Helen Charlston [Benjamin Ealovega]

THE world of the guitar always feels like a self-contained department of classical music, set apart, with its own composers, repertoire and fan base. But from time to time everything tumbles out of the shadows, into a general spotlight. And one of those times is the arrival of the London Guitar Festival that runs annually at Kings Place.

For a few packed days around a weekend, you get concerts by classical players, jazzers, young artists’ platforms, new commissions, masterclasses… And it’s happening this year Oct 24-26: an immersive experience like no other. Details: kingsplace.co.uk

• When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine there was a lobby – quite successful for a while – to stop performances of Russian music. Personally I thought it was absurd, as though long-dead composers like Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky bore responsibility for what was happening. And thankfully it didn’t last – permitting the avalanche of Russian music that happens to sweep London this week, led by two high-profile Shostakovich concerts.

On Oct 25 at the Barbican, the BBCSO play his 8th Symphony alongside work by one of the leading Russians of the next generation down, Alfred Schnittke. And at the same venue, Oct 30, the LSO play Shostakovich’s 1st Violin Concerto, alongside music by his protégé Sofia Gubaidulina, and Stravinsky’s ballet, The Firebird. barbican.org.uk

Meanwhile, there’s a perfor­mance of one of the most cele­brated items in Russian keyboard repertoire, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, played by Benjamin Grosvenor at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Oct 24. If you don’t know the piece, it imagines a leisurely stroll around a gallery of paintings, and ends with an image of the “Great Gate of Kiev”: a monument happily unaffected by Putin’s bombs because it never existed beyond the artist’s fantasy. Booking: southbankcentre.co.uk

• Talking of buildings, if you like to hear music in places off the beaten concert-hall circuit, there’s an accomplished amateur group, Peregrine Voices and Orchestra, performing core English repertoire on Oct 26 at St Augustine’s Kilburn: one of the great jewels of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. peregrineorchestra.org.uk

Playing in another fabulous church – the Arts & Crafts emporium that’s Holy Trinity, Sloane Street – Crouch End Festival Chorus sing Mass settings by Bruckner and Stravinsky, Oct 25. cefc.org.uk And Hampstead Parish Church has a song recital, also Oct 25, in which baritone Geoff Clapham sings Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov (more Russians!) alongside a dancer whose contribution to the proceedings is unclear but – well, I guess she dances. Booking: fom.org.uk

• The composer Errolyn Wallen lives in a lighthouse on the northern coast of Scotland: an extreme measure in search of peace and quiet. But since she was made Master of the King’s Music, she spends half her life on the train to London. And she’s at Wigmore Hall for a lunchtime concert, Oct 27, that reveals her in one of her other guises: as a pianist, accompanying soprano Ruby Hughes in songs by Britten, Ives, and Wallen herself. wigmore-hall.org.uk

And another song recital of note comes Oct 30 when the must-hear mezzo of the moment Helen Charlston sings Handel, Dowland, Charpentier at the JW3 arts centre, Finchley Road. Done in scrupulous period style, accompanied by lute and viola da gamba, it has the makings of an event. jw3.org.uk