Classical Features
First Person: Donatella Flick on why the conducting competition in her name is needed more than everThursday, 23 March 2023
What are the qualities that make a great conductor? It’s something that has been debated for years, brought into focus recently not least because of Cate Blanchett’s award-winning performance as fictional maestra Lydia Tár. Despite what you may think of the film, it has reignited debate about what it means to be a conductor today, and what qualities they should possess. Read more... |
First Person: Anna Clyne on composing collaborations, not battles, in her latest concertosWednesday, 22 March 2023
Collaboration fuels a lot of my music – I love the interaction that takes me outside of my natural tendencies – it’s a source of inspiration and an opportunity to see my own music and creative process through a different lens. Read more... |
Axing the BBC Singers: four associated musicians on why it's so wrongFriday, 17 March 2023
Sent by a surely reluctant BBC PR, an ardent choral singer and supporter of new music, last Tuesday’s email had a title to make one groan: “New Strategy for Classical Music Prioritises Quality, Agility and Impact”. Very W1A. But this was no laughing matter – ker-pow-ing out of the thicket of corporatespeak were two devastating punches to the solar plexus. Read more... |
First Person: conductor Harry Bicket on filming the complete Handel for The English Concert's big new projectTuesday, 28 February 2023
Of the many questions we asked ourselves during lockdown, I suspect that many of us looked at our lives and professions and asked, “Why?”. Read more... |
Extract: The Northern Silence - Journeys in Nordic Music and Culture by Andrew MellorWednesday, 15 February 2023
“Silence,” Andrew Mellor contends, “is more prominent in the northernmost reaches of Europe.” Yet it is more like a texture or an apprehension of vacancy than a state of true soundlessness: sometimes “real and pure”, sometimes it “lingers despite the noise”. Read more... |
First Person: Kings Place Artistic and Executive Director Helen Wallace on a year of 'Sound Unwrapped'Saturday, 21 January 2023
2023 is surely the year the performing arts reach peak "immersive", a word endangered by its own ubiquity. From Punchdrunk’s Burnt City to Danny Boyle’s The Matrix we are promised a swallowing-up by art. Kings Cross is the location for two visual and aural initiatives: David Hockney’s 3D Bigger & Closer at the Lightroom, and Sound Unwrapped at Kings Place, a year-long series of intimate, immersive events kindled by live performance. Read more... |
First Person: Royal Academy of Music Principal Jonathan Freeman-Attwood on why a conservatoire should make recordingsWednesday, 11 January 2023
Why is it important for a music conservatoire to make recordings? What is the educational context? These are questions we have continued to reflect upon at the Royal Academy of Music – celebrating its bicentenary this year – since we took our first steps towards what has become an established and invigorating part of Academy life. Read more... |
'We wanted to emphasise the “ordinariness” of people affected by torture': Sally Beamish on her new work for Ex CathedraSaturday, 12 November 2022
I was first approached by Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture (Q-CAT) in 2016 with the idea of a creating a piece of music to raise awareness of torture – its use worldwide, and the terrible damage it does both to victim and to perpetrator. Read more... |
First Person: composer and co-founder of The Multi-Story Orchestra Kate Whitley on car-park creativityMonday, 07 November 2022
We started The Multi-Story Orchestra back in 2011 with a group of friends when we’d left university. Conductor Christopher Stark and I basically wanted to find new ways to play orchestral music that would escape formal concert halls and be more exciting and more accessible. Read more... |
'Serving the community means representing the narratives of our time': Elena Dubinets on her responsibilities as the LPO's Artistic DirectorThursday, 29 September 2022
Just as I was moving from the US to the UK to begin working as the Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra last summer, the orchestra was emerging from the COVID-19 period and our audiences began coming back. Read more... |
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Cinderella, Royal Ballet review - the first British ballet l...
The urge to redesign a heritage ballet is a curious one, given not just the expense but the fact that the main draw of an old ballet is the steps...
Williams, Dunedin Consort, Truscott, Wigmore Hall review - s...
When your special guest is a young soprano with all the world before her, the total artist already, your programme might seem to run itself. Yet...
Law of Tehran review - visceral Iranian police thriller
Here in Europe we mainly see subtle, lyrical Iranian films, targeted at international festivals or art house audiences, so it’s great to get the...
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Complicité, Barb...
Complicité, the adventurous theatre company led today by Simon McBurney, one of its founders, is now 40. Over the last four decades, McBurney and...
God's Creatures review - Irish drama with a touch of Gr...
There’s something about the Irish coastal village that makes filmmakers see...
Berlusconi, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - curious ne...
One wonders if Ricky Simmonds and Simon Vaughan pondered long over their debut musical’s title. Silvio might...
Theodora, Arcangelo, Cohen, Barbican review - gloriously dar...
Handel’s Theodora – voluptuously beautiful, warm-to-the-touch music, yoked to a libretto of chilly piety about Christian martyrdom in 4...
Riotsville USA review - a training scheme with a tragic lega...
Sierra Pettengill has made the politest angry film I have seen. It has an incendiary quality that comes precisely from its calm stance towards its...
Album: The Zombies - Different Game
There’s something charmingly unassuming and humble about The Zombies. Nowadays their 1968 second album Odyssey and Oracle regularly...