In my youth, it had been impressed upon me in various subconscious ways that it was terribly uncool to play classical music so to see the excitement of this event on the television screen went someway to validating my endless struggle with my musical education.

The popularity of the BBC Proms is still as healthy as ever, as is the amount of television coverage, but RTE have introduced an annual classical music event into the homes of the Irish nation via the "box" in the last number of years also, the new series of which begins this week. The Symphony Sessions returns to your televisions from this Thursday at 10.45pm on RTE One.

Hosted by Barry Douglas, this week will feature conductor David Brophy, flautist Emer McDonough, violinist Elizabeth Cooney and trumpeter Mark O'Keefe. This has proved to be a great piece of entertainment over the last few years, particularly the 'behind the music' angle. Add it to your TV calendar.

If you prefer to enjoy your classical music in its live capacity, don't forget the Kilkenny Arts Festival this week but, that failing, there are a number of other concerts I would suggest for you to make note of over the coming weeks.

It makes me feel rather queasy and cheated to speak of the end of a summer series (we haven't even had the beginning of summer yet) but that it is for the National Chamber Choir this week, when the fourth and last programme of 'The Eternal Feminine' takes place in Belfast (8 August, QUB) and Dublin (9, National Gallery).

The programme, conducted by Brian McKay, celebrates the centenary year of Anglo-Irish composer Elizabeth Maconchy in the performance of three works by this most successful female composer, whose career, incidentally, was launched by a premiere of her first orchestral suite at the 1930 Proms season.

Works by her daughter, Nicola Le Fanu, a highly respected serialist composer, and by Irish composers Grainne Mulvey and Marian Ingoldsby complete the all-female programme.

Music Network have been keeping things ticking over this summer with chamber music concerts here, there and everywhere and the Sligo jazz summer school and festival begins this week under their auspices.

The next chamber music outing, in the All Saints Church in Castleconnell, Co Limerick on 14 August, features the aforementioned, soon-to-be TV star Elizabeth Cooney with colleagues Jane O'Hara (cello) and Bobby Chen (piano) in a recital of Schubert works. The composer died at the tragically young age of 31 in 1828, the year after Beethoven's death, whom he was buried next to by his own request. This programme fittingly comprises three of the works he wrote in the penultimate year of his life, the two piano trios and the Fantasy for violin and piano.

Finally . . . and I advise you to get your tickets sooner rather than later for this one . . . the first performance of the National Concert Hall's 2007/2008 Irish Times Celebrity Concert Series, which is also the first of the NCH's new International Concert Season, takes place on Monday 20 August in the company of one of the true giants of pianistic standards, Alfred Brendel. Being a self-taught, he is heir to no one, which makes him one of the most compelling musicians on the circuit and sheds a further light on the significance of his success to date. Works by Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert and Mozart provide the canvas for this performance.