Thomas Trotter returns to Birmingham Town Hall tonight to play a programme of "England's Finest".
The long-serving city organist, who has performed hundreds of times on the various magnificent instruments dotted around the city centre, and who nursed the Town Hall instrument through the years when all was crumbling around it, performs works by Stanford, Byrd, Lemare, Gowers and Judith Weir. The programme ends with Elgar's magnificent G major Sonata, a work which Thomas has made his own in recent performances and recordings (7.30pm, 0121 780 3333).
It's a busy evening in Paradise Circus. Just across the road in the Adrian Boult Hall and the Birmingham Conservatoire, Philip Martin and Malcolm Wilson provide the other side of the entente cordiale with "The French Connection", a mouthwatering menu of two-piano delights from across the Channel.
Poulenc's Sonata, genuinely composed for the medium, is followed by two fascinating transcriptions: Ravel's haunted, swirling La Valse and Stravinsky's (almost literally) ground-breaking Rite of Spring, the latter counting as French for its Parisian premiere (7.30pm, details on 0121 303 2323).
Down in Worcestershire, meanwhile, Malvern Concert Club is rapidly approaching its 500th concert in a thriving existence stretching back more than a century to the time that it was founded by Elgar and his friend Troyte Griffith. Tonight for its 499th promotion it presents Adrian Brendel (cellist son of the great pianist Alfred Brendel) and pianist Tim Horton, who once famously stood in for Brendel pere in a CBSO performance of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto.
Their programme tonight consists mainly of sonatas by Beethoven, Brahms and Zemlinsky (Schoenberg's son-in-law - so many tie-ups this evening), and begins in Malvern's Forum Theatre at 7.30pm (01684 892277).
Tomorrow evening, Bromsgrove Concerts presents its latest offering in the town's Artrix. This is a vibrant menu of contemporary music performed by Chroma, chamber ensemble-in-residence at Royal Holloway University, London.
In view of the dizzying panoply of living composers represented in this programme, the decision by Arts Council England to withdraw funding from this brave enterprise, which has brought so much cutting-edge music to rural North Worcestershire over many decades is incomprehensible (8pm, 01527 874163).
On Saturday, the Montpellier String Trio (a CBSO-drawn ensemble which played with much distinction at Bromsgrove Concerts exactly a year ago) performs for Birmingham Chamber Music Society at the Adrian Boult Hall.
The Montpellier's Bromsgrove concert included the powerful Prelude and Fugue in A minor by Gerald Finzi, which is repeated here. Alongside this is another Prelude and Fugue, one in F major by J.S. Bach, heard in a rare transcription by Mozart. The programme is completed by the String Trio of 1933 by Jean Francaix, and the premiere of Fabric by Jaroslaw Plonka.
Jaroslaw, a student of Warsaw Conservatoire on exchange to Birmingham Conservatoire, was the winner of the 2007 BCMS Composition Prize, and this evening continues its educational thread with a post-interval performance from the young cellist Lucy Atkinson, of King Edward VI Handsworth School (7.15pm, 0121 303 2323).
Some of the best-loved orchestral music of the baroque period is on offer at Birmingham Town Hall on Sunday evening, when the Academy of Ancient Music performs concertos by Bach. Handel and Telemann (7.30pm, details on 0121 780 3333). Another organisation under threat from misguided Arts Council funding cuts is the Orchestra of the Swan, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, and, like Thomas Trotter, one of the artists-in-residence at Birmingham Town Hall.
Despite the nuisance of such distracting clouds, OOTS gives its latest concert at the Town Hall on Tuesday afternoon. There is a strong 18th-century feel to the programme, which begins with Prokofiev's bubbling pastiche Classical Symphony. Sarah Williamson, winner of the woodwind prize in the BBC Young Musician competition, is soloist in Mozart's autumnally lovely Clarinet Concerto, and the concert concludes with the same composer's majestic and exhilarating final symphony, the Jupiter.
The concert begins at 2.30pm, with a public conversation between OOTS' popular conductor David Curtis and me at 1.30pm (0121 780 3333).
Wednesday evening brings the popular guest conductor Vassily Sinaisky back to the CBSO at Symphony Hall for a short residency. His attractive programme begins with Weber's vivid Der Freischutz Overture (in my opinion the only part of the opera you need to know), and ends with Elgar's sweeping and nostalgic Second Symphony, with its motto from Shelley "Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight!".
Between these two works from opposite ends of the Romantic era comes one with the audacity to have been written a century beyond the period of its arch-Romantic musical language, but one which catches the heart of every listener: the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss.
These twilit ruminations, with texts by Eichendorff and Hesse, looking back on a long life, were written in 1948, one year before the composer's death. They were premiered in London in 1950, Wilhelm Furtwangler conducting, Kirsten Flagstad the soprano soloist.
Anja Kampe, replacing the indisposed Irene Theorin, is soloist with the CBSO in these performances (February 6 at 7.30pm, February 9 at 7pm, details on 0121 780 3333).
The programme is also being given in Malvern's Forum Theatre on Friday February 8 at 7.30pm (01684 892277).
Vassily Sinaisky dons a different coat on Sunday week, when he presides over a CBSO Family Concert at Symphony Hall. "It's Magic" will conjure up visions from black cats and cauldrons to Harry Potter and magic potions, with the popular BBC Midlands Today presenter Michael Collie presiding. Fancy dress is encouraged (3pm, 0121 780 3333).
Finally, Tchaikovsky-lovers can get a novel take on their favourite composer on Tuesday and Wednesday at Birmingham Hippodrome, when the Canadian La La La Human Steps dance company performs Amjad by artistic director Edouard Lock.
This contemporary interpretation of classical dance technique uses music from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty in adaptations for piano, two violins and cello by Gavin Bryars, David Lang and Blake Hargreaves (7.30pm, details on 0870 730 1234).
