Updated 6:38am 1 June 2012

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Review: Noah Stewart, at Adrian Boult Hall

****

Having been impressed by Noah Stewart in a John Wilson concert last December at Symphony Hall, I was interested to see how this much-vaunted young American tenor would fare in the Adrian Boult Hall’s more intimate acoustic.Read

Review: CBSO, at Symphony Hall

*****

Many of us would claim that Walton’s First Symphony is the greatest ever composed by a Briton, and Thursday’s performance by the CBSO would go a long way towards affirming that. Read

Review: Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, at CBSO Centre

****

The space Oliver Knussen fills in the world of music is immense, and not only because of his big, genial frame. Busy as a most probing, perceptive conductor (and not only of contemporary music), he still somehow manages to find time to produce compositions of fastidious clarity and engagement.Read

Review: Dracula, at Symphony Hall

***

Numerous film scores pay tribute to Philip Glass’s creative talents, not least this evening’s black and white film, Dracula from 1931. Read

Review: The Peacemakers, at Symphony Hall

***

Say what you like about his music, but Karl Jenkins is a phenomenon. From 1970s jazz-rock to advertising jingles and large-scale choral works, he is now, as his publicity trills, ‘the most performed living composer in the world.’Read

Review: Ex Cathedra, at Birmingham Town Hall

****

For over 40 years Jeffrey Skidmore and Ex Cathedra have gradually expanded their exploration of choral music, both backwards in time and forwards up to the present day.Read

English Symphony Orchestra

Diamond Jubilee: Royally entertained with Elgar

A bumper week lies ahead to tie in with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and a certain musical luminary's birthday. Christopher Morley gives us the lowdown.Read

Jazz

Jazz Diary

* Of the many excellent jazz musicians to have come out of the West Midlands scene in the last decade or so, one of the most interesting and talented is, to my ears, Shabaka Hutchings.Read

Kristine Opolais. Picture Marco Borggreve

Fifty years and still spellbound by Britten's War Requiem

It's half a century since Benjamin Britten premiered his masterpiece War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral. Christopher Morley recalls a young boy who was transfixed by the moment all those years ago.Read

Review: Chilingirian Quartet, at Grafton Manor Chapel, Bromsgrove

****

Difficult to know where the excitement lay for this concert in this year’s stimulating Bromsgrove Festival, whether it was for the opportunity to catch up with the Chilingirian Quartet (now in amazingly its 40th year) or to check out the progress of the brilliant young saxophonist Amy Dickson, winner of the Festival’s Young Musicians Platform in 2002.Read

Review: City of Birmingham Choir, at Birmingham Town Hall

****

This concert by the City of Birmingham Choir offered several points of comparison and contrast. A conventional enough programme (Classical Meets Romantic was the title) it partnered Beethoven’s Mass in C with Schumann’s little-known Requiem in an almost chalk-and-cheese musical pairing.Read

Review: Burman In Hollywood, CBSO at Symphony Hall

*****

East met West for a tribute to one of the most famous 20th century Indian composers: R.D. Burman, creator of 300 legendary film soundtracks for thriving Bollywood, transforming Indian film music for ever. Much was familiar to the audience, but unusual for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s slightly reduced strength of 75 players.Read

Review: CBSO, at Symphony Hall

*****

We can easily understand Britten’s composing ‘Our Hunting Fathers’. A pacifist under gathering war-clouds, as well as a passionate animal-lover, he responded gladly to the sardonic anti-Establishment poetry written and selected by W.H. Auden.Read

Jazz

Jazz Diary

The big gig this week places a real game changer in US jazz on the same bill as a fresh young UK outfit working to renew a venerable tradition.Read

Tom Clarke, of The Enemy

Review: The Enemy, at the Kasbah, Coventry

***

There was an ecstatic welcome for The Enemy at their first of two home-coming gigs. Read

Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne

Review: Black Sabbath, at the O2 Academy, Birmingham

*****

IT was hotter than hell, and loud enough to wake the dead. Black Sabbath were back in Birmingham, rolling back the years for 2,000 ecstatic fansRead

So much, so young for Laura Wright

Justine Halifax talks to "Britain's most exciting new soprano" ahead of an eagerly awaited performance in Birmingham's Symphony Hall.Read

Variety's the spice of life at Birmingham concert halls

An action-packed nine months lie ahead at Birmingham's Town Hall and Symphony Hall. Christopher Morley gives us the score.Read

Search is on for best choir

Calling all choirs...Read

Review: CBSO, Once Upon A Time at Birmingham Symphony Hall

*****

Magically transformed from a children’s piano duet, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite unfailingly charms both performers and listeners. Read