Classical Interviews
Q&A Special: Arts Patron Donatella FlickTuesday, 17 April 2012
Donatella Flick, one of Britain's most important arts patrons, is furious. "Madness!" she cries in her lush Italian voice. "This is a country that was fantastic, and now there's a demolition going on, bit by bit!" We're sitting in Sir Winston Churchill's old drawing room - now her drawing room - near Kensington Gardens, and I would give a lot to see David Cameron flinching on her huge black sofa as he got a withering dressing-down. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Arts Patron Jonathan MouldsWednesday, 14 March 2012
Critical, urgent, hard - those are the three words used about the challenge to get the rich to pay more for the arts by the new man at the tiller. He should know. Jonathan Moulds, European President at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is one of the super-successful, super-wealthy financiers to whom the Cameron government is desperately looking to pick up the slack as they cut back public spending. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Stéphane DenèveThursday, 06 October 2011
He's just launched the last of seven phenomenally successful seasons as music director of a transfigured Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Subscriptions for the Edinburgh and Glasgow concerts have doubled, attendances soared, and Stéphane Denève is a popular figure not just in the musical world but also in Scotland's wider cultural scene, not least as measured by his special guest appearance in the Sunday Post's long-running cartoon series The Broons. Read more... |
Q&A Special: Pianist Barry DouglasTuesday, 13 September 2011
The Russians have always been particularly picky about the playing of the piano. Chief among the piano gods on the 20th century’s pantheon are Richter, Gilels, Horowitz - and even now names such as Ashkenazy, Kissin, Sokolov still elbow out many of the European and American names in the public consciousness. There remains a powerful mystique about Russian piano-playing. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Soprano Susan BullockSunday, 04 September 2011
It may have taken her until 2005 to get her Wigmore Hall debut, until 2006 to break onto the stage of the Royal Opera House, but at 53 Susan Bullock has finally arrived, claiming the crown of soloist for this year’s Last Night of the Proms, a firm foothold at Covent Garden and her rightful place as Britain’s finest dramatic soprano. For a singer who “started singing by mistake”, whose musical training began in a council house in Cheshire on a piano rescued from the local rubbish dump, it’s... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Neeme JärviSunday, 19 June 2011
Honour your senior master conductors: there aren't so many of them left now. Abbado and Haitink spring most readily to mind, but orchestral musicians may also nominate Neeme Järvi, who celebrated his 74th birthday last week. A passionate patriot and the man his country voted "Estonian of the Century" in 2000, he proudly sports the colours of the national flag in concert attire by virtue of a natty added blue handkerchief. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Trumpeter Alison BalsomSaturday, 28 May 2011
A tall and exceptionally striking Valkyrie of a blonde, Alison Balsom (b 1978) is the polar antithesis of a hard-drinking, slightly tubby, very male trumpeter from central casting. For the photoshoots which fetch up on her CD sleeves, and public performances such as Last Night of the Proms in 2009 and this month’s Classic Brits, she pours herself elegantly into a series of dresses in the style of a hot young violinist kidnapped by the marketing department. But there is of course a great deal... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Andrew LittonFriday, 22 April 2011
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