Prokofiev and Shostakovich — Noseda and Kavakos

Leonidas Kavakos is the Greek musician most often on a London stage, and almost never on a Greek bill. He returns to the Barbican as soloist in Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, framed by two suites Gianandrea Noseda draws from Prokofiev’s music for the stage: The Love for Three Oranges and Chout.

Noseda is the LSO’s Principal Guest Conductor and makes two Barbican visits across the 2026/27 season, both turned toward Russian repertoire; this is the first of them. The Shostakovich is the evening’s centre of gravity: the later and the sparer of his two violin concertos, and the one that asks the soloist for line and nerve in roughly equal measure.

Seven o’clock at the Barbican, in the City. For a calendar that spends most of its year on galas and touring laika, this is the other half of Greek London: the concert hall, where the name on the bill is Greek and the repertoire is not.