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When it comes to conductors, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has a reputation for picking winners, and its new partnership with its Japanese-born Chief Conductor Designate Kazuki Yamada is already generating some serious electricity. ‘Yamada certainly doesn’t hold back,’ says The Guardian. Expect him to wear his heart very much on his sleeve in Rachmaninov’s huge, Romantic epic of a Second Symphony – and to bring all his sincerity and verve to the neglected (but equally impassioned) Concerto for Violin and Horn by Â鶹Éç Proms-featured composer Ethel Smyth. Soloists Elena Urioste and Ben Goldscheider are a byword for communicative, imaginative playing: a night of big emotions and even bigger tunes, with Glinka’s firecracker overture to light the fuse.

Image: Elena Urioste © Alessandra Tinozzi