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Ismene Brown
Zaha Hadid, visionary architect of the London Olympics Aquatic Centre, becomes a Dame and three new knights of the arts are created in the Queen's Jubilee Birthday Honours announced this morning. Actor Kenneth Branagh, long touted as Sir Laurence Olivier's heir in the classical tradition, becomes a Sir, as do Michael Boyd, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and opera director David McVicar.Kate Winslet becomes CBE, as do Sadler's Wells chief Alistair Spalding and composer Michael Berkeley and Harry Christophers, founder of the baroque vocal ensemble The Sixteen.Among the new Read more ...
joe.muggs
We're extremely happy to have the first viewing of this beautiful video by Grammy-nominated director Eric Epstein for Hilary Hahn and Hauschka's “Draw a Map”. Its perhaps the most completely realised audio-visual summing up of the area of music that is becoming known as post-classical: that is, music that uses the techniques and instruments of the classical tradition but is not constrained by the classical world's commercial and social strictures.Watch "Draw a Map":Hauschka, aka Volker Bertelmann, is a composer and pianist whose music has always drawn on the techno and world music played in Read more ...
joe.muggs
Coming from a thriving East London improvisation scene, "aquatic Krautrock experimentalists" Snorkel have made a logical step forward and released a single that was entirely recorded in one, improvised take. We are very happy to present here in its full ten-and-a-half minute glory the video of the recording, as well as a free download of a remix by Crewdson of another track from the session.Snorkel now feature in their lineup trombonist/producer Ralph Cumbers aka Bass Clef, who is no stranger to improvisation as his previous collaboration with the London Improvisers Orchestra demonstrated. Read more ...
Matt Wolf
James Corden (One Man, Two Guvnors) made it past the finish line, Tracie Bennett (End of the Rainbow) did not, and the art-house musical Once trumped Disney’s latest Broadway entry, Newsies, at the 66th annual Tony Awards in New York last night. The ceremony, honoring the best of the Broadway season just gone, was available in real time to nocturnally minded London theatre folk, who could watch the CBS gala streamed live on the web.So it was round 3.30 am in Britain when this country’s best hope for a 2012 Tony emerged victorious, Corden nabbing the top prize that had eluded him at the UK’s Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There’s a lot of art currently happening under the wing of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The common denominator, if there is one, is showstopping ambition and the concept of the inclusive spectacle. What there isn’t much of, whisper it softly, is art inspired by sport.Agreed, they tend not to mix (especially when it comes to football). A stage version of Chariots of Fire plus a couple of films about running (Personal Best, Fast Girls) have track and field covered. Visual art in particular lags behind the mobile art forms. There’s a new show about horses at the British Museum, and the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It wouldn't have been theartsdesk's pick of the pops, but ITV1's Fred West drama Appropriate Adult had a great night at the BAFTA Television Awards. Dominic West took Leading Actor, Emily Watson was Leading Actress, and Monica Dolan completed the hat-trick by taking Supporting Actress. This spelt disappointment for Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Sherlock, but all was not lost since Andrew Scott (who played Moriarty) took Supporting Actor, while Sherlock's co-creator Steven Moffat was delighted to win the Special Award. It was handed to him by Cumberbatch and Matt Smith, star of Doctor Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The death of Robin Gibb was announced last night. He had been diagnosed with cancer following surgery for a blocked intestine in 2010, when it was discovered that he had cancer of the colon. This April, it was announced he had contracted pneumonia. His death leaves brother Barry as the only surviving Bee Gee.Although influenced by The Beatles, The Bee Gees did, in time, become as big. From the beginning, Robin’s distinctive, soulful and emotional voice was always crucial to their edge. Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears said of Robin, “You are and forever will be a massive influence and inspiration Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Being pigeonholed as "disco" became the kiss of death for many of the genre's lesser lights, but a select handful were able to transcend its limitations. Chic and the Bee Gees managed it, and so did Donna Summer, disco's so-called "First Lady of Love" whose career stretched over four decades. Having hooked up with Giorgio Moroder to help define the hypnotic, hedonistic message of disco, Summer was subsequently able to embrace pop, rock and gospel music. Her powerful, soulful voice lent conviction wherever her musical explorations led her.Her background and upbringing had left her equipped to Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
The 65th edition of the Festival de Cannes opens today, with Wes Anderson’s latest slice of leftfield whimsy, Moonrise Kingdom, and continues for almost two weeks of frantic film-going, star-spotting, wheeler-dealing and beach partying. For these days in May a usually somnolent seaside town becomes the cinema city that never sleeps.Cannes is still the world’s leading film festival, for good reason: the best directors in the world want their films to premiere here; everyone else has to wait in line. Of course, the festival doesn’t always deliver – one can never know. But this year’s selection Read more ...
Jasper Rees
One day soon Beatles scholars and Professors of Fabology will emerge from their caverns and their ashrams to inform us that it was 50 years ago today. On 5 October 1962 “Love Me Do” was released and, to recycle a phrase often appended to lesser earthquakes, the world would never be the same again. There will be celebrations, doubtless, across the universe. Tribute bands will perform bootleg gigs in the likes of, probably, Indonesia and the Baltic, all booted and suited and moptopped up and harmonising like the Everlys etc etc. American Fab Fourists will, in the slightly imperialistic way that Read more ...
joe.muggs
It's hard to process the news that Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys has died - even though he had been fighting cancer since 2009. The Beastie Boys seemed to mirror my youth: exploding into the public eye just as I hit adolescence, they were the epitome of bratty rebellion for my generation, but also led us to their Def Jam labelmates Run DMC and LL Cool J, and thus into hip-hop culture as a whole.Their second album - and perhaps their masterpiece - Paul's Boutique was one of the defining records of leftfield hip-hop sample-collage, and through the Nineties they became fixtures Read more ...
joe.muggs
Welcome to our second show, brought to you again from the Red Bull Studio in London where it was recorded by Brendon Harding.This time, Peter and Joe are joined live in the studio by two guests: friend of theartsdesk and musical polymath Mara Carlyle, and Arthur Jeffes of Sundog and Penguin Café. Mara discusses sharing management with J-Lo, and sings Gershwin with a ukulele, while Arthur discusses continuing the legacy of his father, Penguin Café Orchestra founder Simon Jeffes, and exclusively plays us some new material from his Sundog project, hot from the hard drive.Elsewhere you can hear Read more ...