David Hockney’s iPad art goes on show in London, while giant photos by two very different, cutting-edge artists – Germany’s Andreas Gursky and France’s JR – draw crowds in Copenhagen and Paris. Following is some of the best of what’s on in Europe in January.

Austria

Music: No New Year’s celebration is complete without the trad-itional Vienna Philharmonic’s January 1 concert.

The 2012 edition, held again in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein and broadcast around the world, will be conducted for the second time by the Latvian Mariss Jansons, with all the most loved Strauss compositions on the programme, from the Blue Danube waltz to the Radetzky March.

www.wienerphilharmoniker.at

The Austrian capital hosts a major show on winter in European art, and Scotland puts haggis on the menu to celebrate the birth of its national poet Robert Burns.

Art: In case the snow does not show on time for winter, visitors will find plenty at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, which has dedicated an entire exhibit to winter-inspired art. Winter Tales, which runs until January 8, retraces the cold season’s impact on European art with some 150 works on show by such artists as Pieter Bruegel, Gustave Courbet, William Turner, Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch.

www.khm.at/en/

Britain

Art: A major exhibition of landscape art by British artist David Hockney, including recent drawings done on his iPad, opens at the Royal Academy of Art in London on January 21. David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture includes giant, vivid paintings created especially for the academy’s galleries, new films and work dating back 50 years, all inspired by his native Yorkshire. Until April 9.

www.royalacademy.org.uk

Poetry: Scotland throws off the winter doldrums with its annual celebration of the country’s national poet, Robert Burns, and nowhere more so than in the village of Alloway where he was born. Across the country on January 25, his birthday is feted with a variety of events including the traditional Burns Supper which can be an informal gathering or grand dinner, as long as haggis and poetry are on the menu.

www.robertburns.org

Russia

Moscow: Architect of Power: 120 years of Boris Iofan at Moscow’s Museum of Archi-tecture, on one of the mainstays of the style of architecture that marked the Stalin era.

Runs until February 26.

www.muar.ru

Denmark

Opera: Alceste, a baroque work by the 18th-century composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, opens at Copenhagen Opera, starring the French soprano Mireille Delunsch in a poetic, minimalist direction by Germany’s Christof Loy.

Based on an ancient Greek play by Euripides, the opera tells the story of queen Alcestis who offers her life to the gods to save her dying king Admetus – and of the demigod Hercules’ battle to bring her back from the underworld.

In French with Danish subtitles, from January 17 to February 6.

http://kglteater.dk

Art: Andreas Gursky, a German artist known for his giant architecture and landscape photographs, one of which last month became the most expensive photo ever sold, puts 40 prints on display in Denmark.

At the Louisiana contemporary art museum in Humlebaek, north of Copenhagen, from January 13 to May 13.

www.louisiana.dk

Spain

Opera: An Opera double bill of Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” and Stravinsky’s “Persephone” from American theatre director Peter Sellars and conductor Teodor Currentzis, runs at the Teatro Real in Madrid, from January 14 to 29.

www.teatro-real.com

Madrid: Camerinos (Dressing Rooms), an exhibition of theatrical photographs by Spaniard Sergio Parra of actors waiting in the wings, goes on show at the Teatro Espanol in Madrid, from January 12 to February 26.

www.teatroespanol.es

Italy

Art: Three rare Russian icons including Andrei Rublev’s works are on show in Florence’s Baptistry until March 19, while two Giotto masterpieces are in Moscow until March 19.

France

Art: Edvard Munch is best known as the painter of melancholy, anxious expressionist works in the vein of his masterpiece The Scream, but a new show at Paris’ Pompidou Centre shows the Norwegian artist in a different light.

Through some 140 paintings, photos, short films and one of the rare sculptures by the artist, Munch is revealed as an experimenter embraced the new technologies of his day, and found inspiration all around him. It runs until January 9.

www.centrepompidou.fr (includes English-language section)

Photography: French street artist JR uses cityscapes across the globe as the backdrop for poignant portraits of the people who live there, mounting enormous black-and-white photos on walls from the Middle East to Brazilian shanty towns.

The artist, who last year received the cutting-edge TED prize rewarding visionary work, has a selection of photo-graphy and film, some of it unseen until now, on show at Paris’ Perrotin Gallery until January 7.

www.perrotin.com

Germany

Art: Some 60 works by the Russian-born, American-based artist Ilya Kabakov – seen as the most important Russian artist to have emerged in the late 20th century – go on display at Hanover’s Sprengel Museum, entitled A Return to Painting.

Paintings by Ilya Kaba-kov, 1961-2011, the show runs from January 29 until April 29.

www.sprengelmuseum.com

Art: Berlin’s Museum of Prints and Drawings, or Kupferstichkabinett, presents about 100 works to illustrate the wealth of Dutch drawing from the 17th century, often referred to as the “golden century”.

Featured artists include Rembrandt, Jan van Goyen and Adriaen van Ostade.

The exhibition named From Rembrandt’s Time. The Art of Drawing in Holland’s Golden Century, runs until February 26.

www.smb.museum

Belgium

Exhibition: In an event dubbed Uncensored, The Royal Museum of Central Africa reveals all the little secrets behind its most famous displays before shutting its doors at the end of 2012 for major renovations.

The “colonial museum” says it will finally answer questions visitors ask such as: How was the large elephant killed and stuffed? and Where does the buffalo’s coat come from?

Located in a castle in Tervuren, near Brussels, the museum founded in 1898 aims to showcase its own history, its vast collection and the scientific work behind it. Showing till July 8, 2012.

www.africamuseum.be