Features
The Seckerson Tapes: Soprano Amanda RoocroftTuesday, 21 September 2010
Amanda Roocroft was a star from the moment she graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music. At 25, Sir Georg Solti asked her to sing Pamina at the Salzburg Festival. She declined. It was too soon. Where would there be left to go? "Hurry... Read more... |
Interview: Muse - Paranoid, Glam and SupermassiveTuesday, 21 September 2010
Maybe I hadn’t been paying enough attention. It was only at last year’s Children in Need concert, broadcast on prime time which featured the great and the good of British pop that it finally sunk in just how huge Muse have become – they were there... Read more... |
Rights Grab at The Royal Opera HouseMonday, 20 September 2010
For a creator of any kind, keeping control over what happens to their original work is essential. Their creativity is their livelihood, and their reputation is built on it. They protect it fiercely from other people copying it, altering it, selling... Read more... |
Extract: Sam Bleakley's Surfing Brilliant CornersSunday, 19 September 2010
Sam Bleakley’s first book, Surfing Brilliant Corners, charts a decade of "extreme surf travel" with renowned photographer John Callahan. He is a jazz fanatic and surfer from Sennen, West Cornwall and a multiple European and British Longboard surfing... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cambridge: 30th Cambridge Film FestivalSunday, 19 September 2010
Cambridge is in pre-term cocktail mood, almost. Its Film Festival slips in after Locarno and Venice, and as Toronto ends, and before Rome (increasingly important) and London (internationally a struggler) start. It tilts in the same direction as the... Read more... |
Being a Trock: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Peacock TheatreThursday, 16 September 2010
Shortly before he died Merce Cunningham came to see the Trocks’ new parody of his work - he loved the dancing but hated the music. Pace the great man, for most of us watching it Wednesday night the entire thing is a miracle of comedic perception,... Read more... |
Interview: Alim Qasimov, Mugam MaestroThursday, 16 September 2010
With his sublime renditions of Azerbaijan's classical music, Alim Qasimov is one of the world's great performers. On the eve of the singer's appearance at the Barbican’s Transcender Weekend of spiritual trance music, where he is performing this... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Director Des McAnuffTuesday, 14 September 2010
In the 1960s Des McAnuff played guitar and wrote songs to meet girls. Subsequently life became a little more complicated for the multi-talented writer/ director. His long-standing commitment to the Shakespeare Festival Theatre at the other Stratford... Read more... |
The Ballet That Began in the BathTuesday, 14 September 2010
This week Scottish Ballet opens its new season with a ballet of genius that began life in the bath. The bath is a great place for inspiration. The Greek mathematician Archimedes discovered the law of hydrostatics in it. The choreographer Frederick... Read more... |
A Playwright of Two Halves: Barrie Rutter on Harold BrighouseTuesday, 14 September 2010
Harold Brighouse was a star writer in his time. Today, he’s viewed as a one-play wonder. Everyone knows Hobson’s Choice, his tale of a Salford cobbler outfoxed by his daughters. A hit in New York before its London debut in 1916, the play has been... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Melody Moore InterviewMonday, 13 September 2010
Melody Moore is well named. Her parents must have had a sixth sense that she would be "melodious". This exciting young American soprano has been making waves on both sides of the Atlantic. She has established footholds at both San Francisco and Los... Read more... |
Living ArchitectureMonday, 13 September 2010
Judging from the success of interior design magazines and property shows, you might think that this country was now as comfortable with good contemporary architecture as it is with non-native food or music. But scratch beneath the metropolitan,... Read more... |
