In this month’s cover feature we explore what recording means to a generation of Young Artists who have embraced the medium, creating albums whose variety, musical richness and technical excellence suggest that we are living through a new golden age of recording. We also meet the young Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, who first came to widespread attention at the age of 20 when he won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009 – an amazing achievement for a pianist who was blind from birth – as he release his new album on Deutsche Grammophon. Meanwhile, our annual Competition Guide presents the best competitions of 2026 to look forward to across the UK, Europe, the US and beyond. Elsewhere in the issue, in Icons we celebrate the career of the great Bulgarian bass Boris Christoff, one of the most famous Boris Godunovs of the recording era; in Classics Reconsidered, we look back at Krystian Zimerman’s recording of Ravel’s piano concertos with Pierre Boulez, an intriguing partnership that won a Gramophone Award in 1999; and in Collection, JS Bach’s early sacred cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV106, generally known as ‘Actus tragicus’, is the focus. Our Contemporary Composers feature this month introduces the work of the Finnish composer Seppo Pohjola, while Musician & the Score finds the young Georgian pianist Georgi Gigashvili taking us through Prokofiev’s ever-popular Piano Sonata No 7. Plus, as always, we our expert critics review the latest classical releases, with the finest being named Editor’s Choices.