Bravo!

Congratulations to Sir John Eliot Gardiner for a wonderful Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm. In the presence of the King and Queen of Sweden, and bringing together musicians from the UK and Scandinavia, the programme started with Dvorak's 7th Symphony with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. Then the Monteverdi Choir and Eric Ericsson Chamber Choir joined forces for a stunning performance of Mozart's Mass in C minor with a starry line up of Scandinavian soloists including soprano Miah Persson. The concert is available on www.medici.tv.

Peter Donohoe marked the 100th anniversary of Messiaen's birth by performing a recital at the City Hall in Glasgow. He played a programme of Messiaen and Beethoven and the Glasgow Herald reported; "Underpinning the unlikely kinship, and defining the outstanding quality of this recital was the characterful, completely unpretenious, and down-to-earth mastery of this great Mancunian pianist."

Congratulations and welcome home to Ian Bostridge who has just completed a mammoth recital tour of Japan and Korea with three separate appearances in Tokyo together with Osaka, Seoul and Nagoya. He has now returned to London to perform in the concluding concert of his Barbican "Homeward Bound"residency, with two performances of Britten's St. Nicholas this Saturday 6th December.

Bravo to Rodion Pogossov who gave a rousing performance as vampire Lord Ruthven in 'Der Vampyr' at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna last week. Stepping in as the cover artist he wowed the critics with his tremendous stage acting skills and magnificent voice: "This young Russian is equipped with an ideal baritone voice: beautiful tone, powerful and yet dominated with facility and elegance." [translation] He will next be appearing as Papageno in 'The Magic Flute' at the MET Opera in New York this Christmas and in the New Year.

Imogen Cooper performed a really spectacular Schubert recital at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this week. It was recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 on 14 January and will also be available on commercial CD in 2009. The Telegraph reported; " The warm inner glow that emanates from Imogen Cooper’s piano playing was particularly well suited to this all-Schubert recital. Hers is a pianism that combines taste and finesse, but with a subtle power that does not necessarily need excessive volume. Indeed, it can be the very softness of Cooper’s timbre and her poised approach to the music that prove so magnetic, drawing the ear into detail and expressive nuances that a more deliberately emphatic, less intimate performance might disguise."

Bravo to Yo-Yo Ma who has been named the 2009 Musician of the Year, and Stephanie Blythe Vocalist of the Year among the performing arts industry’s highest honors. The award, presented annually by Musical America, coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Silk Road Project, an ambitious, multi-continent educational initiative that Ma launched and has continued to nurture over the last decade. London welcomes Yo-Yo Ma on 12 December for a recital at the Barbican in pieces by Schubert, Shostakovich, Piazzolla and Franck.

Toby Spence's return to the role of Tom Rakewell, this time for the Theater an der Wien, has been a tremendous success for him. Toby's performance of the role, which he sang for the first time at the Paris Opera earlier this year, has been highly praised by the critics, who describe him as "als idealer Tom Rakewell" (Weiner Zeitung), "ein gut artikulierender... Rakewell" (Kurier), who expertly "formt die Titelpartie mit nuancenreicher Tenorstimme zu einem packenden, vielschichtigen Charakter" (Frankfurter Allgemeine). Toby will make further apperances as Tom Rakewell for the Teatro Real, Madrid, in January, and for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, next season.