New Music Features
Clubbing with the Stones: Live at El MocamboWednesday, 11 May 2022![]()
In a little over two week’s time, the three remaining ones will kick-start their 60th year as The Rolling Stones by taking to the stage at a stadium on the edge of Madrid on June 1, around the same time that Elizabeth Windsor marks her own @70 jubilee across the UK. Read more... |
First Person: Harpist Rachel Newton on creating music to accompany two well-loved books celebrating nature, poetry and magicThursday, 16 December 2021![]()
I am fortunate to be one of the musicians involved in Spell Songs, a musical companion piece to both The Lost Words and The Lost Spells by acclaimed author Robert Macfarlane and award-winning illustrator and author Jackie Morris. Read more... |
10 Questions for musician and DJ Pete TongFriday, 03 December 2021![]()
Perhaps appropriately, when I called Pete Tong for his 10 questions I was hungover, on the phone in a park after a night at a very good party. It’s a sign of the times that things are appearing to return to a relative normal, despite the threat of Omnicron and a precipitant winter lockdown. Read more... |
K-Music 2021: striking the right note for musical fusionWednesday, 06 October 2021![]()
It’s been eight years since the first K-Music landed in London, courtesy the Korean Cultural Centre UK, along with world, folk and jazz concert producers Serious. Read more... |
Out of the shadows: Dylan’s Eighties reappraisedSaturday, 11 September 2021![]()
Dylan’s 1980s weren’t great in terms of critical acclaim. As an emerging new fan, I knew that first hand from the scathing reviews accorded Shot of Love by the British music press when it was released in the summer of 1981, it seemed about as welcome as a door-knocking Jehovah’s Witness first thing on a Sunday morning. Read more... |
10 Questions for Harry Grafton of Red Rooster FestivalWednesday, 14 July 2021![]()
Harry Grafton (b. 1978) is the preferred title of Henry Fitzroy, 12th Duke of Grafton, custodian of Euston Hall in Suffolk and the man behind the Red Rooster Festival. Read more... |
An Oral History of Glastonbury Festival 1992Thursday, 24 June 2021![]()
There is never one Glastonbury Festival. There are as many Glastonbury Festivals as there are people who attend. Thus it ever was, even back in 1992 when the capacity was only 70,000 (plus multitudinous fence-jumpers!). Read more... |
Glastonbury Festival: Live at Worthy Farm livestream review - glitched access upstages beautifully shot live footageTuesday, 25 May 2021![]()
INTERLUDE 1: INVALID CODE-AGEDDON 6.45 PM on Saturday 22nd May and all is well. Like tens of thousands of others across the UK (or maybe even more?) my wall flatscreen is tuned to Glastonbury’s livestream. Prior to the event itself promos for Water Aid and the like roll by, the kind usually on the huge screens beside the Pyramid Stage at the festival. Read more... |
Music books to end lockdown: Sam Lee, Hawkwind, Dylan, Richard Thompson, and the Electric MusesFriday, 14 May 2021![]()
It won’t be long now before concert halls and back rooms, arts centres and festival grounds fill with people again, and live music, undistanced, unmasked, and in your face, comes back to us. Read more... |
First Person: composer and Renaissance man Tunde Jegede on transcending genresWednesday, 28 April 2021![]()
In this era when there is so much talk and discussion around crossing musical boundaries, diversity in music and inter-disciplinary work it seems strange that there is still so little knowledge of how, why and when it works. Ironically, much of this type of work and collaborative process is much older than we often think and give credit to. Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
![Peter Baumann in 1976, as he was on the cover of his first solo album 'Romance ’76' - before he left Tangerine Dream](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Peter%20Baumann%20-%20Phase%20By%20Phase%20The%20Virgin%20Albums_header_1000.jpg?itok=EzsjhNAs)
When the first solo album by Tangerines Dream’s Peter Baumann was released in the US in 1977, its promotion was striking. Press advertising (...
![Conductor Dalia Stasevska](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Dalia-54.jpg?itok=amtIvgyu)
Dalia Stasevska is a persuasive advocate for new music, as presented on her new album Dalia’s Mixtape. She combines a puppyish enthusiasm...
![Scratch goes into space for the last time](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Lee%20Scratch%20Perry%20and%20Youth%20-%20Spaceship%20To%20Mars%20TAD.jpg?itok=s5kEO00o)
Lee “Scratch” Perry, Reggae’s dub emperor and all-round sound magician died in 2021, after a 60-odd year career that is rumoured to have produced...
![Sister act: Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, and Safira Mossberg in 'Paradise Is Burning'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Main%20pic%20PisBurning.jpeg?itok=M-QpAFJr)
Paradise Is Burning is one of those films that appears to be designed to convince the outside world that Sweden isn’t all IKEA interiors...
![Carmen (Rihab Chaieb) sets her sights on Don José (Evan LeRoy Johnson)](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Carmen%20Prom%203.jpg?itok=PW7rkthy)
If you ever doubted that Bizet’s Carmen, 150 years young next year, is one of the greatest operas of all time, this performance would...
![Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin in 'Sing Sing'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Sing%201.jpeg?itok=FzGLffp-)
Every actor has their own take on what acting means to them, which will...
![Caught on the woof: Eddie Peng and best friend in Guan Hu’s tale of provincial struggle](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Black%20Dog%20pic.jpeg?itok=4flF1pOd)
We root for the rootless Outsider in classical western cinema because the places the Outsider fetches up in are scary dumps of the first...
![Mercury Rev's 'Born Horses': mind-blowing](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/mercury%20rev%20born%20horses.jpg?itok=NjxK8lkR)
After the client has settled on the analyst’s couch, the lights are dimmed. Music sets the mood. A wordless vocal is accompanied by chimes. Cool...
![Jakub Hrůša, Mao Fujita and members of the Czech Philharmonic in Dvořák's Piano Concerto](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Prom%2050%202.jpg?itok=b6p8WiIX)
Namedrop first: it was Charles Mackerras who introduced me to the music of Vítězslava Kaprálová, lending me a CD with...