Michael Tilson Thomas is at the Barbican [Mark Allan]

CONDUCTOR Sir John Eliot Gardiner has been absent from concert platforms since the unfortunate incident last year when he punched a singer backstage – and however bad the behaviour, you might think he’s now been punished enough. But he remains the ghost at the feast next week when a major project by his own Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique (such a mouthful of a name) comes to St Martin-in-the-Fields.

It’s a complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies, with other things like the Mass in C, that runs May 14-18 – directed by the man who has (very impressively) been taking over Gardiner’s workload, Dinis Sousa. And though Gardiner won’t be there, his sparring partner, singer William Thomas, will – joining star soloists like Lucy Crowe and Allan Clayton. Pointedly perhaps. stmartin-in-the-fields.org

• At the Royal Opera House – a perfectly good name but one that’s about to change – they’re celebrating the end of Antonio Pappano’s 22 years as music director with a well-deserved send off on May 16. It’s a gala with conveyor belts of divas/divos and a glittering occasion which Pappano himself conducts, as he’s done some 700 times over the past decades. roh.org.uk

Also at the ROH this week is a rare Vivaldi opera, L’Olimpiade, playing the smaller Linbury auditorium in a visiting show by Irish National Opera. The story: an Olympic contest where more than medals are at stake. The music: a welcome chance to hear something by Viv that isn’t the Four Seasons. roh.org.uk

• Marking another long relationship, Michael Tilson Thomas returns to the London Symphony Orchestra where he was chief conductor in the 1980s/90s for performances of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony, May 12 & 16. Turning 80 this year and in compromised health, he somehow carries on. And that he’s always had meaningful things to say about Mahler makes these Barbican concerts a hot ticket. barbican.org.uk

Choral highlights this week include Elgar’s deeply Catholic imagining of the journey from life to death, Dream of Gerontius, done by the Bach Choir at the Royal Festival Hall, May 16 (southbankcentre.co.uk); a Monteverdi Vespers (there are lots around) by The Sixteen at the Barbican, May 15 (barbican.org.uk); and Britten’s endearingly mad Rejoice in the Lamb at the American Church, Tottenham Court Road, May 11 (eclecticvoices.org.uk).

But for something more off-piste, the BBC Singers team up with the Rev Richard Coles at Milton Court, May 16, with music that provides a suitable accompaniment to readings from the showbiz vicar’s new ecclesiastical murder mystery. The plot apparently sends Coles’s priestly sleuth into a monastery, so expect plainsong. And the odd scream in the night – perhaps some Birtwistle? barbican.org.uk

• City Livery Halls are decorous places, no screaming there. And you won’t find any organs either, except in one: at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, Threadneedle Street, where the City Music Foundation use it in a lunchtime concert, May 13, for young artists on the CMF development scheme. Thomas Allery (recently appointed organist at Temple Church), Claire Ward (soprano) and Aaron Akugbo (trumpet) play music by Purcell, Bach, Hovhannes. citymusicfoundation.org

• Finally, Highgate’s intimate Salon Music concerts continue May 16 with guitarist Declan Hickey playing music by that guitar fans’ demigod Leo Brouwer. Ticket buys concert and supper. salonmusic.co.uk