The best classical music concerts this week

Wednesday, January 1st

RTÉ NSO New Year's Day Gala
National Concert Hall, Dublin
The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's New Year's Day Gala brings together an Irish soprano, Máire Flavin, and a Brazilian tenor, Atalla Ayan. The first half of the programme concentrates on excerpts from Bizet's Carmen and Puccini's La bohème, and follows up with a focus that's more Viennese, but still has room for Flotow, Catalani and Verdi alongside Johann Strauss, Sieczynski and Verdi. Rumon Gamba conducts.

Saturday, January 4th

Chamber Music Gathering
National Concert Hall, Newman University Church, Dublin
The National Concert Hall's Chamber Music Gathering brings together musicians from across the generations for a new year bash. The three concerts, each of which eschews works by women in favour of works by dead men, are spread over three performing spaces. The NCH's Kevin Barry Recital Room at 11am is the venue for Beethoven's String Quintet in C and Glazunov's String Quintet in A, with completely different line-ups in each work. The NCH Studio has Schubert's Octet and Rimsky-Korsakov's String Sextet in A at 1pm. And the final concert, of Mozart's String Quintet in D, K593, Hindemith's Clarinet Quintet, and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, is in the Newman University Church on St Stephen's Green at 4.30pm.