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Edinburgh Festival preview: Classical - Ludus Baroque, Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble and Oper Frankfurth

Ludus Baroque performs Bach's B Minor Mass in Canongate Kirk (canongatekirk.org.uk, 8 Aug), while Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble survey Schubert's symphonies at the Usher Hall (usherhall.co.uk, 14 and 15 Aug).

Opera festival of the week: Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, Riverside Studios, London W6

Tête à Tête's festival of new opera and opera-in-the-making hosts more than 30 world premieres this year, jam-packed into three long weekends.

Shape of things to come: Southbank Sinfonia

An ear to the future: Bristol Proms bring classical music into the 21st-century

At the Bristol Proms, all manner of techno-wizardry – from 3D visuals to digital art – is being deployed to lure in new audiences, says Jessica Duchen

Don’t panic: The Bayreuth Festival’s 2010 Parsifal in rehearsal

The Bayreuth Festival preview: Let the madness begin!

It's Wagner's bicentenary and there's a new 'Ring' in the wings. But can the festival shrug off its history, asks Adrian Mourby

Blown away: Alison Balsom stars in ‘Gabriel’ at Shakespeare’s Globe

A brass act: Star trumpeter Alison Balsom is set to perform in Gabriel at the Globe and Latitude festival

Balsom has a burning ambition to break through the barriers to her music being heard.

The Albert Hall

2013 Proms preview: From Britten to Bear Hunt, it’s the sound of summer

Never mind the operatic overkill, says Michael Church, the Proms season promises musical treats for all tastes at the Albert Hall

Sir Antonio Pappano: 'I had no ambition to conduct'

Sir Antonio Pappano's boundless energy has propelled him from lounge-bar pianist to world-renowned conductor. Boyd Tonkin catches up with him in Rome

Zacharias says conventional performances are ‘insane’ and a ‘provocation’

Christian Zacharias interview: 'Bach? Too boring! Chopin? So corny …'

On the eve of his Aldeburgh concerts, the pianist tells Michael Church why he loves to wind up the traditionalists and critics

Opera of the week: The Perfect American, London Coliseum, London WC2

Based on Peter Stephan Jungk's fictionalised account of Walt Disney's dying days, the latest of Philip Glass's operas offers a mythic portrait of the megalomaniac behind Main Street USA's most beloved cartoon characters.

Glyndebourne survived the Second World War by opening its doors to evacuees from east London

The opera venue's act will be honoured at this year's festival reports Jessica Duchen.

Power play: Mitsuko Uchida in concert

Mitsuko Uchida: The plight of the music prodigy pushed too far, too fast

Young musicians need time to develop, the world famous pianist tells Jessica Duchen

All ears: Michael Volpe’s daughter, Fiora

The birth of a new opera: Children know the score when it comes to songs

In his latest dispatch, Michael Volpe reveals how music is crucial to Alice

Marin Alsop will be the first woman to conduct the Last Night at the Proms in its 119 year history

BBC Proms 2013 schedule in full

Here are the listings of the BBC Proms season 2013 in full:

BBC Proms season 2013 at a glance

  • Marking the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth, Daniel Barenboim conducts his first Wagner opera in the UK in the first ever complete performance of the Ring cycle in a single Proms festival.

Funeral music: Ring-ding ding ding, Ted Heath is dead?

Tomorrow, the music played at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral will be Elgar’s “Nimrod” and “I Vow To Thee My Country”. Given this week’s chart, er, ding-dong it was always unlikely that a tune from the Top 10 would soundtrack proceedings (Maggie never took to Duke Dumont). But what other inappropriate chart offerings have there been in the week of a former PM’s death?

 

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