Violinist Midori performs at the Wigmore Hall on September 21 and Cadogan Hall on September 25 [Nigel Parry]

CARDS on the table, I’ve been long enough in this business to remember the Japanese-American violinist Midori when she was a teenage prodigy playing in ankle socks that made her look almost pre-school.

Now she’s passed 50 and been around the block in the process, struggling with mental health issues that she’s very open about, and coming close to abandoning music altogether: such can be the consequences of child stardom.

But happily she’s come through, and is in London this week for two concerts: a recital at Wigmore Hall, Sept 21, playing Brahms and Ravel (wigmore-hall.org.uk) followed by a concerto date at Cadogan Hall, Sept 25, playing the Sibelius with the RPO (cadoganhall.com). It’s like a mini-showcase for what she has to offer now as an artist. But for many, it will also be a trip down memory lane.

• Other names in town this week include violinist Janine Jansen playing Britten’s Violin Concerto with the LSO at the Barbican, Sept 21 (barbican.org.uk), and two of the biggest current draws on the piano circuit: Igor Levit in a solo recital at Wigmore Hall, Sept 22, and Vikingur Olafsson playing Beethoven with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Festival Hall, Sept 25 (southbankcentre.co.uk).

• In all the fuss about the controversial booking of Anna Netrebko (dubbed, perhaps unfairly, “Putin’s soprano” by critics) for the Royal Opera’s new Tosca, you might not have noticed that the ROH has a new music director – namely Czech conductor Jakub Hrusa, who happens to be a catch. Charismatic, capable, he should have been the news when Tosca opened last week under his baton. But by way of consolation, he takes the spotlight on Sept 20 with a Royal Opera concert billed as Jakub Hrusa and Friends, featuring orchestral/vocal music close to his heart and nationality

• Meanwhile, the Royal Opera also has a new principal guest conductor, Speranza Scappucci, who makes her debut in the role with a revival of Verdi’s Sicilian Vespers. Nobody’s favourite opera (it drags on), the piece nonetheless plays here in a watchable staging from 2013 that adapts a creaky story into something the composer wouldn’t have imagined but has the benefit of handsome sets. Sept 19-Oct 6. rbo.org.uk

• If you watched the Last Night of the Proms on TV (or were maybe even there), you’ll have seen the soprano Louise Alder – somewhat upstaged by comedian Bill Bailey’s keyboard skills and trumpeter Alison Balsom’s killer frocks, but holding her own in Rule, Britannia. It’s a fine voice. And you can hear it on more intimate terms at St Martin in the Fields, Sept 19, when she’s among the soloists in a Mozart Requiem performed by John Eliot Gardiner’s old cohorts (before they dumped him) the Monteverdi Choir & co. stmartin-in-the-fields.org

• Also Sept 19, there’s a programme of American minimalist classics at Kings Place, with things like John Adams’ Shaker Loops playing alongside pioneering (in their time) gems by Meredith Monk. kingsplace.co.uk

• Finally, it’s an odd venue for a Handel opera (of sorts) but his Acis and Galatea plays at the Temple Church, Sept 23 – done in concert by the Early Opera Company with magic-making singers Nick Pritchard and Mary Bevan in the title roles. templemusic.org