With the region taking a breather as the festival season comes to a temporary break, proms concerts take over, with an open-air event at Ragley Hall near Alcester on Sunday promising the extra attraction of a Spitfire flypast (7.30pm, 0845 2256020).

The previous evening, Carl Davis, now amazingly in his 70th birthday year, takes the CBSO to Malvern's Forum Theatre to conduct the orchestra in "Here come the Proms!" (7.30pm, 01684 892277), and on Wednesday the CBSO makes its annual, eagerly-anticipated appearance at the daddy of them all, the BBC Henry Wood Proms in London's Royal Albert Hall.

Having as your home ground the unsurpassed acoustic of Symphony Hall could lead to problems when playing away. But as this has been a permanent factor with the orchestra for the last 15 years, a system of coping with inferior ambiences automatically kicks in, and the CBSO will triumph over adversity in customary fashion, even though listeners to the live Radio 3 relay will have the better part of the bargain.

Sakari Oramo, approaching his penultimate season as the orchestra's music director, conducts the CBSO in Webern's impressive Passacaglia, its length accommodating that of several of the composer's subsequent compositions in his terser, elliptical style and the Fourth Symphony of Brahms, whose finale inspired the piece.

Between these two works from Vienna comes the First Violin Concerto of Shostakovich in this his centenary year, with Leila Josefowicz (who collaborated with the CBSO on Warner Brothers' recent acclaimed CD recording of this intensely personal work) the soloist. (7pm, 020 7589 8212).

Sakari Oramo returns to the Royal Albert Hall with his other orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with whom he first came to fame in a brilliant debut as a stand-in conductor, on August 14, with an all-20th century programme of Sibelius, Richard Strauss (current Covent Garden favourite Soile Isokoski the soloist in the heartbreaking Four Last Songs) and Bartok (7.30pm).

And that's not all from the CBSO, as tomorrow sees the orchestra gracing the International Trombone Festival, this year hosted by Birmingham Conservatoire, with Slides Rule!. Simon Wright conducts an all-British programme of Walton, Malcolm Arnold, Elgar, Grainger and Holst, with CBSO principal trombonist Philip Harrison the soloist in Gordon Jacob's pithy Trombone Concerto (Symphony Hall, 7.30pm, details on 0121 780 3333).

Moving from noble brass to virtuoso keyboard-playing, Birmingham Conservatoire is the venue for the Birmingham International Piano Academy 2006 Masterclasses and Recitals. The brainchild of Conservatoire graduate David Quigley, who is currently establishing a brilliant international career on the concert-platform, the BIPA this year brings three of the country's major pianists to give master-classes and recitals, with John Lill launching proceedings with a programme of Haydn, Schumann, Prokofiev, Chopin and Beethoven on Sunday (7.30pm).

Masterclasses from Lill and Peter Donohoe follow until Thursday, when Stephen Hough offers an interesting recital programme (7.30pm, 0121 303 2323). Details of the final few days will appear in next week's preview. And there is a strong Birmingham Conservatoire presence in Dorset during the second half of next week, when Far From the Madding Crowd, a five-act opera by Andrew Downes (until recently head of composition and creative studies at the Conservatoire), is premiered during the Thomas Hardy Festival at St Mary's Church, Dorchester, on Wednesday (8pm, with subsequent performances at the same time on Thursday and Friday).

The libretto has been fashioned from Hardy's great novel by Cynthia Downes, who is also producer of the presentation. Abigail Cave-Bigley directs, and musical director David Trippett conducts the Central England Ensemble.

Currently based in Boston, Massachusetts, members of the Millennium Scholars play the various characters (details on 01305 251501 or 01562 886625).