2025 in Review - Music
I rediscovered my love for classical music in 2025
I also find myself inexplicably drawn to Baroque music that can only be explained by either my math-wired brain or my descent (ascent?) into middle age.
Apollo’s Fire’s arrangement of Vivaldi’s La Folia - Tell me this is not caffeine in music form? I’m so excited to see this live in London in 2026
Soft horn solo of Tchaikovsky’s 5th and the 澎湃 brass of Dvořák’s 9th. My favourite instrument may be cello, but my favourite family is definitely brass.
The swell of the symphony in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major. Happy I got to see Daniel Lozakovich live this past year as well. Hilary Hahn with Fra Radio Symphony
Hans Zimmer’s Elysium / Now We Are Free from Gladiator - I got to see watch this with live orchestra at RAH
The bells in Anna Lapwood’s organ rendition of Chevaliers De Sangreal. This will not not make me cry.
Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma. And, honestly, this absolute masterpeice
Pieces that (still) live rent free in my head from previous years:
I didn’t think Bach could make me cry and yet
Beginnings, A Time of Quiet, Only I Will Remain from the Dune II soundtrack
Dudamel’s Ravel Bolero in 2020. L joked that this was going to be my post-lockdown walk out song. This year, I got to see him in action with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra while they were in town opening for Coldplay at Wembley. Electric.
Goat Rodeo’s Waltz Whitman - first heard at the Berkeley Greek in 2021
Hayato Sumino’s New Birth in 2022, a piece inspired by Chopin Etude Op.10 No.1. This is spring and hope and all things green and good in music form.
Looking at this now, what surprises me is how my preference for classical music so clearly skews towards the uplifting and energetic. Up and onwards!