With the temperature rising and Christmas decorations appearing in stores, the Limelight team is looking back on the amazing concerts and shows we’ve attended in 2018, beginning with the classical music concerts we’ve enjoyed this year. As usual, it was a challenge narrowing them down, but here are our favourites.

Jo Litson – Editor

Los Angeles Chorale in Lagrime di San Pietro. Photograph supplied

Lagrime di San Pietro, Melbourne International Arts Festival

Orlando di Lasso wrote his Renaissance choral masterwork Lagrime di San Pietro three weeks before he died. It’s an extraordinary piece of beauteous, achingly sorrowful polyphony, written in 21 sections, each in seven-part harmony. Grant Gershon, Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, approached Peter Sellars to help them stage it. Using three singers for each of the seven parts, Sellars choreographed movement for the 21 singers that felt like a natural, physical embodiment of the text. Performed in Australia as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, it was a sublime experience.

Daniel Barenboim’s Brahms Symphonies 1 and 2 

We knew that Daniel Barenboim’s visit to Australia (his first since 1970) with the Staatskapelle Berlin was going to be exciting but...