sun 01/06/2025

Features

The Seckerson Tapes: Catherine Malfitano Interview

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The Seckerson Tapes: Petrenko's Shostakovich Eight

Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's latest CD release

The charismatic St Petersburg-born Vasily Petrenko has really been turning things around at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra since he took over as principal conductor in 2005. With both standards and audiences on the up he has embarked...

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theartsdesk in the Vatican: In an Audience with the Pope

At the Vatican, recently, the Pope attended a concert in his honour in the Sala Clementina. This is the great double-height room which stands at the entrance to the private papal apartments; it is where Pope John Paul II’s body lay in state almost...

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Interview: Rokia Traoré

Rokia Traoré has always seemed most comfortable creating at trysting points, darting between different worlds without ever quite belonging to any one of them. The daughter of a Malian diplomat, as a child her favourite locations were airports, “this...

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Interview: Heiner Goebbels, on staging strange worlds

First, the name. There’s no family link between the 57-year-old German composer and Hitler’s Doctor Death. This Goebbels cuts an impressive figure. Solidly built, with thick white hair and slightly cherubic features, and speaking fluent English, he’...

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theartsdesk in Helsinki: Sunflowers By the Frozen Baltic

Venezuela's joyful musical education programme known as El Sistema is the phenomenon of the age, the success story that many western countries now seek to replicate. And that's great. But Britain, for a start, might re-engage its own back-to-basics...

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Interview: Barrie Keeffe on Sus, The Long Good Friday and London's Changing East End

Within the space of a single year - 1979 - Barrie Keeffe  wrote two scripts which together summed up the very essence of the East End on the eve of Thatcherism. The first, which barely needs introduction, was the now-classic The Long Good...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Fiona Shaw

Stage polymath Fiona Shaw talks Lady Gay Spanker and directing a Hans Werner Henze opera

Fiona Shaw talks about the not inconsiderable demands of juggling Restoration comedy with German Expressionism. It almost doesn’t bear thinking about. Between shows at the National Theatre, where she’s been delighting audiences with her rollocking...

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theartsdesk in Glasgow: Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art

Douglas Gordon: a faster 24 Hour Psycho than ever before

During my two-day whistlestop tour of various galleries and arts venues across Glasgow, I’m afraid I didn’t spot one white bike. There are, apparently, 50 of them that punters are free to use for the two-week duration of the city’s second biennial...

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The Return of Metal Machine Music

A self-portrait by Lou Reed, who is about to play some UK dates

With Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio landing on these shores this weekend, I found myself remembering one of the most memorable listening experiences of my life; the first time I heard Reed’s 1975 album Metal Machine Music. How do you get your...

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The Seckerson Tapes: Opera Holland Park

Opera Holland Park's dynamic duo: Artistic Director James Clutton and General Manager Michael Volpe

The auditorium has risen once more, the box office is open and busy, and the peacocks are out – Opera Holland Park in London is gearing up for the new season. In this “live and uncut” podcast Edward Seckerson talks to James Clutton (above, left) and...

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Corin Redgrave, 1939-2010

Corin Redgrave: 'Very good, but his eyes too close together' according to his father Michael Redgrave

I once witnessed Corin Redgrave, who died last week, terrify a member of the audience at the National Theatre. He was playing an old beast of a journalist in Joanna Murray-Smith’s play, Honour. It opened with Redgrave in mid-rant, so when a...

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