Transition Projects

Live video for classical concerts is an under-considered genre, but Transition Projects show how it is done with elan

Christine Brewer/Roger Vignoles

An exhalation of audience contentment wafted through the hall as Brewer unleashed a flood-tide of Strauss’s love songs

Athlete

Ballads were occasionally affecting, but lacked drama. Where Coldplay would have swaggered, Athlete too often swooned

Pink at the O2 arena

The star has the dynamics of playing big gigs sorted, and this show enabled her to give full rein to her theatrical impulses

Three stars for Alison Moyet at the Festival Hall

A jazzy Windmills of Your Mind was so bold that you felt she had been robbed of the chance to record a Bond theme

Joe Stilgoe/ Natalie Williams

Joe Stilgoe is probably the only jazz singer on the planet who is capable of detouring into Flanders & Swann

UB40

The band lost their political edge long ago but their ability to entertain remains largely intact, if only their new frontman would start taking...

BBCSO/Brabbins

A celebration of the 80-year-old American composer George Crumb revealed him again as a composer of genuine, if fragile, gifts

ATP Nightmare Before Christmas

Despite an uneven musical mix, the heroically weird and adventurous ATP spirit triumphed

BBC Phil/Noseda

If you did shut your eyes, you easily imagined scenery, dancers, tutus, glitter, all casting their spell

The Cribs

With Johnny Marr on board, the Wakefield band offered a rousing statement from a hard-working gang of northerners with plenty to write home about

Thea Gilmore

The English folkie deserves greater recognition for her smartly observed songs and truly enchanting vocals

Leif Ove Andsnes

Mussorgsky may never be the same again as Pictures at an Exhibition is given the video treament by Andsnes and Robin Rhode

Four stars for the New York Dolls

Subtleties were firmly rejected as the Dolls cranked up the volume and steamrollered their way through boisterous encores

Simple Minds

A mainstream pop event or one of those Eighties revival packages? Whichever, the resurgent group's live show is... OK

Philippe Jaroussky

The young countertenor, performing with the Concerto Cologne, is being energetically - perhaps optimistically - marketed

Philharmonia/Maazel at the Festival Hall

Ellie Goulding

Nothing came close to the disorientating effect of Goulding’s vocals, from coy and breathless to a ballsy howl

Leonidas Kavakos/ Nicholas Angelich

The Greek violinist caused jaws to drop with his extreme subtlety and near-impossible technical sheen

Three stars for Regina Spektor in Birmingham

Playing solo, Spektor teased out the rougher textures and darker, more surreal humour in her older songs