Ainadamar
Birmingham

Osvaldo Golijov has been described as "the future of contemporary music", a future in which stylistic boundaries dissolve and diverse cultural elements are woven into a single, multicoloured musical voice. Smoke and mirrors, maybe, but Golijov's music is unquestionably skilful, and usually has its heart in the right place. The Barbican presented a pair of hugely successful concerts of his works in 2006, including extracts from his first opera Ainadamar. Now there's a chance to hear the whole thing, with Robert Spano conducting the City Of Birmingham Symphony. Ainadamar was where Federico Garcia Lorca was killed by fascists during the Spanish civil war, and Golijov's opera recalls the events surrounding the murder, through the memories of Margarita Xirgu, one of the poet's closest collaborators. The role was written for soprano Dawn Upshaw, who sings here and at the Barbican next Sunday.
Andrew Clements

· Symphony Hall, Thu 10

Lalo Schifrin/London Symphony Ochestra
London

Jazz performances involving full-blown symphony orchestras have a habit of glueing the nimble feet of a mercurial idiom into the general morass beneath. A big-scale composer who understands jazz is Lalo Schifrin, the Argentina-born composer and conductor. Schifrin is famous for some of the screen's best-known scores, from Bullitt and Dirty Harry to the iconic Mission Impossible theme. But, as befits an artist who has performed with many legends - Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald among them - Schifrin is fascinated by the interface between classical music and jazz, injecting a movie composer's pacing and urgency. The composer's Jazz Meets The Symphony project drives this concert, with brass virtuoso James Morrison, Diana Krall bassist Pierre Boussaguet and Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuna.
John Fordham

· Barbican Hall, EC2, Thu 10