Classical Features
First Person: pianist Filippo Gorini on head, heart and the contemporary in Bach's 'The Art of Fugue'Saturday, 11 September 2021
A past work of art either still speaks to us in the present, or it is dead. To try and understand a masterpiece, we tend to look at its past: we study it, analyse it, read biographies of the artist behind it and chronicles of its historical background. But it is even more interesting to see what happened to the work after it was finished. What did it mean to the following generations, and, more critically, what does it mean to us today? Read more... |
Through hoops and hurdles to sheer joy: BBC Proms Director David Pickard on a season like no otherFriday, 10 September 2021
As anyone who has been trying to steer an arts organisation through the pandemic will tell you, the greatest challenge has been uncertainty; learning to live with the unknown and the unexpected. Read more... |
First Person: composer Joseph Phibbs on rescoring BrittenTuesday, 24 August 2021
The music Britten composed in his twenties occupies a special place in his output. Even among his detractors there are some who begrudgingly concede that this early period is somehow different: fresher, more extroverted and daring, perhaps less driven by serving a purpose (or “being useful”, in the composer’s words). Read more... |
First Person: theartsdesk writer Bernard Hughes on composing for the BBC PromsThursday, 19 August 2021
For many years, first as a punter then latterly as a reviewer, I have sat in the section of the Royal Albert Hall stalls near stage right, under the BBC Radio broadcast box, knowing that that is where they sit the composers being premiered at the Proms. Read more... |
First Person: young musicians Brooke Simpson and Erin Black on the National Youth Orchestra's 'Hope Exchange' projectWednesday, 04 August 2021
The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain’s Hope Exchange is an explosive return to the concert platform for hundreds of teenagers like us, playing a variety of new pieces, with the preparation beginning in hundreds of primary schools across the country. Read more... |
First Person: Héloïse Werner on a live collaboration with fellow composers and performersMonday, 28 June 2021
It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to perform with musicians like the ones I’ll be sharing the St John’s Smith Square stage with on Saturday 3 July; organist Kit Downes and cellist Colin Alexander are some of the best musicians I know. I say “share the stage”, but that’s not technically correct. Read more... |
'In music, we are together': saxophonist Jess Gillam on returning to concerts with audienceThursday, 24 June 2021
For over a year, many concert halls' doors have been firmly shut, the curtains drawn and the lights out. As we begin to emerge into a new world and live performance makes a comeback, I feel we are facing a bittersweet moment in the arts. Read more... |
First Person: Roxanna Panufnik on a new version of her 'Letters from Burma' in aid of Myanmar refugeesSaturday, 19 June 2021
A month ago, I sat in St Martin-in-the Fields listening to London Mozart Players recording my orchestral version of Letters from Burma. I have never been to Burma but I was inspired to compose this work after reading a collection of 54 letters by Aung San Suu Kyi. The first excitement that morning was to be in the presence of an orchestra. Read more... |
From cancellation to new vigour: pianist and artistic director Joseph Middleton on Leeds LiederTuesday, 15 June 2021
April 2020 was to have been the celebratory 10th Anniversary Festival of Leeds Lieder, the organisation I’ve been fortunate enough to direct since late 2014. Read more... |
First Person: Boris Giltburg on lockdown interruptions to filming Beethoven's 32 piano sonatasMonday, 03 May 2021
About a year ago, in a distant pre-pandemic world, I remember walking down Edgware Road one cold London evening. I was heading towards Jaques Samuel Pianos, my favourite haunt in London, to meet filmmaker Stewart French from Fly On The Wall. Read more... |
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Fontaines D.C., Barrowland, Glasgow review - flowers and foo...
Upon emerging onstage at the Barrowland, Fontaines D.C took time to pass flowers into the crowd. Aside from the occasional thank you later on,...
Album: Elton John, The Lockdown Sessions - review
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L'Heure Exquise, Linbury Theatre review - an exquisite...
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Dune review - awesome display of sci-fi world-building
I’d venture that Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965...
Colin Currie Group, RFH review - Reich premiere explores fre...
Single-composer programmes can be a bit dicey and there was a bit of trepidation approaching this one as Steve Reich is not a composer of massive...
Dave Chappelle: The Closer, Netflix review - race and class...
Say what you like about Dave Chappelle, but if nothing else he's an equal-opportunities offender, as his latest Netflix special, The Closer...
Rufus Wainwright, London Palladium review - superb musicians...
Rufus Wainwright believes opera to be “the greatest art form that has...
Die ägyptische Helena, Fulham Opera review - mythological me...
So Helen of Troy arrives at a church in Fulham via Poseidon’s island palace and a pavilion at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. She’s trickier than...
Love and Other Acts of Violence, Donmar Warehouse review - s...
This is simultaneously a love story and an archaeology of hate, a...