Bach Musica was brave launching this year's season with Bach's St John Passion.

Not many bands would play a free pre-concert concert for their fans, but that is exactly what indie band Kodaline did yesterday afternoon at Silo Park, before hitting up The Powerstation in Auckland.

Sol3 Mio is one of the most irresistible acts around - three young Samoan divos, as happy singing Wagner and Verdi as they are crooning Roy Orbison and Celine Dion.

As the exclamation promises, Paniora! is a spectacle: full of dance, dust and colour.

Tony Kushner's vast portrait of Reagan's America revealed through the prism of Aids is filled with dazzling spectacle, razor-sharp humour and intimate moments.

It seems like, all of a sudden, big-name acts are teaming up; no longer happy touring on their own.

The magic was there at the start when the Kelemen Quartet launched Wednesday's Chamber Music New Zealand concert with the mercurial Adagio that opens Mozart's Dissonance Quartet and gives it its name.