Classical Interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: Donald RunniclesSaturday, 20 March 2010
Who's the greatest living British exponent of the late Romantic repertoire? Many would say Edinburgh-born conductor Donald Runnicles (b. 1954). Runnicles has spent the last 30 years quietly forging a formidable name for himself abroad, first, as a repetiteur in Mannheim, then as an assistant to Sir Georg Solti at Bayreuth, as guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera and, for the past two decades, musical director of San Francisco Opera. In 2007 the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra...
Read more...
|
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Simon Russell BealeSaturday, 06 March 2010
The career of Simon Russell Beale (b. 1961) needs little introduction. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer George CrumbSunday, 29 November 2009
George Crumb (b.1929) is one of the great American experimental composers of the 20th century. His delicate scores are characterised by a child-like sense of wonder and an array of instrumentation that appears to have hitched a ride from outer space. Crumb first came to the fore in the 1960s with Songs, Drones and Refrains of Death (1968), Night of the Four Moons (1969), inspired by and...
Read more...
|
theartsdesk Q&A: Sir Charles MackerrasThursday, 22 October 2009
At 84 years of age, Sir Charles Mackerras is one of the best-respected and best-loved operatic conductors working in the world today. He conducts Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw for the English National Opera tonight and, despite bouts of ill health, found time to talk about his friendship - and falling out - with Britten, his time conducting the opera under Britten's watchful eye, his experiences in Prague... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Sir Peter Maxwell DaviesSaturday, 03 October 2009
There is no more extraordinary musical journey than that of Britain's leading living composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (b.1934). In the 1960s, he was Britain's Stravinsky, at the heart and head of the modernist musical rebellion, provoking audience walkouts, outraging the musical powers that be and occasionally even hitting the news headlines. Today, as a Knight of the realm and a Master of the Queen’s Music, he finds himself in the very bosom of the British establishment. Read more... |
Meeting Katherine JenkinsFriday, 04 September 2009
It’s pretty well understood that talent, good looks and hard work are not enough to guarantee you safe passage through the celebrity jungle nowadays. But for five years it looked as though they might be enough for Katherine Jenkins. Until recently the general view of Jenkins held that she was a nice, polite, touchingly naive, and unaffected young woman from Neath in South Wales, who just happened to be the most popular classically trained singer to emerge here in this century. Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
More than once during their barnstorming performance this weekend, Bobby Vylan, vocalist with Bob Vylan proclaimed from the stage of Birmingham’s...
The BBC Philharmonic were right to bill Garrick Ohlsson, soloist in ...
Earlier this year, Steven Isserlis curated a revelatory Sheffield Chamber Music Festival spotlighting Saint-Saëns, with...
In Alan Hollinghurst’s first novel, The Swimming Pool Library (1988), set during the summer of 1983, the young gay narrator, William...
Springs begins cooking with “Spaced Out Invaders - Part I Quirks,” its fourth track. A spindly, rotating guitar figure interweaves with...
After the chart success of his second album, June 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul, it was inevitable that any single had to represent Isaac...
It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls an “aeroplat”. As...
In the foyer of the Linbury Theatre is an exhibition which gives a very upbeat account of the presence of...
"I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance and what softness......