fiction
Claire Tomalin
Over their lifelong friendship Dickens sometimes mocked Forster and quarrelled furiously with him, but he was the only man to whom he confided his most private experiences and feelings, and he never ceased to trust him and rely on him. It was not a perfectly equal friendship, and Dickens sometimes took Forster for granted, and went through periods of coolness towards him, turning to another friend for a time; but when he was in real need of help it was always Forster to whom he went.They were always at ease with one another, with no need to pose or pretend, and much in common. Each knew that Read more ...
David Nice
Those of us un-Zeitgeisty enough to miss the Royal Ballet’s first new full-length ballet in 20 years during its first run can now catch up. Opus Arte’s DVD release of the televised Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tells a different story from the one any audience members other than front-of-stalls ticket holders would have caught. With more focus on the characters and less on the potentially overwhelming special effects, we probably get a better deal.Jonathan Haswell’s stylish screen direction is dominated, as it should be, by the loveable mug of Lauren Cuthbertson's Alice. She guides us in Read more ...
David Nice
Newly knighted with the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for his services to the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, American conductor and pianist Andrew Litton is a musician who believes in the nurturing of long-term orchestral relationships: eight years as music director in Bergen, with the contract recently extended to 2015, and an equal length of time before that in Dallas have reaped their rewards. In May he spoke to theartsdesk while visiting Berlin with "the other" BPO, and in August conducted a three-part Prom with the Royal Philharmonic featuring works written for Boston Symphony Orchestra Read more ...
hilary.whitney
Justin Adams is considered to be one of the UK’s most original guitarists and record producers and is an extremely versatile collaborator. He was brought up in the Middle East - his father was a British diplomat in Jordan and Egypt - and his music is very strongly influenced by his early exposure to Arab culture, in addition to African music, blues, dub and psychedelia. After eight fruitful years working with Jah Wobble’s band Invaders of the Heart, touring and co-writing three albums, including the Mercury Prize-nominated Rising Above Bedlam, Adams worked with various musicians Read more ...
emma.simmonds
As fresh and enchanting as the first flushes of spring, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s imaginative retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s 19th-century proto-feminist novel captures the thrill of attraction with rare perception, sweep and tenderness. It foregrounds the book’s Gothic elements and the lovers’ links to the natural world, showing love itself as both a benign and devastating force of nature. Rochester’s voice is carried to Jane on the wind, their passion burns like fire and Jane’s heartbreak is as bone-chilling as the blanket of cold earth she weeps upon.Screenwriter Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe) Read more ...
David Nice
Some violinists just play; others have a voice. Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman follows the distinguished line of great Petersburg violinist Leopold Auer - whose 1690 Stradivarius he currently plays - David Oistrakh and Isaac Stern, his one-time mentor. His 2008 performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, dedicated to Auer, with the great Neeme Järvi on responsive form, forged an electrifying concert partnership and augurs well for his next appearance with the London Philharmonic, this time conducted by Vassily Sinaisky, in the Korngold Concerto. The wide-ranging curiosity so Read more ...
hilary.whitney
William Dalrymple wrote his highly acclaimed bestseller In Xanadu, an account of his journey to the ruins of Kubla Khan's stately pleasure dome, when he was 22. In 1989 he moved to Delhi where he lived for six years researching and writing his second book, City of Djinns (1993), which won the 1994 Thomas Cook Travel Book of the Year Award. Since then he has published five further books, all of which have won major prizes. White Mughals (2003), which won the Wolfson Prize for History, is to be made into a film directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes.Dalrymple also has an illustrious Read more ...
David Nice
Born in Russia in 1972, the London Philharmonic Orchestra's principal conductor has galvanised the capital's music scene with some of the most thoughtful, groundbreaking and carefully prepared concert programmes today. His operatic credentials at Glyndebourne have been no less impressive, with attention to the right individual style in Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Tchaikovsky and Mozart, among others. Widely read as well as a serious film buff, and sometimes baffling his fellow musicians with the breadth of artistic reference he brings to bear on his craft, Jurowski offers typically eclectic Read more ...
hilary.whitney
Pauline Black, the lead singer of 2-Tone band The Selecter, was born in 1953 to an Anglo-Jewish mother and Nigerian father and was adopted as a baby by a white working-class couple from Essex, who refused to acknowledge she was black. However, by adolescence she was determined to define herself as society saw her and changed her surname to Black by deed poll when she was in her twenties.During her early career with The Selecter, Black toured alongside fellow 2-Tone bands The Specials and Madness, determined to spread a multicultural musical message through the band's fusion of ska, reggae and Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Composer and music producer Nitin Sawhney (b 1964) is known for his variety of musical projects, reflecting his background fusing Indian and British heritage. He has written music for films, television, dance productions, studio albums and concert performance, and is increasingly developing the possibilities of video games.Born in Rochester, Kent, he took music lessons in Asian, classical and flamenco, and dropped out of law studies and an accountancy job, as his urge to become a musician took over. He made his first breakthrough teaming up with Sanjeev Bhaskar on what would become the BBC TV Read more ...
hilary.whitney
The career of acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge (b 1964) has taken a somewhat unusual trajectory. He was reading for a PhD on witchcraft at Corpus Christi College, Oxford before he decided to turn his hobby of singing into his profession, despite not having any formal musical training – he has admitted that he probably picked up several bad habits singing along to records of German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.Initially he was best known for his performances of German lieder but his extensive repertoire also embraces opera - his operatic debut was as Lysander in Benjamin Britten's A Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Louise Wener rose to prominence as part of the Britpop movement in the mid-Nineties. While Blur and Oasis flew the flag for laddism and Suede flirted with camp glam, Wener was one of the scene’s few high-profile women, inspired by David Bowie, Morrissey and Debbie Harry. Her band Sleeper released eight Top 40 singles, most memorably “Inbetweener”, and three hit albums. They supported Blur and toured America and Japan, but Wener became disillusioned with the sexism and machinations of the music industry, where it was often assumed she was the token woman in the band rather than the co- Read more ...