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Willie Nelson, Hammersmith Apollo, London
The country fans who headed out west for Willie Nelson’s gig – west London that is – were hoping to renew their faith in a great American archetype, writes Ludovic Hunter-Tilney
Earthbound on the moon
Janácek’s inebriated antihero seldom finds his way on to the opera stages of today. As the Frankfurt Opera’s welcome new staging shows, this is not the fault of the music, writes Shirley Apthorp
Yang Xuefei, Shenzhen Concert Hall
Championing an instrument and repertory that still occasionally suffers from its relative youth in the west may place a large burden on such petite shoulders, but one underestimates Yang Xuefei at one’s own risk, writes Ken Smith
St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Zankel Hall, New York
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is an autonomous ensemble that manages to make its mark without a full-time conductor. It functions – very well, thank you – with five “artistic partners”, writes Martin Bernheimer
Tsunami, Barbican, London
Distinguished poets who hand over their words for musical setting are few. Even fewer are those who show an awareness of its demands. James Fenton is one of the few, writes Andrew Clark
Tosca, Royal Opera House, London
At the head of the cast is Jonas Kaufmann’s highly impressive Cavaradossi. Although his voice is unlikely to be mistaken for an Italian tenor, Kaufmann is a first-rate singer who is now at the peak of his form, writes Richard Fairman
Prometeo, Royal Festival Hall, London
Maybe the people with their eyes closed had found the proper way to digest this piece. There were so many of them, they couldn’t all be sleeping – though that would have been a legitimate response to Nono’s modernist hymn, writes Andrew Clark
The Puppini Sisters, Theatre Royal, Winchester
Imagine a world where rock and pop never happened. This is the world of the Puppini Sisters, a close-harmony trio who bring the musical (and sartorial) world of the 1940s into the present, writes David Honigmann
‘My piano almost dreams with me’
Krystian Zimerman, one of the world’s most famous pianists who lives in absolute anonymity in his own city, grants a rare interview to Shirley Apthorp
Pipes of peace
The eighth UK visit of the Tashi Lhunpo Monks aims to raise funds and educate people about Tibet’s ancient and endangered Buddhist culture





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