1 Spitalfields winter festival

This annual week-long splurge in London’s Spitalfields offers a mix of concerts and events, making full use of the vast range of East End venues. Included this year is choral music from groups including Siglo De Oro, and a piano recital by Melvyn Tan.
Various venues, Sun to 11 Dec

2 A Brazilian Christmas

Jeffrey Skidmore’s Ex Cathedra choir make another foray into the largely unexplored treasury of South American music composed between the 17th and 19th centuries. Their latest programme is built around a work by Brazilian composer João de Deus de Castro Lobo.
Town Hall, Birmingham, Sun

3 El Niño

With soloists including Joélle Harvey and Davóne Tines, John Adams himself conducts the LSO and Chorus in his opera-oratorio, which reimagines the nativity story using a variety of sources.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Sun

4 Schnee

The London Sinfonietta prefaces Hans Abrahamsen’s exhaustive exploration of canons with two new works: Simon Holt’s piccolo concerto Fool Is Hurt is inspired by Fellini’s film La Strada, while Morgan Hayes’s Overture: The Kiss continues Abrahamsen’s canonic obsession.
St John’s Smith Square, SW1, Tue

5 Christmas Oratorio

Bach’s collection of six cantatas, spreading the nativity story over the major feast days of the church’s Christmas season, is regular fare at this time of year. But the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment’s performance – split across two evenings – promises to be a special one, for it’s conducted by one of the leading Bach specialists of our time, Masaaki Suzuki.
Cadogan Hall, SW1, Fri & 10 Dec