Magnificent minimalism, sizzling Strauss, bracing Berlioz: Guardian critics’ top picks for Proms 2026 As details of this year’s concert series are unveiled, here are some of the most exciting lineups – from a Bach recital by Notre-Dame’s organist to Thomas Adès conducting the National Youth Orchestra ...

Find out which Proms we’ll be queuing for this season @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

Peace in an unbearable world - The Tablet In 2010 the record-industry magazine Gramophone asked an international jury to vote for the best choirs in the world. The top 20 featured no fewer than eight

I hear a lot of London chamber choirs but Meridian really caught my attention. I spoke to conductor Irene Messoloras about the fresh perspective she’s bringing to a crowded scene: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/peace-i...

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/ Candillari review – Simpson’s oratorio shrieks; Elgar and Sibelius stay polite Elgar’s more-tea-vicar salon Victoriana sat primly beside Simpson’s cataclysmic celebration of occultism, while Sibelius’s climactic payoff needed a bigger buildup

The programming promised life and death, but the performance never quite got past the pleasantries: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

Imeneo review – Handel in mischievous mood handled with wit and care Cambridge Handel Opera Company capture the self-referential charm of this mid-career novelty operetta

Such a delightful show: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

The Kingdom: Oxford Bach Choir, BSO/Nicholas review – Elgar’s unloved oratorio sounds expansive and convincing The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Oxford Bach Choir and a fine quartet of soloists made the case for Elgar’s oratorio

Banging the drum for Elgar's The Kingdom - what a piece! And a gorgeous performance from the Oxford Bach Choir & BSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

‘Siegfried wants to have fun, kill the dragon, meet the girl’: Andreas Schager on Wagner’s young bully The Austrian tenor is making his Royal Opera debut as Siegfried in the third instalment of of the Ring Cycle. He explains why operetta prepared him for the opera’s epic demands, and why Wagner’s louti...

What a joy to spend an hour with the irrepressible, and inexhaustible Andreas Schager before his Royal Opera debut tomorrow as Siegfried in the latest instalment Barrie Kosky's Ring: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

Elisabeth Leonskaja review – piano legend’s unerring sense of architecture reveals connections and kinships In her recital programme of Beethoven, Schoenberg, Chopin, Webern and Schubert, the Austrian pianist brought new insights and expected delights

Fascinating to hear Leonskaja making sense of a recital ranging from Beethoven and Schubert to Chopin, Schoenberg and Webern: theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

Gianni Schicchi (or Where There’s a Will) at Mayflower Studios, Southampton Read our review of Gianni Schicchi (or Where There’s a Will) review at Mayflower Studios, Southampton: zesty modern rewrite of Puccini’s one-act comedy

So many companies promise to change how we do opera, to transform it for our time.
@operaupclose
are actually doing it - and brilliantly - with their "company of storytellers" philosophy and a fab new Gianni Schicchi: www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/gian...

Feshareki/BBC Singers/Goddard review – goddess-inspired soundscape stuck in the great unknown Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

A new piece by Shiva Feshareki was many things, but not an opera: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

RPO/Edusei/Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha review – the makings of a classic Strauss South African soprano Rangwanasha proved she is the real deal in a performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs that’s let down by the RPO’s oddly pinched, poorly tuned backing

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

Tamara Stefanovich review – inspired and insightful programme celebrates Kurtág at 100 The pianist’s recital was a masterful essay in sound where the Hungarian composer’s short piano works were woven into and out of Debussy, Liszt and Bach

A brilliantly-programmed birthday homage to Kurtag from Tamara Stefanovich: theguardian.com/music/2026/f... review @theguardian.com

It looks a lot like the ROH one to be fair! Fascinating to see what they (can) do with it beyond the scheduled short run. I assume it would be too cost-prohibitive in a smaller venue, and is it really something people would return to in a revival soon?

Weill: The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at English National Opera | Live Review - Opera Now You’ve got to hand it to ENO: why go quietly when you can set the place on fire before you leave?

It's Brecht-lite from ENO's new The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (but a terrific Widow Begbick from Rosie Aldridge) www.opera-now.com/content/revi...

A classic revived: Opera North's Peter Grimes | The Critics' Circle A review of Opera North's 2026 revival of Phyllida Lloyd's classic 2006 staging of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes.

Phyllida Lloyd's Grimes is still serving the chills for Opera North, with an impressive central turn from John Findon: criticscircle.org.uk/a-classic-re... review @ccmusicuk.bsky.social

LSO / Chan / Stankiewicz review – Matthews’s oboe concerto is dense and dynamic The London Symphony Orchestra’s Olivier Stankiewicz was the soloist for the premiere of Colin Matthews’s oboe concerto; Rachmaninov and Bartók followed, with Chan compelling and clear

Incisive clarity from Elim Chan, and a meaty new oboe concerto from Colin Matthews for the LSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

Così Fan Tutte – ENO’s clever Coney Island take on Mozart’s opera Read our review of Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera's candy-striped staging of Mozart's anarchic opera, starring Lucy Crowe

Some classy singing and a staging with lots to say (under the clutter) but this revival didn't really gel for me: www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/cosi... @thestage.co.uk

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’

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/f...

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

After an impressive jump-in in 2017, Robert Treviño finally returns for a scheduled visit to the LSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

The new issue of Gramophone has arrived, in which @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social and I reassess the Giulini Don Giovanni:

Riot Ensemble review – from meditations to mariachi in new music of maximal difference The new music group’s engaging programme of works by Corie Rose Soumah, Anna Meredith, Alex Paxton and Eden Lonsdale moved from the swaggering to the subtle

Lovely arc of a programme from Riot Ensemble: joyous sonic assault from Anna Meredith, maximalist madness from Alex Paxton, and a drifting cool-down from Eden Lonsdale:
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

A soundscape to shock: murder, harmony and immortality - The Tablet But the murders (of his wife and her lover) are perhaps the least interesting part: disposing of an unfaithful spouse was par for the course in 16th-century

We talk more about the murders than the music, but Gesualdo shocks on pure aesthetics in the Gesualdo Six's effective new staging. Plus Rattle's Makropulos Affair: www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/a-sound...

I will absolutely!

No you’re quite correct! He then moved into theatre-sound and has been doing amazing things since.

The Mass for the Dead

My lovely friend and very talented sound-designer and composer Max Pappenheim has created the first of a new series of podcast ghost stories - beautifully produced, scored and v atmospheric. E Nesbit's deliciously creepy The Mass for the Dead kicks it off:
open.spotify.com/episode/2jWa...

CBSO/Yamada review – Moore’s trombone adventures into Fujikura’s sonic oceans Dai Fujikura’s elusive trombone concerto was given its UK premiere by Peter Moore, who made its colours and textures sing; a persuasive but perhaps too sunny reading of Mahler’s first symphony followe...

Gosh Peter Moore is good... A new trombone concerto and a sunny Mahler 1 from Yamada & the CBSO: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

Shimmer review – National Youth Orchestra welcome the new year in bracing, stylish style In a programme of early 20th- and 21st-century music, it was in the contemporary works that the new cohort of teenagers were most impressive

First review of the year from me: a bracing start to the season from the National Youth Orchestra: www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

The 10 best classical concerts of 2025 Classical music is strapped for cash and moral support – yet the creativity and determination in the face of that deserves several very loud cheers

Michael Church, @jessicaduchen.bsky.social and I all chose our Top 10 classical events of 2025: inews.co.uk/culture/arts...

The highlights of classical music in 2025 from @theartsdesk.bsky.social team of critics:

The Tablet asked its critics to talk about the art that means Christmas to us. Here’s me on Finzi, Lucy M Boston and Alison Uttley:

Beare’s Chamber Music festival review: string supergroup dazzle with Schubert, Strauss and Schoenberg The likes of Janine Jansen, Timothy Ridout and Kian Soltani were part of a starry lineup giving this London audience a taste of heaven on earth

Last review of the year from me. A seriously lush launch-programme for a seriously starry new chamber music festival. Jansen, Sitkovetsky, Quatuor Ebene, Soltani, Grosz, Ridout and more: www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...