Harrison Birtwistle is celebrated at Wigmore Hall [MITO settembreMusica_CC BY 2.0 Deed]

GOOD new pianists turn up regularly, like the buses used to. But outstanding ones are rare (think waiting for a No 46). And beyond rare was the jaw-dropping musicianship of Yunchan Lim when he won the Cliburn competition – one of the world’s superleague keyboard events – in 2022.

He was just 18, a shyly introspective youth from South Korea. But his performance of Rachmaninov’s 3rd Concerto had such blistering intensity it went viral on YouTube, turning him overnight into the classical equivalent of a K-pop sensation.

Behind the impact, though was an enduring substance that I witnessed at close quarters, presenting for broadcast his Wigmore Hall debut last year. So I recommend his appearance at the Royal Festival Hall, March 27, when he reprises his triumphant Rach 3 – this time with the RPO under Vassily Petrenko. It can only be a hot ticket. southbankcentre.co.uk

• Figure is a pristine period-performance group who do things differently; and an example is the Pergolesi Stabat Mater playing at the atmospheric church-turned-nightclub Stone Nest in Covent Garden until March 23. A devotional score depicting the grief of Mary as she stands at the foot of the cross, it’s being done with an element of theatre and the solo singing shared between female voices of different generations – the timeless Emma Kirkby heading the list. Figure call it a “redemptive ritual”. Sounds interesting – though be warned: not only Mary does the standing here. The audience do too: it’s an “immersive” show that moves around, so no seats. figureensemble.co.uk

• Easter means we’re into a high-choral season, with the parade of Passions I reported last week only intensifying. My advice is to hang on until Good Friday, March 29, for the two most promising: the Academy of Ancient Music doing Bach’s St Matthew at the Barbican (barbican.org.uk), and Polyphony with the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra doing the St John at Smith Square (sjss.org.uk).

But for the more adventurous, there’s Handel’s less familiar Brockes-Passion being done by the English Concert, March 27, St George’s Hanover Square (London-handel-festival.com). And John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir – still functioning without its battle-scarred conductor as he “reflects” on his bad temper – bring to life the plagues of frogs, parting of the Red Sea and other blockbuster events of Handel’s Israel in Egypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields, March 22 (stmartin-in-the-fields.org).

Less sensationally, Hampstead Chamber Choir sing Poulenc and MacMillan at Hampstead Parish Church, March 23 (hampsteadchamberchoir.org). There’s Bach’s Easter Oratorio at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, March 27 (southbankcentre.co.uk). And the Temple Church has a week-long festival of Easter-related music, chamber as well as choral, March 24-31, with Buxtehude’s beguiling if bizarre meditation on the limbs of Christ, Membra Jesu Nostri, March 25. templemusic.org.

• Finally, for those who’ve had sufficient Easter uplift, there’s a celebration of Harrison Birtwistle at Wigmore Hall, March 26, delivered by the Nash Ensemble and BBC Singers. Birtwistle was never easy listening, and to many he was just cacophony. But as people find beauty in industrial machinery, so there was something similar in the grinding mechanisms of his scores – which he, somewhat mischievously, thought of as “pastoral”. It was the landscape of the North rather than rolling hills of Gloucestershire, but landscape nonetheless. Tune into it and be surprised. wigmore-hall.org.uk