Paul Kilbey

Two specialist new music quartets, the Arditti and JACK Quartets, joined forces at Wigmore Hall on Monday for four pieces all new to London. The music came first in this concert, in both the pieces for one quartet and those for both combined.

In a 70th birthday concert with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner brought two contrasting neoclassical works by Stravinsky to the Barbican Hall:  Apollon Musagète and Oedipus Rex. It's hard to imagine finer performances of either piece.

Michel van der Aa and David Mitchell's new 3D occult mystery opera Sunken Garden, an ENO–Barbican co-production, is a trippy, perplexing experience, brilliant on occasions. This may not quite be the future of opera, but it's still probably your only chance for a while to see a vertical pond.

On Wigmore Hall's "George Benjamin Day", Birmingham Contemporary Music Group presented his first opera Into the Little Hill alongside works by Francesco Antonioni and David Sawer, with the featured composer conducting. The first ever contemporary opera at Wigmore Hall has set a very high standard.

György Kurtág's absorbing composition Kafka Fragments sets a number of short phrases by the writer to music for soprano and violin. Though brilliantly performed by Claire Booth and Peter Manning, Netia Jones' staging at the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio was not a necessary addition.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic's second concert in their Barbican residency was the European première of John Adams and Peter Sellars' The Gospel According to the Other Mary. Gustavo Dudamel conducted a superb cast. Musically this was very strong, but dramatically it seemed flawed.

Gaetano Donizett's The Siege of Calais is not among his best-known works, and English Touring Opera are currently presenting the first ever professional British production. They began their tour at Hackney Empire last week, in impressive style.

Britten Sinfonia were joined at the Barbican by violinist Alina Ibragimova, Britten Sinfonia Voices and choirmaster Eamonn Dougan for a programme which spanned music from the 12th century to the 21st. Some remarkable Bach playing was the highlight.

You have to sit on a pretty uncomfortable chair and listen to a load of opera singers warbling about dwarves and gold and stuff. But somehow – and I’m still not entirely sure why – Fulham Opera's Siegfried is a completely brilliant evening’s entertainment, which absolutely does Wagner proud.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's short residency with the London Symphony Orchestra began on Tuesday with his trumpet concerto played by the legendary Håkan Hardenberger, in between works by Sibelius and Beethoven. Daniel Harding was the impressive conductor.