BBC Singers, BBCSO, Jeannin, Barbican review - from stormy weather to blue skies

“Bold, ambitious, and good for the sector.” So said Charlotte Moore, the BBC chief content officer, who currently earns £468,000, in March last year as she defended plans to close the BBC Singers as part of a package of swingeing musical cuts masked – as usual – as a high-principled strategic rethink.

Andsnes, London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Gardner, RFH review - total clarity in classic-romantic and prophetic Rachmaninov

If there was ever a time for the inevitable "Rach Three” (piano concerto, not symphony) in the composer’s 150^th anniversary year – and I confess I dodged other occasions – it might as well have come in the fresh and racy shape of Leif Ove Andsnes' interpretation and the equally alert, forward-moving playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra under a kindred spirit, its principal conductor Edward Gardner.

Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - declaration of thrills to come

If audience reaction is anything to go by, Kahchun Wong’s season-opening first concert officially in post as principal conductor of the Hallé was an outstanding success.

And the reception was deserved. Still young enough, with a mop of hair cascading over his forehead, to look like a Wunderkind, he has considerable experience behind him, with a career on both sides of the world – in south-east Asia and in Europe and America.