tue 17/09/2024

Features & Interviews

Here comes the flood: Bob Dylan's 1974 Live Recordings

Tim Cumming

Lighters at the ready, because here comes the flood. Drawn from 16-track tape, 1/4in reels and lo-fi sound board cassettes that are now a half century old, the 27 CDs of 431 performances, 417 of them previously unreleased, of Dylan and The Band’s 1974 arena tour of the US, is a set that challenges the listeners’ staying power perhaps more than it celebrates an epochal tour.

First Person: Alexandra Dariescu on highlighting women at the Leeds International Piano Competition

Alexandra Dariescu

This year, I am delighted to be supporting the Alexandra Dariescu Award at the Leeds International Piano Competition for an outstanding performance of a work by a female composer. This marks a significant milestone in the 60-year history of The Leeds, as it is the first year a piano concerto by a female composer has been added to the repertoire of the Concerto Final round with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

theartsdesk in Switzerland: Lucerne and Gstaad...

Gavin Dixon

The summer festival circuit in Central Europe can be a bit of a merry-go-round. Notices in festival towns promise world-class orchestras and soloists...

theartsdesk at Jaminaround 2024 - preview of the...

Mark Kidel

We’re in deepest Dorset, on the edge of the village of Cranborne. The sun has just set. A cluster of thatched rooves, ancient looking barns and...

theartsdesk Q&A: Nina Ananiashvili, founder...

Ismene Brown

Great ballet dancers who boldly turn away from a stellar international career to grow a national ballet company in their homelands are few, but...

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The Micro Golden Age of Mid Eighties Fantasy Films

Justine Elias

They don't make 'em like 'The NeverEnding Story', 'Labyrinth', and 'Legend' anymore

theartsdesk at the Ryedale Festival: dances, and songs, to the music of time

Boyd Tonkin

North Yorkshire's summer celebration blooms, and grows

Bill Viola (1951-2024) - a personal tribute

Mark Kidel

Video art and the transcendent

First Person: trans opera singer Lucia Lucas on Tippett’s 'New Year' and her life in music

Lucia Lucas

The baritone’s success with Birmingham Opera Company has led to further reflections

First Person: Katharina Kastening on directing slimline Bizet in a year rich in 'Carmen' productions

Katharina Kastening

Peter Brook's 'La Tragédie de Carmen' further reimagined at Buxton

theartsdesk Q&A: violinist and music director Pekka Kuusisto on staged Shostakovich, Sibelius, sound architecture and folk fiddling

David Nice

Al fresco talk around 'Concert Theatre DSCH', playing at the Southbank Centre

First Person: The Henschel Quartet at 30

The Henschel Quartet

On places, people, and playing Freda Swain's 'Norfolk' Quartet at the Aldeburgh Festival

First Person: LIFT artistic director Kris Nelson on delivering the best of international theatre to the nation's capital

Kris Nelson

LIFT2024 promises a characteristically broad and bracing array of global performance

Remembering conductor Andrew Davis (1944-2024)

Theartsdesk

Fellow conductors, singers, instrumentalists and administrators recall a true Mensch

Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair

Iain Sinclair

A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer

First Persons: composers Colin Alexander and Héloïse Werner on fantasy in guided improvisation

Colin Alexander And Héloïse Werner

On five new works allowing an element of freedom in the performance

First Person: Leeds Lieder Festival director and pianist Joseph Middleton on a beloved organisation back from the brink

Joseph Middleton

Arts Council funding restored after the blow of 2023, new paths are being forged

First Person: actor Paul Jesson on survival, strength, and the healing potential of art

Paul Jesson

Olivier Award-winner explains how Richard Nelson came to write a solo play for him

First Person: author-turned-actor Lydia Higman on a play that foregrounds a slice of forgotten history

Lydia Higman

'Gunter' co-creator and historian connects a 1604 witch hit to the world today

First person: playwright Paul Grellong on keeping pace with American politics

Paul Grellong

The author of 'Power of Sail' sets the scene for his play's UK premiere

10 Questions for folk singer-songwriter Olivia Chaney - 'deeply personal songs that open out to the universal'

Tim Cumming

The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter on 'Circus of Desire', her strongest album to date

First Person: conductor Peter Whelan on coming full circle with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra

Peter Whelan

From watching Handel's 'Israel in Egypt' on TV to conducting it

theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiers

Boyd Tonkin

'Lohengrin' marks a remarkable singer's arrival on Planet Wagner

First Person: Laurence Cummings on his 25th and final year as Musical Director of the London Handel Festival

Laurence Cummings

A blockbuster month begins tomorrow, mixing starry casts with new talent

First Person: violinist Tom Greed on breaking down barriers in the presentation of chamber music

Tom Greed

Unscary Schoenberg is on the bill of enterprising young musicians' latest new-look event

First Person: Ten Years On - Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña pays tribute to his friend, the late, great Paco de Lucía

Paco Peña

On the 10th anniversary of his death, memories of the prodigious musician who broadened the reach of flamenco into jazz and beyond

First Person: pioneering juggler Sean Gandini reflects on how the spirit of Pina Bausch has infiltrated his work

Sean Gandini

As Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch's 'Nelken' comes to Sadler’s Wells, a tribute from across the art forms

First Person: contralto Hilary Summers on going beyond her baroque and contemporary comfort zones

Hilary Summers

On recording 'Circus Dinogad', a wacky collaboration with distinguished Dutch colleagues

Best of 2023: Books

Theartsdesk

As the year draws to a close, we look back at the best books we opened

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