This follow-up to last year's Songs forthe Ravens finds singer-songwriter Julie Baenziger, aka Sea Of Bees, drawing strength from sadness.

Nico Muhly’s first work for English National Opera was an iffy affair, but he talks a blue streak, and since his collaborators include Bjork, Philip Glass, and sundry indie-rock outfits, nobody could accuse him of not putting himself about. He’s now the go-to classical composer for anyone wanting to associate themselves with cutting-edge New York cool.

Without Warning has a brilliant location, but takes a while to make the most of it.

Emerging musicians get a welcome platform, but please change the record

The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s intriguing new Prokofiev series is entitled “Man of the People?” and the enigma is all in the question mark.

Hailing from the same Bergen, Norway music scene that spawned The Whitest Boy Alive and Røyksopp, Casiokids deal primarily in a similar style of cool, clean electropop, with tracks such as "Det Haster!" and "London Zoo" employing airy, high-register vocals – not unreasonably in their native Norwegian – over nimble, ticking synthscapes.

Ukelele lessons may be rewarding for those whowant to learn a new skill – but only if they possess some musical talent

Great pianists often gravitate to chamber music in their maturity, as though the satisfactions of communal music-making finally outweigh the thrills of solo achievement.

Anyone wanting to test the mettle of British classical music’s up-and-coming young stars might begin by checking out the annual parade of talent put on at Christmas by the Park Lane Group.

The greensward is a massive 40-foot high slope in The Heart of Robin Hood, the RSC's captivating new Christmas show.

Brahms's Double Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello was in its day a very unfashionable form, since concertos were expected to pit a lone soloist against the massed forces of an orchestra. But its intimate dialogue had a suitably intimate inspiration.

Graham Fitkin is one of our most versatile composers, and since he’s been commissioned to celebrate the Olympics, the Cello Concerto he has written to showcase the talents of Yo-Yo Ma - plus the (dubious) acoustic possibilities of the Royal Albert Hall – is of more than passing interest.

Viktoria Mullova and Matthew Barley are at once the least likely musical combination, and also among the most fertile.

The jazz leanings of her husband's quartet, the Matthew Barley Ensemble, exert perhaps too great an influence over this set from violinist Viktoria Mullova, which mingles gypsy-influenced jazz compositions by the Modern Jazz Quartet and Weather Report with several of Bartók's folk-derived pieces and Zoltan Kodály's three-part "Duo for violin and cello".