Joan Armatrading’s 1st Symphony gets its world premiere on Saturday at the Queen Elizabeth Hall [Eckhard Henkel / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 DE]

IF you ever wondered what happened to Joan Armatrading, the deep-voiced vocalist who made it big in the pop world back in the 1970s, the answer is she’s gone classical, as so many rock and pop artists (McCartney, Streisand, Sting) eventually do. And making the point, her 1st Symphony gets its world premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Nov 24.

Those who followed her career will have seen it coming. When she appeared on Desert Island Discs, the choices were Mendelssohn, Mahler, Verdi. And her more recent work as a song-writer includes an entire score of incidental music for Shakespeare’s The Tempest at the Donmar Warehouse.

But to complete a symphony is something else: a statement of no small order. How strong it is as a piece of writing remains to be seen, but the Chineke orchestra have enough faith in it to be giving the premiere alongside music by Tchaikovsky, which sets the bar high. And curiosity alone has caused a run on tickets: so if you don’t move fast, you’ll have to join a waiting list for returns. southbankcentre.co.uk

• As winter nights draw in, so does the need for comfort, cosiness and warmth (if anyone can still afford to switch their central heating on). And an operatic equivalent to comfort food could well be the deathless pairing of Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci – Cav & Pag as it’s known – that plays Covent Garden Nov 30-Dec 15. Not that either of these pieces has a cosy narrative: just misery and murder all the way. But it’s an overwhelmingly melodic misery that audiences love and somehow feel the better for. Cathartic is the word. And this Royal Opera House revival has the added attraction of Roberto Alagna – the one-time superstar tenor who fell from grace but is still in the ring and still (the last time I heard him) able to deliver. roh.org.uk

• If you’re involved in music and haven’t come across the Bevan family it’s an achievement, because they’re hard to miss. Like the Von Trapp family singers multiplied, there are dozens of them – uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings – and all musicians: some of serious international stature like the sopranos Sophie and Mary Bevan, but with no shortage of other professionals thrown in. They regularly get together as a sprawling choir. But there’s a slimmed-down version called the Bevan Family Consort. And they’re at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Nov 26 – with an inevitable spotlight on Sophie and Mary – singing Holst, Byrd, Stanford alongside music by one of their own, David Bevan. southbankcentre.co.uk

• That most elegant of modern baritones, the Canadian Gerald Finley, joins pianist Julius Drake for what can only be a classy song recital in Middle Temple Hall, Nov 24. Repertoire by Schumann, Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Duparc on the subject of Night & Day. templemusic.org

• And finally, two church concerts worth noting. Camden Symphony Orchestra are at St Cyprian, Glentworth Street (near Baker Street tube) on Nov 25, playing Brahms and Dvorak under conductor Levon Parikian. And London Classical Choir & Orchestra play Mozart’s Requiem at St Mary’s Primrose Hill, Nov 26, in aid of homeless charities. londonclassicalchoir.com