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fisun.guner
RCA Secret at the Royal College of Art from 12 to 19 November
Ismene Brown
Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Ashley Page yesterday angrily made clear that when he leaves the company in 2012 it will be against his wishes. Last Thursday the company issued an emotionless brief statement that Page had “felt he was unable to accept” an extension to his contract, which ends after 10 years' work in 2012.Yesterday, however, Page’s agent issued a statement that he had on the contrary been eager to take a further three-to-five-year contract, but that he had felt "great disappointment" at the offer of only a single year as an interim measure while the company’s Read more ...
David Nice
The great American mezzo has died aged 79. As with every loss this year, it's been an opportunity to rediscover a legacy on CDs and on YouTube. The Verdi tigresses were Verrett's core stamping ground, and I've already posted on my blog a film of her Eboli in Don Carlo - a role which shows off her redoubtable chest voice to perfection - as well as a surprise appearance when Trevor Nunn's production of Carousel went to America. This, which I've come across thanks to fellow opera-loving bloggers, is another dose of sunshine to celebrate a remarkable singer.
Find Shirley Verrett's recordings and Read more ...
David Nice
"Who?" many readers may be asking. You'll have to take it on trust - and a handful of outstanding recordings - that the Russian conductor, viola player and arranger, who died on 2 November aged 86, really was up there among the musical greats of his generation. He played with Rostropovich, Richter and David Oistrakh; he had as close a line to Shostakovich as any recreative artist. But he was no globetrotter following his emigration from the Soviet Union to Israel in 1976, and, as yet another of those "musicians' musicians", he rarely stepped into the limelight.A founder member of the great Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Last year I took my musical instrument to Tower Hamlets. The heartland of the capital’s huge Bangladeshi community is not a part of London where you expect to hear much orchestral playing. Nor are boroughs like Hackney and Newham ordinarily seen as wellsprings of classical musicians. But they all have a dedicated music services department among whose tasks it is to stimulate instrumental learning.For the last four years the council’s music services department has been teaming up with teachers to get children to take up instruments. It has been a remarkable success. Already there are 7000 Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Dick Flash shows us wannabe interviewers how it's done with this masterful and enlightening exchange with pop's favourite brainbox Brian Eno, who seems to have a new album out, also. Watch Dick Flash's interview with Brian Eno:
judith.flanders
It feels a little like AA: "My name is Judith Flanders, and I am a Doonesbury addict." This month marks the 40th anniversary of Garry Trudeau’s strip – part political satire, part Baby-Boomer comfort zone, all comic, all fine graphic design. And I have been reading it for 38 of those 40 years, to my surprise. I came across the first book when I was 12, and although the main satire – Vietnam – entirely passed me by, I was enchanted with this world of grown-up mockery.I have since grown up with Mike, B D, Joanie and friends – in fact, I see them daily; far more often than I see most of Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Stephen K Amos, who was born in London to immigrant Nigerian parents, always used to joke that he would get a television series only when Lenny Henry died, because commissioning editors were working on a “one out, one in” basis where black comics were concerned. He was joking, of course, and after several years as a successful stand-up and panel-show guest, he debuted on BBC Two with his own show last night.It was a mix of stand-up, sketches, hidden camera and guests doing five-minute spots, and it felt at times that there was too much going on. Stewart Lee and John Bishop - polar opposites Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In 1920s London, those who could afford to indulged in a craze for wild parties - pyjama parties, sailor parties, pool parties - the wilder the better, with American jazzers such as the Blackbirds Revue providing the stomping music. Resplendent in glittering finery at the heart of this social whirl was a new generation who rejected the dark tragedy of World War I in favour of sheer hedonism.At the time their names were splashed across newspaper society pages every day - the stunning society beauty Lady Diana Manners, the middle-class arriviste and genius novelist Evelyn Waugh, the Read more ...
theartsdesk
As arts cuts announced today start to bite, few people are aware that the Royal Opera House pays its two top people more than £630,000 and nearly £400,000 each. Although Covent Garden is refusing to identify them, it is likely that they are chief executive Lord Hall and music director Antonio Pappano. But they are not likely to have to sacrifice their earnings even while smaller arts organisations fold.The salaries are revealed in Covent Garden’s most recent financial report for 2009. Recently in the news for its attempts to wrest lifetime copyright from creative artists whom it commissions, Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Sadler’s Wells launched their 2011 season this morning with a warning that the front-loading of arts cuts to the next two years will cut a swathe through the British arts landscape.Alastair Spalding said that while this year’s cut of 7 per cent was containable for the theatre - which has only a fifth of its income from public sources - the Government had ignored pleas by arts leaders to spread the 15 per cent reduction evenly over the period up to 2014 to allow organisations to re-adjust without seismic closures. Instead, the Arts Council was already having to close rather than trim arts Read more ...
theartsdesk
It began with a review of 100 Years of German Song. Roused by a comment to a reader (see Igor's comment below), Fisun was moved to email Igor in support of his trenchant views on arts funding. It wasn't long before other writers at theartsdesk got involved and an eruption of lively and passionate emails followed. Some of these views may surprise our readers, some will undoubtedly annoy. But we at theartsdesk have decided to go ahead and publish, unedited, our unrehearsed and spontaneous exchange. We hope you'll enjoy, and join in, the debate.It began with a review of 100 Years of German Song Read more ...