<img src='' title='Event Category: Concerts' alt='' id='templ_icon_' width='' height='' /> Event Category: Concerts

From dawn to dusk with Stile Antico: twelve superb singers sing the music of the night, from Allegri’s Miserere to Taverner’s mighty Ave Dei patris filia.

As the world turns, twilight deepens into night until the first rays of dawn herald the rebirth of day. It’s no secret that composers have found the hours of darkness inspiring, and Stile Antico follows their nocturnal wanderings tonight. Renaissance masters mourn the setting sun, sacred harmonies glow in the dark and blossoming polyphony illuminates the returning day. With composers like Allegri, Tallis, Monteverdi and Nico Muhly the music creates its own light: a beautiful showcase for the “breathtaking freshness, vitality and balance” of these twelve exceptional singers. One critic called them “a cappella heaven” and you’re about to hear why.

The writing on the wall: Handel’s epic Belshazzar returns to the West End with the Dunedin Consort and a world-class cast.

“Help, help the king! He faints, he dies!” A nation in chains, a tyrant’s feast – and at the height of the revels, four words that spell doom. Handel retold a classic Old Testament tale when he premiered his oratorio Belshazzar in 1745 – but this being London, he was out to entertain as well, and this red-blooded Biblical epic pulses with drama. First performed right here in the West End, it gets superstar treatment tonight, with a cast that includes singers of the calibre of Beth Taylor and Ed Lyons plus the unstoppable vocal and orchestral forces of John Butt’s Dunedin Consort.

The great French organ tradition comes to the heart of London as St Martin-in-the-Fields welcomes Olivier Latry, organiste titulaire of Notre Dame de Paris.

To be organiste titulaire of Notre Dame de Paris is to be royalty in the organ world; to stand in a tradition that extends back to such giants of French organ playing as Widor, Vierne and Marcel Dupré. Olivier Latry has held that role since 1985, and it goes without saying that he’s one of the finest organists on the planet. Naturally, Latry will be playing masterworks from the French tradition, as well as colourful virtuoso transcriptions. But above all, he’ll be improvising on melodies suggested by you, the audience – an unmissable demonstration of this ancient art by one of its most brilliant living exponents.