Tenebrae, conducted by Nigel Short
Wigmore Hall, London

Classical music has a problem with new music. Whatever the Cassandras may say, orchestras have no trouble selling out Mahler or Beethoven symphony cycles, Tchaikovsky and Mozart piano concertos, and opera houses are still filling seats with Figaro, Rigoletto, Tosca, even Handel these days. But when it comes to contemporary works, ensembles seem to lose their nerve, either smuggling them into a programme – a harmless curtain-raiser before the nineteenth-century main event – or abandoning them to specialist venues or ensembles such as Cafe OTO or the London Sinfonietta.

But there is one genre bucking the trend, unapologetically programming new works as a matter of course (and filling halls when they do), commissioning and championing living composers, creating household names along the way: James MacMillan, Eric Whitacre, Eriks Esenvalds, John Tavener.