Betsy Jolas is a pioneer, the programme for this BBC Symphony Orchestra concert told us, and she’s certainly unique. Now 91, she has been following her own course for many decades, an associate of the 1960s French avant-garde, but never a subscriber to its doctrines. Her concerto for piano and trumpet, Histoires vraies (2015), here received its UK premiere.

When I first read Mansfield Park, some 30 years ago, I heard music. That doesn’t always happen when I read, and it certainly didn’t happen when I read other novels by Jane Austen. There is something about this particular book that provoked musical ideas.

Formed in 1958 by Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop pioneered groundbreaking innovation in music making, using anything and everything to create new textures and tones to satisfy eager TV producers looking for otherwordly sounds to lead audiences through their programmes.

It may not have had the symbolism of the Ariana Grande concert just down the road, but in its own way the joint Hallé/BBC Philharmonic performance of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder said as much about Manchester as the rock jamboree did.

Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia are embarking on a three-year project, coupling the symphonies of Beethoven with works by contemporary Irish composer Gerald Barry. Adès is keen to highlight the radical vision of the two composers, so expect stark juxtapositions and uncompromising readings. The project began on a more modest scale, however, with this recital of chamber works, given excellent performances and full of intriguing surprises.

New Year’s Eve has its rituals and, in the Russian-speaking world, watching the 1976 film The Irony of Fate is core to ringing out the old and ringing in the new. A television staple, it has the seasonal status of It’s a Wonderful Life, The Little Shop on the Corner and White Christmas. First seen in Russian homes as a three-hour, two-part small-screen production on the first day of 1976, it was subsequently edited and shown in cinemas.

This year is the six^th London Festival of American Music, and I could not be more excited about it. From the first festival in 2006 – 10 years ago now – I had a very specific idea about what I wanted the London Festival of American Music to be like. At its heart the festival is designed to celebrate the contemporary American musical landscape, and to bring the best America has to offer to UK audiences.

’Tis the season for big children’s choirs to show off their end-of-season projects, and the Hallé Children’s Choir and Orchestra had something exceptional to present under Sir Mark Elder’s baton on Sunday afternoon: the world premiere of Jonathan Dove’s A Brief History of Creation.

The earliest film collected here, 1963’s Elgar, stands up incredibly well. Some of its quirks were imposed from above: fledgling director Ken Russell was initially employed by the BBC’s Talks Department and was discouraged from using actors in his documentaries. So Elgar is packed full of reconstructions of scenes from the composer’s life, though the actors never speak and there are no close ups.

A good half of the portraits in Russia and the Arts are of figures without whom any conception of 19th century European culture would be incomplete. A felicitous subtitle, “The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky”, provides a natural, even easy point of orientation for those approaching Russian culture, and with it the country’s history and character, without particular advance knowledge.