It's swings and roundabouts for Glyndebourne this season. After the worst of one director currently in fashion, Stefan Herheim, in the unhappy mésalliance of the house's Pelléas et Mélisande, only musically gripping, comes the already-known best of another, Barrie Kosky. His Royal Opera Carmen and The Nose were half brilliant, half misfire; Handel's cornucopia of invention, never richer, in the very operatic oratorio Saul brings out a hallucinatory vision from Kosky that works from start to finish.

The First Night of the Proms is always a tricky one to programme, bringing together themes of the season, perhaps a new work and, most importantly, a grand finale. This year’s Prom No. 1 ticked all the boxes, and without feeling like pick-n-mix.

They started as they meant to go on. Randall Thompson’s lush, consoling six-minute Alleluia, written in 1940, couldn’t be a better opener for Tenebrae, one of this country’s finest, most musically alert and expressive vocal ensembles. Technically, the piece is undemanding so a successful performance of it rests entirely upon expressive control.

With – unusually – no visiting orchestra at this year’s St Magnus International Festival in far-flung Orkney (the fall-out from delayed funding confirmations, we’re assured), there was a danger that the annual midsummer event might have felt a little – well, quiet.

The Secret Mass: Choral works by Frank Martin and Bohuslav Martinů Danish National Vocal Ensemble/Marcus Creed (OUR Recordings)

If you ever find yourself in Leipzig at a weekend during school term, the Bach motet (and occasionally cantata) performances in the great cantor’s old church, the Thomaskirche, are an absolute must. But if you happened to be in that city this weekend just past, you will have been able to immerse yourself in practically a whole year’s worth of cantatas in the space of a little more than forty-eight hours. 

How to judge a genius who died at 25? Gerald Larner, in his programme note for this concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, suggests that Lili Boulanger’s tragically early death was actually central to her achievement. She knew she probably wouldn’t see 30, and directed her energies accordingly.

This weekend sees the Brighton Festival 2018 kick off. Anyone visiting the city on Saturday 5 May would find this hard to miss as the famous Children’s Parade makes its way around the streets, a joyous dash of colour and creativity. This year’s theme, in honour of Brighton Festival guest director David Shrigley, is “Paintings”. Thus every school in the area has been assigned a famous painting on which to base their parade presentation. The results are guaranteed to be an eye-boggling public showcase.

After the success last year in taking the Festival to outlying areas of Brighton, Your Place returns in 2018. This means that, once again, local groups and committees in Hangleton and East Brighton have joined forces with the Festival - its artistic and theatrical resources and contacts - to put on a raft of events and activities in those areas. Much of this will be happening later in the month on the weekends of 19-20 May and 26-27 May.

Elsewhere its art a-go-go from the start with a free exhibition at the Phoenix Gallery from Californian painter Brett Goodroad, whose figurative abstract work is attuned to the subconscious, and David Shrigley’s Life Model II, a free interactive piece wherein visitors can contribute their own visions of his nine foot tall female sculpture.

Shrigley will also be putting on his own “alt-rock/pop pantomime”, Problem in Brighton, which will surely be worth a look, and giving a talk (“numerous rambling anecdotes but will not be in the slightest bit boring”) later in the festival (23 ^May).

Others involved in interviews and talks include novelists Rachel Cusk and Rose Tremain, local Green MP Caroline Lucas, London psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, children’s author Michael Rosen, and musicians Brett Anderson and Viv Albertine. In fact, this year’s Festival is particularly strong on contemporary music, with performances by Ezra Furman, The Last Poets, Deerhoof, Malcolm Middleton, Amanda Palmer, This Is The Kit, Joep Beving, Les Amazones D’Afrique, Jungle, Xylouris White and others.

All the above, of course, only skims the surface of Brighton Festival 2018’s hive of activity. There’s also a feast of theatre, circus, classical, children’s fare, dance and hosts more. It’s a very good time to hit the south coast.

• Find out more about Brighton Festival 2018

Overleaf: Watch a 15-minute guide to BSL-interpreted, captioned and highly visual performances at Brighton Festival 2018