Sonya Yoncheva [Manfred Baumann]

IT’S the quiet before the storm just now as classical music’s 2025/6 season draws to a close and the great blast of the Proms is waiting to unleash – as it does July 17. More of that next week.

But in the meantime, there’s a fair amount of singing to fill the gap. The North London Chorus have dug out a rare work by Mozart – there are such things – called Davide Penitente (The Penitent David) for their concert at St James Muswell Hill, July 4. And it’s very much a collector’s piece: a grand cantata based on the Psalms, but also based on music recycled from one of Mozart’s Mass settings. northlondonchorus.org

The Swiss composer Carl Rutti comes into his own at Christmas when choirs everywhere sing his soft-focus arrangement of the carol Es ist ein ros. But there’s more where that came from, and it includes a Requiem, written in 2007 and getting a belated London premiere from Lewisham Choral Society at Holy Trinity Sloane Square, July 4. The composer will apparently be in attendance if you want to see what he looks like. lewishamchoralsociety.org.uk

Meanwhile, the outstandingly fine Carice Singers are at St Giles Cripplegate, July 3. Named after Edward Elgar’s daughter, they sing a lot of English music, this concert a case in point. But they also specialise in new, adventurous programming, so you’ll hear work by Judith Weir, Luigi Dallapiccola and their own conductor George Parris. thecaricesingers.co.uk

• On the opera front, Covent Garden revives its joyously silly Laurent Pelly production of Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment, July 7-24. And with Juan Diego Florez pinging the succession of top Cs that always steal the show, it has the star bel canto tenor you really want to hear in this music. Expect an audience eruption. rbo.org.uk

More modestly, but under the attractive title Fantasy and Fairy Tales, the Royal College of Music is premiering five short student operas, July 3-6, in conjunction with the Tête à Tête company that specialises in such things. Worth exploring. rcm.ac.uk

• Two big opera stars have London song recitals this week, both of them at Wigmore Hall. Baritone Sir Simon Keenlyside is there July 5, singing Mahler, Strauss and Poulenc. And Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva – one of the world’s leading Verdi and Puccini voices – turns up July 9, singing (naturally) Verdi and Puccini. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Also at the Wigmore this week, look out for clarinettist Julian Bliss playing Brahms & Schumann, July 6, with James Baillieu – who I heard recently in the Aldeburgh Festival and thought he has to rank these days among the world’s supreme collaborative pianists: totally the equal of the artists he accompanies.

Something else to catch at the Wigmore are two more instalments of the Beethoven string quartet series being given, across an extended time-span, by the Ebene Quartet over from France. They’re in residence July 3 & 4 with programmes that include the mighty Op. 30 quartet with its original Grosse Fuge ending. As the Wigmore fairly puts it, an Everest of the repertoire. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Finally, don’t forget the final weekend of north London’s own Proms at St Jude’s, which closes with the magnificent mezzo Helen Charlston singing Elgar’s Sea Pictures. July 5, Hampstead Garden Suburb. promsatstjudes.org.uk