Winter Olympics 2026 opening ceremony review – disco-dancing opera masters upstage Mariah Carey
Carey was the big draw at Milan’s San Siro, but she was outweighed by pop-classical artists – and a sizeable dollop of kitsch
Classical Mixtape: A Live Takeover review – one queue after another mars orchestral jamboree
Six world-class orchestras in one night sounds like a surefire hit – but the programming was uninspired and there was far too much standing in line
Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi review – big, generous, provocative music-making on a small stage
Grammy-winning Giddens fused folk, opera, jazz, pop and classical elements in a recital ‘honouring composers who don’t often get called composers’
Amidst the Shades album review – Ruby Hughes’ captivating Dowland tribute is steeped in delicious melancholy
Joined by lutenist Nordberg and Brinkmann’s viola da gamba, the soprano’s homage to the Renaissance composer is captivating and persuasive
The Goldberg Variations album review – Yunchan Lim untangles Bach’s complex web of threads
The 21-year-old pianist gives a fine, muscular account of the Goldbergs, with touches of playfulness, in this live recording from Carnegie Hall
Leonkoro Quartet review – vivid, intoxicating play from gleaming future stars
This young Berlin-based quartet impressed in a polished recital that built on Webern and Mendelssohn towards Beethoven’s enigmatic 0p 131
Sea Beneath the Skin/Song of the Earth review – sea, sand and ceremony as Mahler’s song cycle makes waves
Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio’s chant-filled music-theatre piece – performed by Theatre of Kiribati and Britten Sinfonia – pushes Mahler into uncharted waters
Boris Godunov review – Bryn Terfel wild-eyed and barking in Mussorgsky’s relentless study of power
The second revival of Richard Jones’s compelling production boasts an impressive cast, with Terfel’s supple and rich voice at its centre. Conductor Mark Wigglesworth keeps up the momentum
LSO/Treviño/ Kopatchinskaja review – he conducts with a coiled-spring muscularity
Robert Treviño’s sure hand led the London Symphony Orchestra through mystical Messiaen and cinematic Rachmaninoff with Patricia Kopatchinskaja precise and playful in Márton Illés’s Vont-tér
Leonkoro Quartet: Out of Vienna album review – a blazing exploration of Viennese modernism
The young quartet give a fiercely alert account of Berg, Webern and Schulhoff – beautifully capturing Vienna’s prewar musical fault lines
Strozzi: Virtuosissima Sirena album review – Laura Catrani enchants with music from a true Venetian revolutionary
A sumptuous, elegant account of Barbara Strozzi’s 17th-century vocal music – performed with warmth, clarity and persuasive expressive freedom
Earth and Other Planets review – reimagined Holst with harmonica and a hoedown
Left-field duo Stevens & Pound threaded funky folk stylings with poetry by Robert Macfarlane and virtuoso playing by Britten Sinfonia to create The Silent Planet, a rethinking of Holst’s Planets Suite, with the addition of the newly composed Earth
Ben Goldscheider/ Richard Uttley review – a horn, a piano … and a braying donkey
This was a richly satisfying and moving concert of music that ranged from Mahler and Schumann to Simon Holt’s the Bell and Oliver Leith’s Eeyore
LPO/Jurowski review – Mahler’s 10th is full of colour, and the composer’s pain, in Barshai’s completion
Rudolf Barshai’s audacious completion of Mahler’s final unfinished symphony slathers on the colour, and its diverse timbral details came over loud and clear thanks to the LPO’s playing and Vladimir Jurowski’s textural lucidity
BBCSO/BBC Singers/Brabbins: UnEarth review – Wolfe faces the climate crisis head on
Julia Wolfe’s oratorio, here in its UK premiere, is evocative and striking, but its thudding final movement felt heavy-handed