Christmas, most choirs have a well-deserved break before starting for another year, but not Vivamus. This young London-based choir entered 2013 in style with a candlelit concert for Epiphany. The concert’s main advertised work was Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, with other composers on the programme including Leighton, Howells and Whitacre.

After the overload of concerts and carol singing around Christmas, most choirs have a well-deserved break before starting for another year, but not Vivamus. This young London-based choir entered 2013 in style with a candlelit concert for Epiphany. The concert’s main advertised work was Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, with other composers on the programme including Leighton, Howells and Whitacre.

Late Brahms, early Schoenberg: under Lahav Shani and the Rotterdam Philharmonic draw tenderness from two monumental scores. 

Songs and symphonies from Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, concluding with a vision of “heavenly life” from Gustav Mahler. 

Fragments by Brahms, Schoenberg and Schubert orbit Beethoven's Waldstein and Schumann's Carnaval in another masterful recital from Sir Stephen Hough.  

In Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Yulianna Avdeeva commands attention through sheer innate charisma, anchored in intense engagement.