Bravo!

The Kalichstein Laredo Robinson Trio enthralled delighted audiences at the Wigmore Hall last week with their cycle of the complete Beethoven Piano Trios. Now in their 31st year of playing together, the Trio were outstanding, as Ivan Hewett remarked in The Telegraph: "This trio has been living with these wonderful works for three decades, and their performances have a relaxed, unfussy quality which allows the music to breathe… Pianist Joseph Kalichstein had an impressive range of colour… Most purely pleasurable to listen to was the violinist Jaime Laredo."

Bravo to the Belcea Quartet who have just completed a mammoth day of three concerts at the Wigmore Hall, London, performing all six of Bartok's string quartets. Having released the quartets on CD with EMI earlier this year to critical acclaim (and receiving a Gramophone award nomination), they have been performing the works in concert throughout Europe. Guardian reviewer, Erica Jeal, was at the Wigmore Hall for all three concerts: "Live and on disc, it is music that the Belcea Quartet has made convincingly its own. In music that hurls itself off one precipice after another, the Belceas played with the force of sprinters, but the stamina of marathon runners. Each quartet seemed more exciting, more highly coloured than the last. And yet while the players wrung the maximum piquancy from the swoops, snaps and squeaks with which Bartók colours his folk-inflected counter-point, these special effects always had their place in a bigger musical picture. An enormous achievement from a world-class ensemble." The quartet perform all six of the Bartok quartets again in Stockholm's Konserthuset this coming weekend.

Bravo to Dmitri Hvorostovsky who opened the opera season in San Francisco as Simon Boccanegra with a tremendous success. "Dmitri Hvorostovsky's darkly handsome voice and liquid production would seem to give him most of the vocal requirements for a fine Doge, and for the last several years the Russian singer has been adding the great Verdi baritone roles to his repertory" said Lisa Hirsch of the San Francisco Classical Voice. whilst Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "His vocal production was superb, a virtuoso display of smoky tone and sensual, forthright phrasing."

Just when Michelle DeYoung thought she had a brief respite from her hectic European summer she managed, in between rehearsals and performances in Berlin for 'Tristan und Isolde' at the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin, to squeeze in two very major appearances at the extremes of the continent. Her first point of call was westwards towards London where she was a late replacement as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Verdi's Requiem at the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. Then she travelled eastwards to Jerusalem for a recital with Daniel Barenboim at the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival as another last minute replacement. She returns to her home and husband Allan after a final performance of 'Tristan und Isolde' this coming Sunday for a well-earned rest!

Bravo to Arild Remmereit who had a major success with the BBC SSO in St. Mary's Haddington last Wednesday. Conrad Wilson wrote for The Herald: "Remmereit conducted with great energy throughout, employing his vividly vertical beat to draw from the players a performance that had no trouble confirming the work as Dvorak's masterpiece."

Congratulations to tenor Ji- Min Park who has just won third prize in the Toulouse Singing Competition. The young Korean, who is in his second year at the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme in Covent Garden, continues to dazzle with his fine lyric singing.

Congratulations to Wayne Marshall for a stunning concert at the sold out Teatro alla Scala with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Guiseppe Verdi where he is Principal Guest conductor. The programme of works by George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein opened the orchestra's main season was very warmly received by critics and the audience, who rounded the concert off with a standing ovation.

Alexander Briger made his highly-praised debut with Gothenburg Symphony stepping in for Peter Eotvos at short notice. Briger, well know as an interpreter of contemporary repertoire, conducted a challenging programme of Messiaen's Le Tombeau Resplendissant, followed by Eotvos' Violin Concerto (soloist Akiko Suwenai) and Scriabin's Symphony No.3. The Gothenburg success was repeated in Berlin, where the same programme was given in the Berlin Philharmonie by the Berlin Festival.