Prestigious honour for city orchestra.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has, with Andris Nelsons, performed the ‘best concert in Japan’ 2013, according to the Japanese music magazine Ongaku no Tomo, it has been announced.

The accolade was given during the Orchestra’s busiest touring season on record which will see the Orchestra perform more than a quarter of its 140 concerts overseas. “This is phenomenal news and we are extremely proud to be awarded such a prestigious accolade,” said Stephen Maddock, CBSO chief executive.

Stephen continued: “Japan has some of the best concert halls which attract capacity audiences to see internationally renowned classical musicians and orchestras perform on a regular basis, so this is high praise indeed.”

Japan’s top classical music magazine pooled the results from 44 music critics and journalists who were each asked to select the 10 best concerts from all of the classical music concerts held in Japan in the period from December 1st 2012 to November 30th 2013.

Commenting on the decision Junko Yoshida from Asahi Shimbun newspaper said: “One rarely attends a concert where the musicians and audience are so firmly united in the same delight and smiling at each other to this extent. It was an enjoyable performance full of revelations which seemed to indicate a direction that not only the musical world, but all human beings, should take.”

The City of Birmingham’s busy touring schedule continues in March with a fifteen-performance tour that is to include Paris, Vienna and Frankfurt where the Orchestra and Andris will be joined by the internationally reputed violinist, Anne-Sophie Mutte