mon 09/06/2025

Classical Interviews

theartsdesk Q&A: young pianist Ignas Maknickas on appearing at the Roman River Festival and beyond

Rachel Halliburton

The high level of entries for this year’s Leeds Piano Competition – 366, almost twice the number who entered in 2018 – is just one reminder that any young pianist wanting to make their name today is negotiating shark-infested waters. Technical excellence is a given – if you want to make a living, you need to have something extra to win the support of concert halls and critics.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Dalia Stasevska on her new album of contemporary orchestral music

Bernard Hughes

Dalia Stasevska is a persuasive advocate for new music, as presented on her new album Dalia’s Mixtape. She combines a puppyish enthusiasm with a salesman’s eloquence – beneath which sits a steely self-confidence in her own artistic vision. The Mixtape is a collaboration between Stasevska, the BBC Symphony Orchestra (of which she is Principal Guest Conductor) and Platoon, an artist-led label that is part of the Apple Music family.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: violinist Braimah and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, guitarist Plínio Fernandes, on their two Fantasia Proms

David Nice

It seems like only yesterday – the date in fact was 22 December 2016 – that 17-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason, fresh from his win as BBC Young Musician of the Year, played the Haydn C major Cello Concerto in a Pimlico church with a group of young players known collectively as the Fantasia Orchestra and conducted by Tom Fetherstonhaugh (Sibelius’s Second Symphony followed).

Read more...

Composer and conductor Carl Davis, 1936-2023

graham Rickson

May 2021 should have seen the appearance on Netflix of a new restoration of Abel Gance’s silent epic Napoleon, lasting nearly seven hours and timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death. The release was delayed, but, in anticipation, theartsdesk spoke to the composer and conductor Carl Davis, who has died aged 86.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: Abel Selaocoe

Tim Cumming

South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe is about to begin his third major concert in London in under a year. As the support artist for kora player Ballake Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal at the Roundhouse in January, he received a lengthy ovation for his 30 minute set, having demonstrated an uncanny ability to play the audience as dexterously as he plays his cello.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: Horn player Sarah Willis on returning to Cuba

graham Rickson

Berlin Philharmonic Horn player Sarah Willis’s Mozart y Mambo caused a stir in 2020, its mixture of Mozart and traditional Cuban music making it a bestselling crossover disc.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Klaus Mäkelä

David Nice

Let the facts – and the music-making you can see and hear online – speak for themselves first.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: horn player Sarah Willis

graham Rickson

Horn player Sarah Willis joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 2001. She juggles her position with spells of teaching, interviewing soloists and conductors for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall and hosting an online series of Horn Hangouts, interviews with musicians streamed live on her website and archived on YouTube.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Olari Elts in Tallinn

David Nice

Arriving in Tallinn hotfoot from Paavo Järvi's inaugural concert as chief conductor of Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra, and expecting the limelight to belong to composer Erkki-Sven Tüür on his 60th birthday, I found another Estonian bonus in store.

Read more...

'In every concert, I want to try to tell a story': Conductor Omer Meir Wellber at the BBC Philharmonic

Robert Beale

Omer Meir Wellber may be the first chief conductor of a major orchestra to have begun his tenure with a children's concert.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of th...

The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the 1983 Brink’s-...

Eva Quartet, St Cyprian's review - polyphonic bliss

Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, who...

Album: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Personal History

In those seemingly long-ago times of loneliness and lockdown, artists around the world invited us into their kitchens and living rooms as they...

Così fan tutte, Nevill Holt Festival/Opera North review - re...

Marianne Moore once famously defined poems as “imaginary gardens with real toads in them”. Operas also fill, or anyway should fill, their...

Music Reissues Weekly: Gather In The Mushrooms

“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne...

Big Star: The Nick Skelton Story review - the ways of a man...

If you’re horse mad or merely an every-four-years Olympic fan, you already know Nick Skelton’s story. Equestrianism can favour mature competitors...

Album: Marina - Princess of Power

Marina Diamandis is a proper pop star, brilliantly full-on...

Müller-Schott, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - spe...

There was a neat conjunction of commemorations to this concert, the most obvious one being the fact that that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of...