fri 01/12/2023

Radio show

The Seckerson Tapes: American Psycho

Edward Seckerson

In the season of goodwill a new musical based on Bret Easton Ellis’ notorious novel American Psycho might earn itself the subtitle “NOT the Christmas Show” - but when the composer is...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Conductor Gianluca Marcianò

Edward Seckerson

Bowing in at the London Coliseum for the latest revival of Anthony Minghella’s sumptuous staging of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly, conductor Gianluca Marcianò is fast building a reputation as...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Fidelio in Bergen

Edward Seckerson

In the listening room of Grieg Hall, Bergen, a concert hall sometimes masquerading as a theatre and vice versa, I talk to Mary Miller, director of Bergen National Opera, and Andrew Litton, music...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Benjamin Wallfisch

Edward Seckerson

Benjamin Wallfisch was born into an extraordinarily musical family. His father Raphael Wallfisch is a cellist of international repute and his grandmother Anita Lasker-Wallfisch would not be alive...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Lucy Schaufer

Edward Seckerson

Lucy Schaufer has always been one to confound our expectations. As she puts it herself, she’s “an American in London, conceived within the American Dream and living in the Old World.” As an...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Ian Bostridge

Edward Seckerson

It comes as no surprise that international tenor Ian Bostridge plays a significant part in EMI and Virgin Classics‘ contribution to Britten 100. In this exclusive audio podcast he discusses the...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Colin Currie

Edward Seckerson

The evolution of the solo percussionist has advanced dramatically over the last couple of decades and among the superstars of the hardware that can be struck and pounded or caressed and stroked is...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Heldentenor Ian Storey

Edward Seckerson

In 2007 the English tenor, Ian Storey, made a dramatic and highly visible debut as Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the season opening of La Scala, Milan, conducted by Daniel...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Jan Vogler, Dresden Music Festival

Edward Seckerson

The 36th Dresden Music Festival has a big title and even bigger ambitions. Empire is a theme which Artistic Director Jan Vogler hopes will embrace not just the cultural achievements of the British...

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The Arts Desk Radio Show 11

theartsdesk

Another session of Peter, Joe, some amazing records and some musing on their whys and wherefores - originally broadcast live on NTS Radio out of London's fashionable Dalston.

This time...

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latest in today

Macbeth, The Depot, Liverpool review - Ralph Fiennes leads a...

Next door to the beautiful Art Deco Littlewoods Pools Building, nearly 30 years standing derelict, a set of grey sheds stand, a seat of...

Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Lyric Theatre review - adult panto del...

Mischief Theatre set themselves a big challenge when they evolved their brand of knowing slapstick. And not just about how to destroy...

Queendom review - an LGBTQ+ performance artist takes to the...

It takes a brave or a foolhardy person to walk the streets wearing almost nothing but barbed wire and platform shoes, especially when the occasion...

Album: Ghost Woman - Hindsight Is 50/50

Ghost Woman’s 2022 self-titled album and this January’s swift follow-up Anne, If were both fairly laidback and spaced out affairs, with...

The House of Bernarda Alba, Lyttleton Theatre review - dazzl...

Rebecca Frecknall opened 2023 with a youthful, visceral, and brutal Streetcar Named Desire at The Almeida; she ends it with...

Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern

A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly,...

Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime, Charles Court Opera, Jermyn Str...

This is the show that launched a thousand puns, mostly ancient-Greek-oriented, and just as many corny rhymes, all delivered with high energy and...

Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, Wigmore Hall review - cham...

Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet was astutely described by his student Benjamin Britten as “Brahms tempered with Fauré”, so it made...

Album: Peter Gabriel - I/O

Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up...

A Christmas Carol, The Old Vic review - older, wiser, and ye...

Familiarity has bred something quite fantastic with the Old Vic Christmas Carol, which is back for a seventh season and merits ringing...

new music

Album: Ghost Woman - Hindsight Is 50/50

Psychedelicists add a bit of va-va-voom to their sound

Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern

Downtempo cover versions run the gamut from the bland to the excruciating

Album: Peter Gabriel - I/O

Nearly three decades of reflection have produced a likely classic