John Grant and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra @ MediaCityUK, 3 October

A live studio recording of one of America's finest modern songwriters with a world-class orchestra in their own purpose-built facility isn't really a gig for critique; it is a privilege. On a Friday lunchtime nested inside BBC Studios, John Grant gives a three-hour performance – almost a full retrospective – within slow-burgeoning, then oceanic arrangements prepared for the BBC Philharmonic by composer Fiona Brice (who also assumes those vocal parts on Pale Green Ghosts written for Sinéad O'Connor).

This is a project Grant has, he says, been dreaming of for a long time, and up close you can read the meaning of it in his look – he takes time to engage with everyone, sharing hugs with the principal musicians and waving to friends in the crowd (there are clearly supporters from his days with The Czars here).

Of course, a great many pop artists and indie bands of the last few years have done the orchestra 'thing', but most attempts either underserve or overplay the ensemble, obfuscating or fetishising it. However, Brice's experience and Grant's talent for statuesque melodies combine to result in a rare score that both makes full use of the orchestra's range, and keeps the source work at its centre.

Thrillingly, the Phil comes most into its own on the songs from Grant's catalogue that you'd perhaps least consider showstoppers – the delicate, chrysalid strings of Fireflies wrap what can sometimes be a passed-over song at the end of Queen of Denmark in translucent light, and the scissoring violins of Caramel disappear into quixotic silence. But while you are constantly conscious of the supreme talent of the orchestra, it is the satellite-sad slowdance of Grant's piano that ultimately steals the show – that, and the descent into Pale Green Ghosts through the roiling, subterranean grumble of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor.