As well letting us know what we can look forward to this year from the world of classical music, the reviewers at The Arts Desk are also telling us about what we can enjoy right now.

Graham Rickson provides a weekly round-up of the latest classical CD releases. A disc of Bach’s keyboard concertos is first up with the Les Violons du Roy chamber orchestra and Alexandre Theraud playing piano. Together they produce a unique sound, and the technical skill and energy on display here often dazzles and delights. 

Often overlooked composer Elizabeth Maconchy is next up on the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s disc of pieces. Maconchy’s style is edgy, gritty and surprisingly un-English, despite her been a pupil of Vaughan Williams. As Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra tackle his London Symphony, Vaughan Williams himself gets a look in. Rickson was of the opinion that this symphony shouldn’t really work and yet it truly does, especially when played as well as it is here.

Tucked away in Monmouthshire, Stephan Walsh flags up a modest yearly classical festival. In St Briavel’s Castle every January young professional musicians gather for the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival. It’s the brainchild of pianist Daniel Tong and violinist Fiona McNaught, and began life as a pleasurable retreat from busy concert schedules for those who love playing chamber music.

It promises to be a bumper season at the Barbican throughout 2012, what with the centre celebrating its 30th birthday this year and all eyes turning to London for the Olympics in the summer. Appearances by Nico Muhly and Sufjan Stevens, a series of concerts by the visiting New York Philharmonic and an evening commemorating the sinking of the Titanic a century ago are just some of the classical highlights in 2012 at the Barbican, among the dance, theatre and new music also on offer.